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

[(XBOX)KamikaZSquirrel]

So far I enjoy the event and can see a lot of potential here.

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed? The operation is easy enough to understand although the first run through is a learning curve. 
• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset? One thing I feel many players forget is that this is "testing" to see if requesting content like this is viable and works. Currently the Corpus tilesets do work as they are wide corridors, easily manoeuvrable and allow Verticality like hovering. The doorways are nearly perfect for Necramechs to fit in. The grineer tilesets however is a no... The hallways are often difficult to manoeuvre except certain pathways, the small round doorways don't work, you can pass through them like a warframe does but looks wrong, the larger doorways need to be heightened for future content as even they have half the head clip through the wall above it. 

• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech? No difficulty and did test one, seem ok for the first few orphixes but quickly become outclassed by the growing difficulty of enemies, for them to be viable for players without one they also need to scale with them to some degree. Again it's testing something new so it won't be perfect yet. 

• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards? Great rewards although probably a lot less relics as many other activities offer tonnes of them, add some sculptures and forma blueprints which many people will love more than relics. =) The pacing is nearly perfect but as some people mentioned there can be times you are too efficient and are waiting for a spawn so perhaps in those cases an indicator like an incoming life support for example appears so you can move to there and be ready would be a brilliant addition. 

• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies? Hard to actually notice properly due to rushing objectives to keep control down. Orphixes look cool though! 

• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad? Not yet for either, squads I've only done with 1 friend and mostly pubs, many dip out around 20 or at 2k points. 

• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance? For Necramechs I feel they need a tileset specifically to use them. After the event look at adding nodes and call them something along the lines of Orphix  Control, specifically targeted areas of planets for sentient invasions and rotate them around similar to Kuva Fortresses. In doing that it can still tie into the grand story of New war, keep the content implemented so it doesn't feel like just another addition.  Visually I like the way sentient controlled areas look, perhaps have that appear in missions when a sentient invasion is going to take place? Not saying You Devs will implement my suggestion but if you implement something similar it could be a good way to do it. As this is engaged by Vilcor (Father) perhaps do more of these by other members, perhaps find a way to reverse the grey strain, repair their new home and clean it up. Perhaps heal them and work with Father to produce something like the Ascari negator to prevent our warframes being pulsed when we invade Tau? 

All in all it's steps in a good direction to test something on this scale, many will and do feel it shouldn't be forced content so try not to do that. Tie together the little things as to why we need them but don't forget that the game is about our warframes, it's about our Tenno who control them and that Archwing, Necramechs and Railjacks are the tools that both operator and warframe use to assist them... Please don't look for ways to replace them =) 

Keep up the good work! 

[(NSW)MoonlightSerenade]

Might as well ask (with humor) when is the hildryn nerf happening ?

[(NSW)Belaptir]

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

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

1. Not too hard. I found the first mission easy enough to make you understand the basics. No complaints here.
2. Not bad in Jupiter and Corpus ship. Awful in Grineer galleon. I find that the necramech should have a passive knockdown (or at least pushing back) when they are running. Specially against non-heavy enemies. That would make it more comfortable to pilot in tilesets where the enemies would block your movement. And would be realistic since you know, it's a frigging huge mech, it should be able to push the light enemies with ease!
3. I think that by default, your tenno should ALWAYS get inside your necramech if it's summoned. Not only once I found that I entered the abandoned one instead of mine (with all the time you lose waiting for it to activate).
4. Compared to PC I find that the sentients don't spawn fast enough to farm them consistently. On Switch, going with a full organized squad, maximizing every orphix to get the most of it, might get you something like 21k points. I'm doing chill runs with a team where I just kill the orphix on sight and the team mates kill the many sentients they can in those maybe 20 seconds that it takes to kill it, and did 20k points. The amount of effort to make a very organized party and run doesn't pay off compared to doing a chill one. We need more sentient spawns! The rewards, for this very reason, I find them a bit unfair. I'd drop the price of the highest arcanes by 200 cells, 100 from the mid tier and 50 for the low tier.
5. It was cool! I love the new ortholyst! Nice design and enemy! Love it! Props to the guys who made it! The orphix too has a cool mechanic and I can see this mode like an endless one that I'd farm for longer than a survival!
6. I reached 36 Orphix in squad. Haven't tried it solo yet.
7. We might need some other form of healing the Necramech. Although necramech repair+vizier predasite keeps you alive, we should have a companion mod that would heal us, like mediray but for the mech, for example.

