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

[TheLexiConArtist]

1 minute ago, Voltage said:

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 after a specific point is bad design.

No, the 21k is the proper score of the mission. The bad design is making situations where that can be significantly exceeded in the first place by doing worse at the actual task presented by the objective.

Saying some tiles allow you to take advantage of that actual failing of the event's design less than others is not itself bad design, that's just symptomatic.

[Voltage]

1 minute ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

No, the 21k is the proper score of the mission. The bad design is making situations where that can be significantly exceeded in the first place by doing worse at the actual task presented by the objective.

Saying some tiles allow you to take advantage of that actual failing of the event's design less than others is not itself bad design, that's just symptomatic.

I am unsure what this means here. The objective of a competitive Operation is to gain the most score in the mission. The objective is killing 36 Orphix as well as getting the most Sentient kills as these both increase score. Sure, the basis of this event is flawed, but the tileset issue is a problem that should be made aware for future Operations. Tilesets usually influence events, but not to this extent I feel. 

The bad design is having a non-endless mission with randomized tilesets having very different score outcomes and the influence of a tileset having major point differences. This is further amplified by the fact there are 1-hour rotations of each map.

[TheLexiConArtist]

22 minutes ago, Voltage said:

I am unsure what this means here. The objective of a competitive Operation is to gain the most score in the mission. The objective is killing 36 Orphix as well as getting the most Sentient kills as these both increase score. Sure, the basis of this event is flawed, but the tileset issue is a problem that should be made aware for future Operations. Tilesets usually influence events, but not to this extent I feel. 

The bad design is having a non-endless mission with randomized tilesets having very different score outcomes and the influence of a tileset having major point differences. This is further amplified by the fact there are 1-hour rotations of each map.

Okay, let's go over the points:

1. The ideology of the mission is to kill the Orphix in order to remove sentient control.
2. If Sentient control rises, Father gets agitated. If 100%, your 'endurance' is over.
3. You also get a persistent score uptick while no Orphix is on the field (2/s in Endurance).
4. The total number of Orphix is hard-capped.
5. Resonator spawns scale with squad size.

By logical derivation 2 and 3 the goal is to efficiently achieve 1.

By logical derivation 2 and 4, you are not meant to extend Orphix time or extend mission activity indefinitely.

Ergo, the metric of competition should be "How quickly can the Orphix spawns be neutralised as they appear" (total mission time spent with 0% sentient control) to achieve optimal scores. This is backed up by derivation of 5 as this serves to somewhat balance out the time taken by differing squad sizes so that smaller squads can effectively compete for efficient Orphix kill speeds (larger squad is not a direct, unmitigated advantage).

 

However, due to Sentient spawns counting for score - which scale beneficially in both quantities and prospective time to kill with increasing squad size - this design intent has been superseded and scoring performance no longer follows the logical thrust of the mission, efficient Orphix killing until hard-cap completion.

 

There's no point in feedback which says "I can't benefit from the break-down in design as much on certain tiles", when the problem is that you can benefit from it on any tile.

(As an added bonus, I have a feeling that this would also have prevented the FPS exploit, as the ticks of score between Orphixes would likely be bound to the same clock)

[LegendaryNeurotoxin]

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

Greetings Tenno!

Operation: Ophix Venom is live and we are looking to hear your thoughts on the latest battle between you, your Necramech, and your Sentient enemies! 

Remember, you do not have to own a Necramech to take part in this operation, as there will be deactivated Necramechs in the mission for you to Transference into. You will have to have completed the following quests to take part, however:

• Heart of Deimos
• The War Within

We want to know your feedback on the following areas:

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

If you have encountered any bugs within Operation: Orphix Venom, please submit them over on our dedicated bug-hunting megathread, rather than put them here. In this case, bugs are problems that might occur that are obviously not part of the Operation (such as crashing, missing assets, animation problems, etc.)

If you want to let us know your feedback, please make sure that you do so in a civil and constructive manner. If you like something, let us know! If you did not like an aspect of Operation: Orphix Venom, then tell us what it is, and what you would change to make it better!
 

Before I get to the bulleted list... Sentients are really the most annoying enemy. Void-powered mechs ought to be able to bypass their defenses, at the very least their exalted weapons need to strip resistance. My usual MO is bringing Paracesis and Shedu like when doing Murex or later Railjack missions, so I can focus on killing and not playing the resistance swap game. Maybe an archgun sentient weapon properties need to appear in a future event?

1) How easy was it.... after having done Murex, the Orphix wasn't much more to explain, and the new anti-warframe bubble is a neat feature. 

2) Necramechs are too tall, so the head scraping walls thing is funky. They're very cumbersome, and the recovery time between starting and stopping actions make them very awkward to get around in. If I had to go from point A to C or the reverse really fast, I would go operator and/or frame and resummon at the point. Which... makes me want 15 second cooldown on a resummoning an intact mech, while 1 minute for replacing a downed one is still okay. I realize that balancing may be a bit too fast for normal open-world play, so that timing should be restricted to events where the Warframe inhibitor bubbles are used.

