Spicing up mobile/static defense missions with different wave types

[ImWithDerp]

IMO defense and mobile defense missions would feel more interesting if there were different types of enemy waves like some tower defense games have. For example:

• Swarm waves with large numbers of lighter/smaller enemies
• Special waves comprised entirely of non-standard enemy types like ghouls, amalgams, or grey strain infested
• Elite waves featuring a handful of highly skilled enemies like Rathuum Executioners, Index Brokers, or Zealots

Disruption missions already have this to an extent (certain conduits spawn groups of special enemies, and there are different types of demolishers/demolysts) and this is one of the reasons why I enjoy them!

 

[NinjaZeku]

I'm kinda fine with Mobile Defense as-is, in regards to enemies and such, it's one of the few mission types
where (pure) mass CC can really shine, so I don't need the enemies to be more engaging, personally.

But in any case, before anything else, MD (also e.g. Hijack) does need actual droptables so it's worth playing in the first place :P

For Defense, yeah more variety would be nice.
In general I wanna see shorter, but more intense Waves, alternatively / in addition, have less Waves per Rotation
(maybe increase special modifiers / whatever on later Rotations, and lower the Wave amount upon reaching that point).

The current situation where most Defense missions (like, pretty much anything non-Helene / Hydron)
can drag on to an atrocious degree, with enemies s-l-o-w-l-y trickling in, some here, some there,
no hurry or anything, just leasurely making their way to the mission objective in an uncoordinated fashion,
plus map (re)designs that feature multiple levels / myriads of obstacles blocking line of sight ... urgh why.

[Tsoe]

defense fix objective should be like a tower defense game

[ImWithDerp]

9 hours ago, NinjaZeku said:

The current situation where most Defense missions (like, pretty much anything non-Helene / Hydron)
can drag on to an atrocious degree, with enemies s-l-o-w-l-y trickling in, some here, some there,
no hurry or anything, just leasurely making their way to the mission objective in an uncoordinated fashion,
plus map (re)designs that feature multiple levels / myriads of obstacles blocking line of sight ... urgh why.

Yep. To help with this I'd love if we could somehow start the next wave early (as long as we have consent from all party members). I guess there'd be problems if we could start all waves at once, but if we could at least skip hunting down stragglers (like if the skip option appeared once no more new enemies are spawning for the current wave) it would improve the experience greatly!

[DrivaMain]

12 hours ago, ImWithDerp said:

IMO defense and mobile defense missions would feel more interesting if there were different types of enemy waves like some tower defense games have. For example:

• Swarm waves with large numbers of lighter/smaller enemies
• Special waves comprised entirely of non-standard enemy types like ghouls, amalgams, or grey strain infested
• Elite waves featuring a handful of highly skilled enemies like Rathuum Executioners, Index Brokers, or Zealots

Disruption missions already have this to an extent (certain conduits spawn groups of special enemies, and there are different types of demolishers/demolysts) and this is one of the reasons why I enjoy them!

 

Players will even be more pissed if the waves are harder because it slows the game down. We need a way to speed up defense missions.

[ImWithDerp]

4 minutes ago, DrivaMain said:

Players will even be more pissed if the waves are harder because it slows the game down. We need a way to speed up defense missions.

This is more about improving variety. Difficulty/speed is a seperate issue; the new wave types wouldn't necessarily be any slower than existing ones. For example, the elite wave means fewer stragglers to hunt down.