[(XBOX)Helverin]

So far, so good. It has been a real fun so far and i can't complain much.

 

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

No Problems. It's really simple but i hadn't encountered any issues concerning last operations, bounties or more mechanic-heavy bosses. I personally prefer the way of more thinking and less braindead shooting but in this case it just fits the pacing. Well done.

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

It as let's say interesting. I was surprised how much taller the mechs where compared to warframes, something i wasn't aware of when doing bounties in deimos. After half an hour of learning and patience i was fine with it though.

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

Nope. But i wasn't in a situation yet where i have to rely on those spare mechs. I just accidently transfered into one when i wasn't aware there was one next to me and i wanted to switch back to my warframe. 

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

The pacing is great. Actually, this feels more like a survival mission, then the original one, where you more or less just camp and shoot/dismember/radiate/obliberate evrything that enters the killzone. I#m a fan of active gameplay, so the need to move to a new target location feels right. The rewards are fine (thx for the tons of endo, DE, was able to max out my last few primed mods) but please take into consideration to reduce the relic rewards. As others stated before, there are a lot of ways to obtain these and i don't see why the loot table should be artificially bloated by adding these. I have no problem with the low chances for Cedo or Lavos parts, but actually, receiving the relic doesn't feel like a reward. Same goes for amber ayatan *cough*

What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

I like them a lot. Much better design then the old spin laser battalyst or whirlwind conculyst and although the summoned sentients can hit hard if ignored, these feel much more fair then the battalyst. I know it#s ot a new sentients, but maybe take into consideration that aerolysts react to radialy attacks when trying to shoot their canisters. If under heavy fire it is really difficult to shoot that precise and on top of that, they posess the sentient adaptation so these things aren't pushovers. So at least the weakspot phase should be a bit well.. generous. 

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

Not yet. Since my mates unfortunately left warframe quite a while ago, i'm the last man standing and doing it solo. I just play with pug's when i really need to (like Scarlet Spear). So far i was able to wreck 28 Orphix' then armor and health got a little bit to tough to kill them in time. But that's totally fine, don't make them easier, don't add more time. I like that everything in warframe is completely soloable (never change that!) but i'd say, that there has to be some sort of benefit when playing in a squad. And reaching top scores in operations may be it. But maybe i get cocky and use Voidrig instead of my beloved Bonewidow.

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

Well, i think when planning on implementing mechs into normal missions, you'll have to rework a lot of tilesets and tinker around with the camera (which is really bad in small hallways in the galleon tileset already) and i think that is a thing that adresses nearly all of the older tilesets. But i do hope, that you'll overcome this challenge. It will be absolutely necessary to do a spy mission with a necramech!

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

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

• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?

 

 

Necramechs are too tall for many low doorways, while it seems you've tweaked their collision box so they can fit through

it does cause an annoying graphical issue of the Camera being too high up and getting blocked by map geometry.

I would suggest moving the camera to waist level on the Necramechs then give them a translucent render so they don't block our vision now that we aren't looking over their heads. Or do full on FPS view.....

 

 

Fallen Necramechs are an extremely annoying liability. It is Too Easy to Accidentally Transfer into one. Which then locks you into a very long animation. Activating one needs to be changed to a Hold-Prompt instead of just Transferring into them; or the animation needs to be cancellable by transferring back out (and into our Own Mech that was standing nearby as we intended to do)

[Crabopoulos-Michael]

En 17/12/2020 a las 21:46, [DE]Bear dijo:

1. How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
2. How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
3. Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
4. How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
5. What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
6. Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
7. Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?

1. Pretty straightforward, although I would like it if there was something going on in Necralisk to make the event more noticeable and that the missions could be launched from there, kinda like the relay we had in Scarlet spear

2. Actually better than I expected, going against the clock on those tight grineer corridors isn't the best experience ever but I think it reinforced the feeling of piloting a mech

3. On some occasions I found myself accidentally transferring into mechs which can be a real pain in key moments, u quickly learn to avoid this but I wish there was an interaction key to start them up and then just have transference work on the active mech. Also a couple of times has happened that I actually needed an emergency mech cuz mine got destroyed and I couldn't find any lying around