The worst of all was all the narrow pathways near Orphix, and if I wasn't completely still when drawing Ironbride, the forced walk forward while drawing would send me off the edge out of position OR into a recovery pit where I put the sword away upon restoring to solid ground.

3) Not finding them, but they broke many of my sessions because trying to get back into MY mech while next to a downed one would make the downed one take over and break all ability use until after extraction. Things were everywhere, they are kind of a blight. They didn't seem modded up or capable in the same way as player owned ones, so whenever I'd see one in use, I tend to write-off that player as a reliable helping hand.

4) Murex was better. I disliked Orphix to an extent, because the AABC rotation made many players seeking Lavos and Cedo parts or mech mods would opt to leave at 12, which is where I'm really just starting to rev up. Every break and restart at 12, compared to playing on as far as the crew can get, greatly diminishes phasic cell earning potential. Unlike Murex, there was no bonus reward for going as long and hard as possible, which is why Murex felt a lot more meaningful and the attempt to push it to the limit was always welcome.

5) It is all just one giant mess of shooting stuff and getting shot by stuff, and the sentients being cleared out after the Orphix is defeated means we didn't have to finish them off. I think the innate resistance really made them tedious and cumbersome to fight since I couldn't blast and smash them down with the same ease as a Warframe.

6) Squad, I may try solo before the event ends. Bonewidow has a tough time getting at some locations, and Voidrig can't really heal itself so I have to straddle the line of rage for energy, repair to save myself when health is nearly out, and hoping the shield will last 15 seconds so I can proc a repair again.

7) If Voidrig was more survivable, and there was some added bonus to going as far as possible, I think this would be as successful and enjoyable as Murex. Murex was nice because you had to fight sentients with your frames in a way that is not like normal gameplay but not a one-off, but it also had the ship raid tie-in which was great for building intrinsics and gathering a pile of ship gear. The awkwardness of the mechs, and the fact that players have to be much further in the game to even participate, makes it a bit more limiting, which is further compounded by the prevalence of players to duck out at 12 instead of staying til the end for max rewards and a chance at an extra bonus.

Aside from giving mechs more tools for breaking sentient resistance, the point in 6 is the biggest problem. Voidrig has no healing! Voidrig's #1 and #3 I basically never used, as they don't help with survival or healing, so while Bonewidow can skewer up constant heals and swap between melee and shooting as needed, Voidrig's healing is exclusively from Necramech Repair, which isn't a complete solution. If I could swap either one with a means to self-heal, the event would be a lot less tedious, and I wouldn't lose for a squad I'm carrying when the mech breaks and the 3 of them can't take down a single Orphix between them. Hopefuly the #1, I never, ever, ever use that Voidrig ability. 

Even worse is that Guard Mode is actually just Bolt-Down Mode. Sure you can't be knocked over, but I see zero defensive enhancement, and with no ability to deploy shields while locked down, this ends up making the player a sitting duck with no defensive benefit. Maybe add a heal over time to Guard Mode, so players can stay afloat better or top off when they beat an Orphix and can stay in that form for a few seconds before the next one emerges. 

It is really frustrating that Fluctus, the very best in class weapon for the event due to the wall-punching resonator-popping power, has a terrible time hitting the Orphix weak point. I feel like shots have to line up dead center of the projectile on the hit location to score a hit, where this should instead deal damage from any angle. 

Oh yeah, and ALL CROSSHAIRS IN THE GAME, MECH OR NOT,but especially mech, need heavy customization options for visibility. I can't see where the mechs are aiming whatsoever because their UI blends with approximately everything. Using a 3rd party desktop overlay is not a solution! This is a problem on Deimos and Plains too!

I'm excited for further use of mechs in missions, though. I kinda wanna see VSO, Vehicular Sanctuary Onslaught, where players can use archgun, necramech, archwing, and k-drive in an open-world based Sanc Onslaught, using a larger and more open arena instead of tight corridors. 

[Redpaws]

I've made a post in this thread already, but I'm gonna repeat the points that's more and more grating the more I play the event.

Lavos Cordatus helmet being in the drop pool, doubly so since it has such a high drop chance and from the same rotation as Lavos. I got 8 helmets and 8 Lavos parts so far. Any helmet after the first is utterly useless, since it can't be traded away and is worth pennies when sold. It REALLY should be removed from the drop table. All the other cosmetics are only available to purchase from Father. This thing shouldn't be an exception.

The unskippable, incredibly long 'boot up' sequence of broken down necramechs. Accidentally jumping into one happens rather easily, since the mechs are littered around the areas you'll be fighting in, and Voidrig is particularly bad, taking 10+ seconds or something to finish the animation, while Bonewidow takes 5+ seconds. There REALLY needs to be a way to abort the boot up, or some way to make it much harder to accidentally jump into one. Maybe make it so you have to void blast a downed necramech to 'energize' it for a couple of seconds, letting you hop in it during that window?

