Plague Star, Scarlet Spear, and Orphix Venom -- What do you like and dislike?

[Aldain]

Plague Star: Meh, if the rewards weren't good and people weren't forma addicts people likely wouldn't have nearly as high of an opinion of it I'd wager.

Scarlet Spear: For something that required a Railjack it pretty much did as much as possible to make the Railjack a non-factor.

Orphix Venom: It is just a stress test for Necramechs in normal missions, more comparable to the Disruption launch than the prior two.

[Jarriaga]

Plague Star

Like: The concept. 

Dislike: Staleness due to being so formulaic. Could improve by making the meteor land on different parts of the Plains for scene variety and 8 new mission objectives ((Including at least 2 new ways to inject the catalysts/philaxis each) that cycle in between one another to make the overall bounty a lot more dynamic by progressing towards completely different stages even if at the end you still have to fight the same boss.

Scarlet Spear:

Like: The concept.

Dislike: Mission staleness due to map and enemy faction repetition, and cheese potential that favors space squads. Could be improved by making the event closer to the initial reveal and have the invasion be on The Plains instead of just Earth. This opens the doors to multiple active targets and a lot more scene variety. Also, invade Orb Valis and Cambion Drift. As for space squad cheese, have the space ship AI be a lot smarter and recognize when players just park inside the ship to avoid damage. A player should be required to stay in space and fight.

Orphix Venom:

Liked: All.

Dislike: Nothing. I think this event was well done with regards to intent, although it kinda feels like derivative from Scarlet Spear.

[Loza03]

1 hour ago, Jarriaga said:

As for space squad cheese, have the space ship AI be a lot smarter and recognize when players just park inside the ship to avoid damage. A player should be required to stay in space and fight.

This'd have been made a lot better with improvements to the tactical intrinsics. Easier ability to swap maps, perhaps a means to use the 'join warp' in solo. Maybe the ability to join warp to the Oplink? Join Warp doesn't cancel abilities like taking the archwing does.

This'd have made it reasonable, if inconvenient to solo once you're powered up. Which I'd accept.

[Jarriaga]

1 hour ago, Loza03 said:

This'd have been made a lot better with improvements to the tactical intrinsics. Easier ability to swap maps, perhaps a means to use the 'join warp' in solo. Maybe the ability to join warp to the Oplink? Join Warp doesn't cancel abilities like taking the archwing does.

This'd have made it reasonable, if inconvenient to solo once you're powered up. Which I'd accept.

Agreed.

[LegendaryNeurotoxin]

Thank you, everybody! This feedback helps with the understanding of not only the good and bad points, but what specific components need to be addressed. Here's a few of the big points I see:

Normalized rewards - Plague and Exodia zaw parts, completed forma, completed or incomplete enhancers (stance forma, orokin catalysts and reactors, nitain, lenses, gravimag, etc), PoE arcanes, and event-specific items like, aesthetics, blueprints, and mods, all make sense to have. Adding additional useful rewards (Kuva, Endo, specific Riven categories, etc) 

 

Variance - They all get boring fast, then it is just a sleepy grinder that feels meaningless aside from the rewards. Different mission objectives, mini-bosses, maybe a bounty system to help manage variance and expected rewards, and other things that break the monotony. Whether you solo a 6 minute no-boss or full crew with boss kills,

 - Plague Star gets boring, even with Konzu making fun of Vay Hek's face every time. Same mission, same steps, the only variance is the position of the objectives which just makes it even MORE annoying. Different steps, different objectives, different ways to obtain, charge, and deliver the Thrax toxin, add in the thumpers and some Deimos creatures that replace a lot of the normal Grineer presence, and this could be a bit more fun and interesting. 

 - Scarlet Spear is the rush to wait game, with the same objective moving around a bit. The space portion was nice for getting some bonus intrinsics, but it was mostly grabbing the football, rushing to the ship, then everyone disembarking so the ship wouldn't get blasted anymore, and was ultimately not terribly different than the surface game aside from earning more points and not needing some goofy boss blaster like a zaw launcher setup. Space combat probably should have been about space combat, with 1-2 people disembarking to board a crew ship equivalent, drop an OpLink, and have the ship feed codes out to surface players til the ship itself is attacked and destroyed by enemy fighters. Surface needs more and different objectives too, like maybe a part of the mission is taking the Condrix down, then scavenging parts off sentient kills for disruptors that will prevent redeployment, and the "end" of the mission comes from sealing off all the spawn points to halt the deployment process. I do like the suggestion to use this with open worlds, not just the Earth forest tileset. 

 - Orphix Venom is the triple-whammy barrier to entry, using a clunky mode of play, where half the viable playable units don't even have a means to heal back to 100%. The requirement to access it is, at the bare minimum, a functional operator--already edging out the newest players. When those players finally get in, they learn to use the mechs, they learn that the default off-the-ground mechs are only good for about round 12, causing them to leave at 12 and frustrate the hell out of players that want to go the distance and don't wanna throw away 20 minutes at a time. Players who have a mech didn't fare much better until getting key mods from the event, particularly Necramech Repair. And so all that time and effort is built up to use a slow, clunky, cumbersome mech to..... go to a point, break some stuff, get the target to 50%, break more stuff, and finish the boss, all while a chaotic pile of enemy spawns are targeting the players and seemingly never each other. Basically no variance, even when badmom pops in and issues order Delta A-1 Steak Sauce. She seemed just as upset about the event as us players. 