4. I think rewards are ok tho I wish that the rest of the mech mods were also in the drop tables. I already had both mechs fully built but I think this would help new players build a mech as they play the event. As for the pacing I don't like the fixed timer thing because it makes the first portion of the mission kinda slow, I wish this was something more dynamic and flexible that allows good teams to make the whole thing faster and optimize rewards/time spent ratio

5. The new Sentient units are cool but I'v found myself ignoring them for the most part because I have to focus on resonators/orphix. I actually engage more in combat with Grenier or Corpus because they are constantly spawning so maybe the sentient should too, having both factions fighting each other all the time throughout the mission would help set a cool atmosphere too

6. Both solo and squad. With a team is much easier, even in public matches although sometimes host migration happens and screws it up. I can also do 36 solo with Bonewidow depending on the tileset. With Voidrig 28 is my record

7. Let Bonewidow draw ironbride while in the air and let Voidrig activate shroud while in guard mode

[Electropuncher]

I'm gonna add this as a separate post because it doesn't quite fit the rest of my critique. Endurance mode should have partially modded mechs with more variety in the guns they're using. Not only would this encourage players to go get the mechs and mods, but also try new arch-guns.

There should have been a third mech in this event. Now that we know this event is being turned into a game mode, this event could have previewed that mech and granted it to early adopters. Anyone who missed out could get it when the game mode rolled out with Update 30. However, because there's no way to get a mech from this event, players who didn't come in with one are stuck using a loaner with nothing on it and have no way to actually get one without leaving the event and grinding for one or raising 370 platinum to just outright buy one. Not to mention the practical difference between Voidrig and Bonewidow are negligible, but Bonewidow has higher syndicate requirements. So the absolute, fastest way to get your hands on a mech (outside of just spending plat) is to grind Necraloid to level 2 and spam Isolation Vaults, which at MR 22 meant two days of rep grinding for me, followed by 3.5 days of waiting. Granted, this event is going to be going for three more weeks, but it still feels like this was a huge oversight.

[(NSW)Gamer-Steve]

4 hours ago, (NSW)Electropuncher said:

I'm gonna add this as a separate post because it doesn't quite fit the rest of my critique. Endurance mode should have partially modded mechs with more variety in the guns they're using. Not only would this encourage players to go get the mechs and mods, but also try new arch-guns.

There should have been a third mech in this event. Now that we know this event is being turned into a game mode, this event could have previewed that mech and granted it to early adopters. Anyone who missed out could get it when the game mode rolled out with Update 30. However, because there's no way to get a mech from this event, players who didn't come in with one are stuck using a loaner with nothing on it and have no way to actually get one without leaving the event and grinding for one or raising 370 platinum to just outright buy one. Not to mention the practical difference between Voidrig and Bonewidow are negligible, but Bonewidow has higher syndicate requirements. So the absolute, fastest way to get your hands on a mech (outside of just spending plat) is to grind Necraloid to level 2 and spam Isolation Vaults, which at MR 22 meant two days of rep grinding for me, followed by 3.5 days of waiting. Granted, this event is going to be going for three more weeks, but it still feels like this was a huge oversight.

That's a fair point actually. Especially considering that there's the Bruntspar Necramech skin, I thInk that could definitely become a new Necramech in it's own right, not limited to being a cosmetic difference. Do you think it could become a new Mech, @[DE]Rebecca?

• Edit: There's also the Cryptanaut Necramech Helmet actually! I remembered it doesn't come with a full Mech body, so that leaves some room to imagine how that would play as it's own Necramech.

 

I imagine the Brunstpar would be a hand-to-hand combat Mech, not totally different from the Hulkbuster; Relying on rapid, powerful strikes to everything in it's way. I'm not sure what sort of passive effect the Bruntspar / Cryptanaut would have, in the event my Passives & Synergies thread were considered (I would gladly add the those Mechs to the thread if I knew what abilities they'd have!); But that's another matter compared to making either one a full-on Necramech at all.

[(XBOX)Helverin]

A little update:

Since you lowered the score for certain trophy achievements, you somehow triggered me. So I did a new endurance run to see if i could hit the score for my clan tier. I was able to destroy all 36 solo, hit 19,6k score. Which brings me to the question whether it was necessary to lower it firsthand. But maybe the situation is more complicated for large clans. 