And one thing I didn't touch upon in my first post that others have mentioned: The crosshair REALLY needs to stand out more. It is very hard to aim with when there's a lot of action going on, as the crosshair just blends right in.

[Nerf_SupYo]

I doubt what I have to offer here is unique at all, but this is even more tedious than scarlett spear and that one was mind numbing beyond belief. Traveling to the other side of the map, knock out resonators, shoot the spot, repeat. Now add in all the ridiculous bugs and eccentricities of this with cooldown timers on mech spawns and crosshairs not being accurate to the  actual hitbox and on and on and on - this seriously needs some help. Even if it was just in one area and double the score for that same 55minutes spent, anything. It's an excuse to use the mech but otherwise we might as well be running something as exciting as tier 2 on deimos again and again and again

and again.

[Yseviel]

Quote

Remember, you do not have to own a Necramech to take part in this operation, as there will be deactivated Necramechs in the mission for you to Transference into.

Biggest joke of the event. Those are barely sufficient for easy difficulty. For an event like this that has exclusive time rewards that include a freaking WHOLE WARFRAME, doing an event like this that has a high cost of entry or time (grinding a nec or affinity to play operator), during the holidays when people are BUSY, is lame. It could have been the most cool fun thing ever and I'd still be pissed because I have to choose between not getting Lavos and paying the exorbitant Plat cost of a built Necramech (or be an A****** and leech off other people while contributing nothing to the mission which I'm not going to do).

We want to know your feedback on the following areas:

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed? Easy enough
• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset? Annoying
• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech? Finding no. Using, I mean it barely does damage so yeah. I get that you don't want to trivialize the necs that people actually built but this is temporary and I have to imagine the majority of the community would want less experienced and also newer players to be able to participate as well. It was also hard to tell how the skills worked without previous knowledge.
• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards? I tried to do pub medium difficulty and if I even got a group with at least one person with a real Mec and did that consistently for ~6 hours and nothing went wrong like groups failing, I could JUST get Lavos. For me it sucks.
• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies? New Sentient enemies?
• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad? Nope
• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance? 1. If you want to make content that requires a lot of rep grind and stuff to participate in don't make it so short. 2. The guidance to the exit was useless until another person went and stood there. People who are familiar with maps could find them anyway but me, who would get lost in a paper bag, would be stuck.

[DARKZON69]

This event is a big package of sh*t  , too much bugs, and i m not a beta tester

 

[cocobunana2]

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

It was easy

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

Its okay. Though now I want a bigger tileset, or a mini mech? doubt either is possible. Just wish the corridor were wider.

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

No difficulty finding them. A bit slow to activate voidrig (patched, I think). Rarely use them, as I have my own.

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

Its okay. Got all the new stuffs easily. And I have lots of endo now. I'm focusing on getting the arcanes, and I think the prices are fair.

• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

Hardly fought them. when they spawn, you focus on resonators and orphix, and after the orphix is gone, they're gone too. maybe the leftovers should stay? kinda want to scan em into the codex

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

Both. A standard mech without the orphix event mech mods should be able to reach 24, beyond that, I think its better to have repair, rage and maybe augur. Squad would make it slightly easier to reach 36, and it will be less lonesome and boring. Especially between the time when the orphix is being deployed.

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

My main concern are leeches. In the beginning of the event, the other 3 players would play the objective. But as of right now, usually only 1 or 2 would tag along with me to play the objective, while the other 1 or 2 would be killing in stuffs in other rooms. There was 1 round where a player just decide to afk the whole 36 wave, the player just stay at the extraction point and deploy a volt specter to protect himself, I guess I was stupid to stay that match. But I don't wanna stay around to find out who is playing the objective and having to rematch every time, not to mention some players doesn't want to stay for 36 rounds and I might end up having to take the burden of other inactive players, or possible glitches from host migration. However, this is all invalid to me now, I have decide to just play solo till the event ends.

The other being nothing to do in between Orphix is being deployed, perhaps you should add another life support bar into the mission? given that it is a survival mission. some incentive to make players kill the enemies for life support modules. if not, most of the time, its better to just leave the enemies alone for Hildryn to sap energy out of them.

And a QoL maybe? Allow Voidrig to activate his 2nd skill while 4th skill being active. having to deactivate the 4th skill to replenish the 2nd skill and return to 4th skill burns quite a lot of energy. especially during the critical moment of attacking the Orphix. Even if this isn't being done, it really isn't much of an issue.

my monke brain is too puny to think of other advanced suggestion. To me, its a pretty decent event. I stayed for 36 rounds most of the time, which takes 55 minutes, and I don't feel like my time is wasted because I want the arcanes. Perhaps I would feel different if I have all the arcanes. In the end, its all about the incentive, which is why I feel that leeches should be purged.