 

Relevance - When a relay is threatened with destruction, and we know relay destruction can actually happen, it puts the context around an event and spurs the players into action. When it is just an existential threat on the periphery that we can grind as we please, but will ultimately end with or without our participation, the only reason to play it is for the grind. 

[xcrimsonlegendx]

Only thing I hate about Plague star is how lazy the Hemocyte boss is. Its literally just Lephantis on Earth. When it spawns, it just walks out of the side of the boil. Its like something out of an N64 game, it just looks awful. If it wasn't for the rewards I'd say its the worst looking recurring event ever. I mean at least give it a unique boss, hell if it was some original infested monster on the plains, I play it just for fun over and over.

[(PSN)FuzzyTomahawk375]

Major issue in Orphix Venom with not receiving any rewards if the host drops out of the party.  It happened to me 2 nights ago and again about 5 minutes ago.  One of my buddies said he was about to quit the game for good.  Can this issue get fixed, please?  Thank you.

[(PSN)DoctorWho_90250]

3 hours ago, LegendaryNeurotoxin said:

Thank you, everybody! This feedback helps with the understanding of not only the good and bad points, but what specific components need to be addressed. Here's a few of the big points I see:

Normalized rewards - Plague and Exodia zaw parts, completed forma, completed or incomplete enhancers (stance forma, orokin catalysts and reactors, nitain, lenses, gravimag, etc), PoE arcanes, and event-specific items like, aesthetics, blueprints, and mods, all make sense to have. Adding additional useful rewards (Kuva, Endo, specific Riven categories, etc) 

 

Variance - They all get boring fast, then it is just a sleepy grinder that feels meaningless aside from the rewards. Different mission objectives, mini-bosses, maybe a bounty system to help manage variance and expected rewards, and other things that break the monotony. Whether you solo a 6 minute no-boss or full crew with boss kills,

 - Plague Star gets boring, even with Konzu making fun of Vay Hek's face every time. Same mission, same steps, the only variance is the position of the objectives which just makes it even MORE annoying. Different steps, different objectives, different ways to obtain, charge, and deliver the Thrax toxin, add in the thumpers and some Deimos creatures that replace a lot of the normal Grineer presence, and this could be a bit more fun and interesting. 

 - Scarlet Spear is the rush to wait game, with the same objective moving around a bit. The space portion was nice for getting some bonus intrinsics, but it was mostly grabbing the football, rushing to the ship, then everyone disembarking so the ship wouldn't get blasted anymore, and was ultimately not terribly different than the surface game aside from earning more points and not needing some goofy boss blaster like a zaw launcher setup. Space combat probably should have been about space combat, with 1-2 people disembarking to board a crew ship equivalent, drop an OpLink, and have the ship feed codes out to surface players til the ship itself is attacked and destroyed by enemy fighters. Surface needs more and different objectives too, like maybe a part of the mission is taking the Condrix down, then scavenging parts off sentient kills for disruptors that will prevent redeployment, and the "end" of the mission comes from sealing off all the spawn points to halt the deployment process. I do like the suggestion to use this with open worlds, not just the Earth forest tileset. 

 - Orphix Venom is the triple-whammy barrier to entry, using a clunky mode of play, where half the viable playable units don't even have a means to heal back to 100%. The requirement to access it is, at the bare minimum, a functional operator--already edging out the newest players. When those players finally get in, they learn to use the mechs, they learn that the default off-the-ground mechs are only good for about round 12, causing them to leave at 12 and frustrate the hell out of players that want to go the distance and don't wanna throw away 20 minutes at a time. Players who have a mech didn't fare much better until getting key mods from the event, particularly Necramech Repair. And so all that time and effort is built up to use a slow, clunky, cumbersome mech to..... go to a point, break some stuff, get the target to 50%, break more stuff, and finish the boss, all while a chaotic pile of enemy spawns are targeting the players and seemingly never each other. Basically no variance, even when badmom pops in and issues order Delta A-1 Steak Sauce. She seemed just as upset about the event as us players. 

 

Relevance - When a relay is threatened with destruction, and we know relay destruction can actually happen, it puts the context around an event and spurs the players into action. When it is just an existential threat on the periphery that we can grind as we please, but will ultimately end with or without our participation, the only reason to play it is for the grind. 

Orphix Venom:
Arrive.
Go to Sentients.
Shoot pods.
Shoot Orphix.
Shoot pods.
Shoot Orphix.
Maybe shoot pods again.
Kill sentient.
Wait for Orphix to respawn.
Orphix respawns.
Run to Orphix.
Shoot pods.

etc. etc. etc. ad nausea. I know people hate Plague Star. At the same time, Orphix Venom bored the hell out of me and did so in a much quicker time than Scarlet Spear and Plague Star ever did. Doesn't help that were trundling along in mechs when our frames are much faster. I get it, it's a test run for mechs in normal missions, and DE are working on stuff to give us to do in order to make mechs a viable gameplay mechanic. At the same time, it's very boring. I mean, very very boring. I'm only in it now for the gold clan trophy to be honest. I see the hate towards Plague Star and the praise for Orphix Venom and am wondering if the event I'm playing is somehow radically different from what others are playing. At least with Plague Star I have the "weeeeeee I'm flying" with Titania.