[(XBOX)AlexFi1978]

Need to balance cost of store items to reflect the fact we cannot get same level of currency from Console missions versus the PC - we are getting <50% of the max PC scores (52k PC max, 25k Console)

 

This means our time is not being valued as much as we have to do 2x the grind for same reward

[(NSW)Joewoof]

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
  I died the first time, because the red waypoints for the Resonators blended into the color of the fog and I was overwhelmed by so many things happening on-screen. Like most things in Warframe, I ended up having to watch a YouTuber explain it again.
   
• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
  For Corpus tilesets, it's sometimes challenging to get around, but it's all in good fun. The long hallways are great for dashing, and there's a lot of alternate paths to learn, but overall, it's good.
  For Grineer tilesets, however, it definitely feels overly cramped. You sometimes get stuck on doorways for no reason, and in some sections where the ceilings are too low, you can barely see where you're going.
   
• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
  I brought my own Necramech, so I never really had to do that.
   
• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
  This is one of the best events ever in terms of pacing and rewards. It got me completely and utterly hooked.
   
• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
  I can't really comment on that since they disappear with the Orphix. I've very quickly found that ignoring them is better most of the time. I'd really like to see them in a normal mission.
   
• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
  Not solo, but I did it once in a random squad.
   
• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
  The cutscene that introduces the event should show and talk about the resonators that you have to destroy. It would save a lot of confusion.
  The gameplay and difficulty feels absolutely great. It's a mix of mech parkor, sometimes switching to operator form and once you have a fully-modded mech, it feels amazing to handle, especially with mobility mods.
  Unfortunately, I felt like I didn't really have a chance to truly interact with the new Sentients.

[(PSN)palebluelight]

PS4 user feedback: 

 

I hate this event 0/10.

Im an mr29 player and I am so sick of rng all the time rotation types and location need to be heavily regulated to certain location and never for ex abbc or ccab a solution would be abbcba and so forth. On console transference and the forced walking when you do is such a crazy loss of setup time and the distance can be so ridiculously far and so full of obstructions that it ruins the experience. Necramechs are horrible to pilot their engines suck and we don’t need to be running around in the crappiest version of warframe I hate it. Personally if I never use my necramech or railjack I’d be happy I don’t wanna play anything but with the actual game loop that hooked me being frames I’ve built invested in and have fun with the reason this game exists warframes not your low effort attempts at other things. Please finally nerf corpus damage spikes completely fine with scaling but no spikes. Corpus infinite range, zero dmg falloff, perfect accuracy finally need to go. Necramechs need to be immune to nullifiers and their bubble, also the bubble needs to have zero special resistances so if I shoot it with my arquebex it needs to F off same with sentient dmg adaptation personally I’d rather it not exist but an adjusted version would be tolerable. Cooldowns for the game just choosing to not spawn my mech need to go away. Also upon death needs to be reduced to 30 seconds. Orphix need their hit box for the eye dramatically increased it’s ridiculous that you cannot aim directly at it. In general spawn locations need to be not be as random and nothing needs to be as far as they are. Spawn locations need to be reduced to 2 and distances from them need to never be too far. After two playthroughs you should know exactly what’s coming not slogging your junk necramech whose engine dies twice on the way to the next location. Please do not make the apart of regular content a once a quarter mini even would be fine or removing forced necramechs even better to me this ruins my experience with warframe. Boss design and engaging mechanics are completely lacking out of warframes themselves (except lavos) most are very fun but thats it having what makes warframe fun negated by nullifiers or the nullifying pulse of demolysts completely invalidate the core gameplay loop and doesn’t reward time invested please stop repeating the same mistakes. I recently started God of War again and also took a stab at monster hunter and I realized that some fights it doesn’t matter if the boss heals or goes into other phases what matters is the feedback of the damage broken armor bleeding or loss of an ability I did that to them or even when I perfect parry their attack it turns into a dual dance. Stop inventing new ways to negate what players are capable of and focus on entertaining us rather than just creating time sinks that ALWAYS over stay their welcome. I hate to say this but again please DO NOT implement orphix venom into the regular game and sadly Scarlett Spear was better designed mode just because you actually got rewarded the bonus mildly made up for the tedium compared to OV where you can only earn meager amounts. 

[Aesthier]

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

Review: I wouldn’t say it was hard to figure out just that the first couple of times in (playing solo) it was slightly confusing. Like many things in Warframe joining a group and just following them around quickly showed me what to look for.

 

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

Review: Clunky to be honest. The first run or so it feels sorta novel being able to swap into a big cantankerous mech, but after the initial run or so being forced to be in a mech honestly ruined the event for me.