[60framespersecond]

On 2021-01-03 at 8:51 PM, TheLexiConArtist said:

Okay, let's go over the points:

1. The ideology of the mission is to kill the Orphix in order to remove sentient control.
2. If Sentient control rises, Father gets agitated. If 100%, your 'endurance' is over.
3. You also get a persistent score uptick while no Orphix is on the field (2/s in Endurance).
4. The total number of Orphix is hard-capped.
5. Resonator spawns scale with squad size.

By logical derivation 2 and 3 the goal is to efficiently achieve 1.

By logical derivation 2 and 4, you are not meant to extend Orphix time or extend mission activity indefinitely.

Ergo, the metric of competition should be "How quickly can the Orphix spawns be neutralised as they appear" (total mission time spent with 0% sentient control) to achieve optimal scores. This is backed up by derivation of 5 as this serves to somewhat balance out the time taken by differing squad sizes so that smaller squads can effectively compete for efficient Orphix kill speeds (larger squad is not a direct, unmitigated advantage).

 

However, due to Sentient spawns counting for score - which scale beneficially in both quantities and prospective time to kill with increasing squad size - this design intent has been superseded and scoring performance no longer follows the logical thrust of the mission, efficient Orphix killing until hard-cap completion.

 

There's no point in feedback which says "I can't benefit from the break-down in design as much on certain tiles", when the problem is that you can benefit from it on any tile.

(As an added bonus, I have a feeling that this would also have prevented the FPS exploit, as the ticks of score between Orphixes would likely be bound to the same clock)

Yeah, I've seen the meta that evolved and it seems like *some specific animal's output*. Optimizing spawn camping, seriously. But then again, this isn't anything new (see the recurring Interception farms) and the game has become one giant horde shooter long ago.

What this meta underlines is how insanely powerful Voidrig's ultimate is compared to everything else in existence. While I don't want to call for immediate nerfs, I'm currently not sure if it fits well in "normal" content.

On another note, I actually mostly stopped playing the event after getting the statue. Only did a couple more ~12+ kill runs in hope for Cedo parts and mods. But for non-optimizing, public runs, the payout is bad. For good cell rewards per time, you must do the spawn camps. In my last post I wrote 50-100% more cells would feel good, but that was w.r.t. doing about 20k score -- scoring 30-40k nets an equivalent amount. The difficulty to do this strategy in public squads aside, the spawn camping gameplay also s*cks donkey b*lls.

[--RV--WhiteWolf]

The event overall: It's fun. Using Nekramechs is something "different". I enjoy playing it. I wouldn't have built one without the event. 

The rewards: Mediocre. Scarlet Spear gave 4x more rewards for the same amount on time spent. 

The Score System: Terrible. Same team can score 20k or 40k depending on tileset. I would rather have endless mission with scalling enemies/rewards/points and removal of warframes from the mission. 

Improvement suggestions:

• For the love of God, remove the default necramechs sitting all over the place. Put them at the beginning of the mission and have them marked on the map (in case anyone is blind to see them). Having them all over the place is annoying as hell. You get into one by mistake when you are with operators and you "enjoy" 15 seconds animation. It literally happens every OV36 that someone gets into a wrong mech and starts cursing. 
• Make the score more "skill" based than pure RNG based. One way to achieve this is to present players with various opportunities (e.g. 2 orphixes spawning in the same time, double the number of enemies spawn in one room, extend the timer of next orphix if a side objective is met ...etc). This way players have to adapt to various scenarios rather than moving from A to B and camping for 90 seconds. 
• Every 12 Orphixes completed, the player should get one arcane (200 cells worth for 12, 400cells worth for 24 , 800 cells worth for 36). 

[UUDDLRLRBA_START]

On 2021-01-05 at 7:46 AM, Redpaws said:

I've made a post in this thread already, but I'm gonna repeat the points that's more and more grating the more I play the event.

Lavos Cordatus helmet being in the drop pool, doubly so since it has such a high drop chance and from the same rotation as Lavos. I got 8 helmets and 8 Lavos parts so far. Any helmet after the first is utterly useless, since it can't be traded away and is worth pennies when sold. It REALLY should be removed from the drop table. All the other cosmetics are only available to purchase from Father. This thing shouldn't be an exception.

The unskippable, incredibly long 'boot up' sequence of broken down necramechs. Accidentally jumping into one happens rather easily, since the mechs are littered around the areas you'll be fighting in, and Voidrig is particularly bad, taking 10+ seconds or something to finish the animation, while Bonewidow takes 5+ seconds. There REALLY needs to be a way to abort the boot up, or some way to make it much harder to accidentally jump into one. Maybe make it so you have to void blast a downed necramech to 'energize' it for a couple of seconds, letting you hop in it during that window?

And one thing I didn't touch upon in my first post that others have mentioned: The crosshair REALLY needs to stand out more. It is very hard to aim with when there's a lot of action going on, as the crosshair just blends right in.

IMO, the necramechs should have been mountable vehicles for Warframes (like the Grineer Rampart) instead of a Transference platform.

[D4M4G3]

I do not know nsigo receive the gold trophy in the event, my clan is shadow, and i have already made the maximum score of 137 thousand, summing up the score of all players, however, in the rank of the clan shows only 100 thousand

[ManiacDC]

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
  • Failed the first mission in a group of 4. I don't think anyone knew what to do. I did fine on all the others - but I did read about it online after failing the first.
• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
  • Funny, I like it. I've only ever used it in the other quest though as I don't have one.
• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
  • Yes, especially as the game progresses and the Necramechs start dying faster.
• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
  • Too slow. It only takes a couple hours to farm a new frame from assassination missions. I've done a few hours of OV so far and still need 2000 phasic cells for Lavos. I think the price for Lavos & the weapons are too high.
  • The 3 rewards for getting 500, 1000, and 2000 points in each tier are nice, as are the rewards from finishing each rotation.
• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
  • I ignore them. The Necramech doesn't do enough damage to them, focus on resonators and the Orphix itself.
• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
  • No, I don't have a Necramech of my own. I did 21 in a squad where I was carried (basic).
• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
  • Energy starts getting low mid-game, so the unmodded Necramechs start dying really fast as the shield can't be kept up and you can't kill enemies fast enough to drop energy.

[Zendadaist]

As we reach the final few days, I have only one thing to add and that's my voice to the chorus of those who largely enjoyed it apart from one major rage-inducing frustration:-

Rent-a-mechs being everywhere, simple transference being all you need to end up stuck in one, and the assembly animation for the voidring being so long I might as well go make a cup of tea and tell my squad to manage the next Orphix without me.

Nothing, literally nothing, has caused as much annoyance, frustrated swearing and general irritation to my clan in our many runs as accidentally getting dragged into a loaner mech on the ground while trying to hope back in our own Mechs that happened to be in the general area. Not even any of the other bugs have messed us around as much.

 

Solution 1: change the way a loaner mech is activated from pressing the transference button whilst in the general area, to holding interact key á la Esophage activation.
 

Solution 2: have an oplink-type item you grab from Father at the start (like with scarlet spear) that when activated calls in a random rent-a-mech. That way you don't also have the absolutely absurd lore-rending issues of broken necramechs lying around brand new refit Corpus ship etc.

[MCDoubleV]

Hello,

i am one of the players who has attempted multiple high score runs during the event so i am gonna post from my perspective.

Understanding and Succeeding etc. etc.
Easy to Understand but hard to succeed. ( This Feedback Question is really weird as it doesn't specify what the succeeding actually is, is it the high score or killing of the orphix? i assume they mean killing orphix but in the end, all we really want is high scores for better standing (and more currency). Randomized Success through Tilesets and Rotations (CBAABC and BACCAB) not to mention the 1 hour cycles for factions makes this event a Leaving festival.

Necramech Movement in non Open World.

Ehh ... Rooms are usually just fine but most connector Tilesets are just too small and riddled with Small chests which block you at every corner (Grineer especially)

Trouble Using damaged/random necramechs?

Yes as they literally trap you for 10-15 seconds and are prioritized over your own Necramech. Also completely unusable past easy mode, most players are better off with their Operator.

Pacing and Rewards

Pacing is meh for fast killing of orphix but spawncontrol of orphix is intruiging to learn and can make runs pretty interesting and evolve new strategies based on tilesets provided. Rewards are fine for someone who has a fully leveled necramech at hand, for those who do not they will struggle and ultimately walk away disappointed.

New Sentient Enemies.

I oneshot them so i don't really care.

36 Squad/Solo.

In a squad, wouldn't recommend doing it solo to anyone.

Other Feedback

Tilesets are way too important for higher scores forcing players to leave the mission and restart until the correct ones apppear, it almost feels like a shiny hunt in Pokemon. Either give us some control or no control on how tilesets are designed and executed. Rotating factions makes or breakes strategies as corpus have nullifier and grineer don't whereas corpus tilesets are more reliable with tilesets and spawns. Also waiting 2 hours just so you can attempt again can really destroy your will to play. Same goes for Rotations (CABBAC CBAABC), let the players decide or just choose one, moving between C and A room can take quite a while and players will avoid that rotation.




 

[Akula_Rose]

How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
The operation is so basic a toddler who has been hit by a bus could figure it out.
How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
That wasn't a "normal" tileset, look at your atrocious Kuva Fortress tileset before you release these things into star chart.
Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
I find the necramechs on the ground more annoying than useful. Randomly getting thrown into one when I'm trying to go into my Warframe to keep my stupid cat alive is "FUN."
How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
Worse than the hive event back in the day. I've never been more bored with a fake endurance system.
What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
I don't know, you built the event to where it is better to ignore them than fight them.....good job.
Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
Yes and it was worse than a 4 hour survival....
Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
Difficulty is non-existent, gameplay is stale as all heck, visuals are basic as heck, in-game guidance....(Look at my response to the first question).