Suggestions: *See other thoughts section.*

 

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

Review: The issue I have here is that they were simply all over the place and felt more like little animated time traps set out for my operator to fall into than any benefit until much later in the phases. In a time based event it becomes frustrating when you get locked into a 10 second animation just because you accidentally transferred to close to a broken mech. Having the broken mechs laying around once my mech breaks was helpful even if it doesn’t make much sense to me. Odd note: If the mechs on the floor are broken and I can make them operational by transferring into them then why can’t I just make my own broken mech operational by transferring into it again? I just don’t get the logic.

Suggestion: The ability to transfer into a broken mech shouldn’t activate until the player’s mech breaks. Thus a player who likes to transfer in and out of their working mech isn’t plagued by tiny time traps but on the flip-side once their mech breaks those options become available.

 

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

Review: Like others have stated before I felt the pacing was a bit off in that the timer progressed regardless of the progression of the group. For rewards see other thoughts.

Suggestion: As other players have suggested the mission progression would feel smoother if the way-points and spawns were set up like Scarlet Spear. Upon the death of the current Orphix a new way-point is immediately highlighted for the next Orphix. The new Orphix spawns upon the first player reaching the new way-point area.

• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

Review: To be honest here I don’t really enjoy sentients at all because of the damage switching/immunities and their high damage output. That being said I tried to do my best to ignore them and simply push through with the objectives leaving them for others in the group who were better at eliminating them. I think I might have come across one or two of the new ones but again being honest there were just to many effects on my screen for me to really notice.

Suggestion: Pretty much par for the course/subject for another day.

 

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

Review: I was able to reach the 36^th wave a couple of  times with a group but this had more to do with getting lucky in pugs than my own skills. As far as solo I simply found the whole “mech/operatory only” modes to tedious to attempt such lunacy on my own.

Suggestion: Pretty much par for the course/subject for another day.

 

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

• Mech suggestions:
  • Companions/pets
    • A voidrig is a vehicle and as such I think that companions/pets should be put away just like they are in the other vehicle modes.  

  • Maneuverability
    • When walking or sprinting (dashing doesn’t seem to be a problem) enemies should be pushed aside and not be able to stick my mech in place without placing a barrier. If the mech is sprinting enemies in the way should get knocked on their butts.  If the mech is walking enemies should get pushed to the sides. This makes more sense than a single enemiy acting like a proverbial wall.

  • Gun/Melee Gap
    • I understand that bonewiddow and voidrig were meant to be two sides of the same coin but the gap between them feels rather large in regards to their functionality. Bonewidow has a gun although it is weak compared to Voidrig’s it is still functional (though this might need further tweaking) . Voidrig’s melee however is rather pitiful and very clunky. I am not asking for it to have high damage however it should be capable of knocking enemies aside or quickly getting rid of placed barriers.  Currently using the melee on voidrig can (if you’re lucky enough to land the hit) get an enemy out of your way but the animation takes so long two more enemies replace the original at your feet and you are still stuick. This is ridiculous.

    • Make voidrig’s melee animation smoother and more effective. A quick-stomp to knock enemies down, or a waist level spin to knock enemies away, would have felt much smoother than one big lunge to try and grab an enemy that is at your feet rather than where the lunge lands.

  • Reward pacing:
    • Obviously from a player perspective Operation: Scarlet Spear was vastly superior in regards to the rewards pacing while from a developer standpoint  Operation: Orphix Venom was.  I honestly think the reward pacing should lie somewhere between these two just on the Scarlet Spear side of the halfway point.

Initially I felt that Operation: Orphix Venom was released with far more polish than Operation: Scarlet Spear. However I must say I enjoyed Scarlet Spear farm more in the end then I did Orphix Venom. The reward pacing of SS was far superior as well as the designed gameplay. Having the option of using our warframes removed really broke the flow of the game for me and became very problematic.

Going forward I think that using a mech should be balanced as an option and nothing more than that. I was truly looking forward to seeing the group synergies between using warframes and mechs alongside each other in missions and instead I got a “no warframes allowed” event in a game called Warframe.

If mechs (a vehicle that is superior in power to warframes) are to be instituted into normal missions, I feel that some rather large adjustments must be made so they synergize fighting alongside warframes rather than in lieu of them. If you can’t make that happen then they should be regulated back to the Open Wolrd maps just like the rest of the vehicles where they belong.