[_Anise_]

additional feedback after having put lots of hours in ...

 

So many questions..

why are companions vulnerable/die when I am in a mech? (sentinels mostly due to them hovering by your deactivated warframe meaning a few enemies they will die instantly as the only nearby target) integrate? allow them to follow the mech around and provide a different kind of support ?

why can't I revive companions as a mech user without bending over backwards?

why do my specters run like idiots before I can tell them to "hold" directly into the orange nullifiction field and then why do they instantly die rather than shutdown temporary?

why can my warframe still function in downed state while caught in the orange nullifiction field? if it works down make it work while up?

what is the point in making it so the operator can die inside the field only to be set back to warframe and then ejected back into operator loop sometimes directly next to where you warframe is???? feels pointless.

transferance annoyance, yep it can sent you 700 meters away if you don't keep moving your warframe, its an annoying interaction on all parts!

why not allow me to play my warframe on this mission?? after hours I am missing variation scarlet spear allowed me to have, this event made me burnout on mechs! making me realize they are just worse version of warframes.

also why are mechs worse version of warframes really ? they can't interact with anything, don't have the maneuverability of a warframe, can't use gear items and are pretty dull to play, no where near as tanky as warframes and if it wasn't for the artificially manufactured need for them on this mission, would be doable maybe even easier without them!

 

my take on the event I would rather they just ran another scarlet spear but enabled mechs, or done away with the orange null field so I could use any number of frames! I even learned to love mesa on scarlet spear having not really used her much before! the Forced the mech gameplay for hours and hours as the meat of the content isn't great.

[Totterson]

How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
Very.
How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
Okay I guess. It should've been a feature from the beginning, so I don't see why this is such a big deal.
Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?

No, but it was good fun accidentally transferencing into them and being stuck watching them reassemble. Also, unmodded Necramechs are terrible for the "endurance" mode.
How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
Terrible. One hour to be rewarded relics with only enough currency to be guaranteed anywhere from two to four rewards is not worth it.
What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
Better than trying to thread a needle to get hits to register on the Orphixes. Maybe make the hit detection significantly more forgiving?
Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
Yes, but only 'cause I was carried because I was dragged into the event kicking and screaming. I already knew how bad it was.
Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
Maybe allow Necramechs to have Warframe synergy since there's literally zero point to ever using them apart from your arbitrary rules? There's no reason I should have to run around as a Voidrig with 62 health remaining all because Digital Extremes decided to have an event where I'm stuck playing as something that I don't want to be playing as that is constantly having basic functionality such as healing stripped just so a bandaid mod can exist. The way Necramechs are now is not going to leave you guys with a lot of design space in the future so get back to QOLing.

[EtherPigeon]

So, now the event is over, here are some thoughts from playing it on-and-off over the past few weeks while slowly building my own necramech on the side:

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
  • Easy enough to understand, used familiar mechanics. The calculation of the score could've done with a bit of extra explanation (by some exposition by Father) but it wasn't a real problem.
• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
  • Overall, great fun. They work pretty well but "feel" heavier and bigger - as intended. The only issue were a few spots on the Grineer Galleon which looked they'd fit but they didn't.
• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
  • Little bit: they can be hard to find when you just lost one and tried to find a replacement (lots of visual noise near Orphixes); additionally, if you got your own mech and accidentally transferred into a damaged one, the spool-up animation is painful, let us cancel that!
• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
  • Overall, good: rewards came in nicely and were generally good - I really like having stuff like Lavos (i.e. stuff you'd buy with the event currency) in the droptables; however, long mission hauls could've done with a bit of sprucing up, e.g. a sentient miniboss after every 3 rotations/9 orphixes (I think lots of endurance/endless missions would benefit from something like that, the acolytes in steel path actually do that quite nicely)
• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
  • Hard to say, since it was mostly tanking through them while trying to kill the resonators/orphixes - which is less like an enemy and more like a teamwork puzzle (which is nice when you get a good squad)
• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
  • Not in solo, but a few random squads that had at least 2-3 players with well-built necramecs
• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
  • Overall, it was a fun event - as most endurance events, it's a bit monotonous towards the end but it was one of the better events.
  • This was a good format for events/missions that engage with "other gamemodes", like Necramechs, Operators and so on - it allows them to exist without directly competing with Warframes for power; having such missions as occasional events or limited runs (like invasions) would give them better matchmaking and breathing space.
  • The necramech bumping into things and giving off sparks is quite fun and a nice way to convey its size - maybe have more of that, e.g. when you get stuck in a corner, hit an opening you don't quite fit, since that's also a nice visual indicator for "can't go there!"

[Wolfwaffe]

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

Very easy. As a great bonus I was very pleased not having to deal with forty people in orbit demanding kill-codes from four people on ground. And not suffering from relay matchmaking bugs because I chose to play on English version instead of Russian.

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

I loved it. No, seriously, I loved it. Yes, it's clunky, it's awkward, and it keeps hitting its head on the doors, but I loved the feeling of stomping through ships hallways. Now, what I did NOT like was that this two-ton mech can be bodyblocked by a fragile guys that at most weight 100-150kg. I guess that's why Necrovich melee has insane knockback.

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

This, on the other hand, was annoying as Hek. They are all over the place, and one wrong tap of the button will lock you up in an unnecessarily long animation that wastes your time.

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

Pacing felt a bit too slow in the beginning of the missions. Rewards felt... Underwhelming considering time/creds ratio.

• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

Sorry, did not pay much attention. My Necrovich's Arquebex evaporated them way too quickly.

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

Got to 33 solo (see below), and made full 36 in a squad several time easy.

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

Dealing with Nullifiers as Necrovich is annoying. They shut down abilities, and for whatever reason, the Arquebex destroys their bubble, but does not damage the nullifier crewman. Considering that two of three tiles belonged to Corpus, this quickly became frustrating.

Necroviches feel a bit too fragile, especially the longer the mission goes. Mostly with Corpus. Because somehow, somehow those Vapos and Juno troops begin to deal insane amount of damage. Especially Juno Teches with their exploding Supras.

Since Sentients found a way to deactivate Warframes, I think it's time to make Warframe 2 with grown-up operators.

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
  • Pretty straightforward to understand
• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
  • You really feel every single ledge. Jumping is painful as you can't aim cancel. Having your face near the ceiling makes some tiles feel claustrophobic.
• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
  • Easy to find. Getting into one by accident is horrible though, as you get locked in an animation for what feels like forever, especially with Voidrig
• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
  • Pacing is weird due to Orphixes having set timers for spawning instead of a new one spawning after you've killed the most recent. Solo its a bit less awkward as you're slower, but in a squad you feel the long periods of waiting
• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
  • They are interesting, but seriously, stop stacking the DR on sentients.
  • Additionally, the damage is out of line on pretty much all sentient units.
    • Summulyst have a 40 base damage attack with a 20 base damage explosion. They're supposed to be spawners, not DPSers.
    • Choralysts are okay, but high damage + seeking is annoying when we have limited mobility. High damage is fine since they are relatively weak units but seeking projectiles should go. Potential bug with them: Their main attack's projectiles hit twice, unsure if that's them firing 2 projectiles I can't distinguish, just intended design, or a bug.
    • Haven't had a chance to test Ortholysts.
• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
  • Did 36 in a squad, will probably try solo eventually
• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
  • Nerf Battalyst and Tyro Battalyst damage output
    • Battalysts currently have ridiculous base damage: 105 damage on direct hit and 150 damage on the explosion. At level 100, that's over 5,000 damage if you get hit by both. Tyro Battalysts do literally half a Battalyst's damage, which is still too much.
    • The infamous discoball of death does 100 base damage per laser
  • Orphix scaled damage controller is a bit too aggressive. Archguns feel pretty much worthless for DPS in endurance runs.
    • This is likely because Arquebex exists. Nerf it
  • Mechs don't survive well unless you have a source of energy generation. Giving them innate energy regen like archwing would be nice.
  • Red fog is obnoxious in certain tiles. Toning it down would be appreciated.
  • Orphixes have poor spawning places/orientation in some tiles, which makes hitting them awkward.

[Electropuncher]

How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
The Operation has a really terrible flow in the lower missions, as you can leave before you have the requisite number of points to progress. Endurance round is fine.

How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
Necramechs are CLUNKY AS HELL in normal tilesets. If it weren't for the theme of this event, I would not use a mech. They're useless, unless they're literally the only means to play. That is to say, Necramechs are failure in fun, they're a step back, and I will not be using mine after this event passes. I feel gimped by this, not empowered. The camera is WAY too tight and gets stuck on the ceiling a lot. The pee-yellow UI gets blended in with the yellow fog, so you just kind of have to guess where the middle of your screen is. A bit off topic: but the hitbox of the Fluctus projectile is kind of goofy on the Orphix. Half of my shots look like they're hitting home, but they're apparently catching the edge of the invulnerability box. Meanwhile, Ironbride literally ignores those zones, so it feels like you're shooting yourself in the foot by going in with Voidrig. If I were more cynical, I would assume this event was made entirely with Bonewidow in mind.

Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
Not finding. If anything, it's TOO easy to find them, and because of the clunky way to actually hop into a mech, you can lock yourself into a 10-15 second animation that informs you that yes, you have indeed jumped into the mech. Why is this animation so slow? And these things are EVERYWHERE.

How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
I hate the mission itself. The Condrix Orphix can spawn in really awkward angles, leading to really awkward phases. The Orphixes' spawn rate is also inconsistent (even though it's set, you have no visual indicator where you are in the cycle), so you'll either be waiting for it to spawn... SOMEWHERE on the map, or you'll be dealing with one and just have a second one show up for no reason.

Rewards wise: this event is worthless. There is one weapon set that can make use of aura forma: 1h swords. Lavos and Cedo have been announced for the Entrati syndicate (actually giving you a reason to max out their standing), thus keeping them unique to this event on console feels redundant. I do like how you can just get the rewards in the gameplay, though. However, the point values seem a bit high. 1500 phasic cells is roughly an hour and a half of endurance mode runs, in my experience so far. Meanwhile, I can spam a boss fight in under an hour and have all of their rewards.

What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
TERRIBLE. Do they do anything new? The Aerolyst is still absolutely horribly designed and just not fun. As far as I can tell, Sentients are just bullet sponges and don't really have any tactics. The fact that they still get resistances to arch guns is just plain annoying. I don't understand how making me deal 5 damage with a gun that theoretically does 5000 is a good mechanic (because it freaking isn't.)

Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
Not yet. I'm not really trying to either.

Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
This is the worst event yet. I thought Scarlet Spear was bad, but this is somehow even worse. There's zero variety. It's not even an "oh, I'll go do space mode after doing ground mode. It's just "you're gonna kill an orphix, wait, then kill an orphix, repeat." Due to the fact that Necramechs are a fairly awkward grind for a thing that's literally a beta version of a Warframe, at least on Switch, there's almost no reason to get one outside of this event, and the unmodded Mechs can't keep up after a certain point. Locking you out of your mech for a minute when it dies, and preventing healing of the mech, isn't just bad design, it's outright unfair. Nav-points seem to randomly break. Mobility is awful, and some maps require a ton of verticality in a mech that doesn't have any vertical abilities, leaving you at the mercy of the level geometry that tends to bug out.

In short: wow this event is terrible. The silver lining is that the RNG protection in the form of Father's Shop is actually amazing, and I would love to see more things like this implemented in game for older content. I understand not wanting to implement a permanent arcane shop, but I don't know if I have it in me to grind out the Cedo before it goes to the Entrati rewards. If this becomes a new game mode, it will be the new Defection, especially if it actually has a reward. Mercifully, this event is completely ignorable, especially if you wait until the next patch when Lavos and Cedo go to the Entrati, or you have some plat laying around so you can just buy the Lavos pack and skip any reason to even touch this event.

In a slightly off topic note: I seriously don't understand the point of Necramechs. Why were they implemented? They're slow, they're unable to heal outside of a handful of mods (and bugs), their abilities are... bad, and they have a bad tendency to get locked up either in level geometry or animation states. Just make arch-guns a third weapon slot (and make gravimags a legacy item that you only need for the quest) and make arch-melee weapons have their own stances and let them use normal melee mods. I'd love to have a massive swing of a Veritux or a Centaur that smashes through enemies at the cost of being prohibitively slow. I don't see why we need something that gets stuck all the time and barely has a way out just to lug our big gun without having to worry about ammo on it.

Addendum: if you play on keyboard/mouse: here's how this controls for gamepads. I play Switch, so L/R is L1/R1, ZL/ZR is R1/R2, A/B and X/Y are swapped from X-input devices. These are otherwise defaults. To summon a mech, you need to assign it to your gear wheel before the mission, then you need to press down on the d-pad, select it (which can be surprisingly hard on a Joy-Con if you're playing undocked), hold R then press L to trans out, aim at your mech (and be close enough), hold R then press L to trans into your mech. When you're stuck in a rough spot in an Orphix bubble, you need to hold R then press L to trance out, and then hold L and press A to void dash, possibly multiple times. And because of some weird glitch I'm not consistently getting, you may just go forward instead of where you're looking. Then you need to press down on the d-pad, summon your mech again, and trans back in by holding R and pressing L. And you need to hope you're aiming at YOUR mech and not one of the many littered about. If you miss, enjoy your 15 second movie of parts cobbling together. Yep, it's that clunky.

[(PSN)Shimauma23]

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?

"Vulnerable" Orphix is still mostly invulnerable.  Took multiple tries before I noticed the weak point even existed.

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

It's fun to be a tank, but they're pretty slow.  Got caught on low architecture a few times because viewpoint is high enough not to notice it unless you look down.  Not durable enough to stand up to all those sentients for long.

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

Blew past them the first time and was trying to do the mission in operator mode.

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

Dunno, haven't been able to complete it.

• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

Necramech machine gun doesn't seem to do a lot of damage.  (Plus console aiming is tougher than mouse aiming)  Meathook attack frequently doesn't connect.  Aerolyst is invincible too?

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

LOL

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

Couldn't complete the first mission.  Sentient control rises too quickly to finish.  Not rewarding for the casual player.

Addendum:  The Deimos introduction missions made me kind of interested in getting a necramech.  This event makes me think they're not worth the effort.

[(NSW)MoonlightSerenade]

Enjoying the event overall, noticing the "must have Hildryn" in recruit chat is turning out to be like Kora on steel essence farming......