Time for the Harrow Systems to Migrate to Another Source.

[FrostDragoon]

1 hour ago, TARINunit9 said:

Never had an issue with this. They have one job, "just f*cking run," and 99 times out of 100 they do exactly that just fine

Either you have been unlikely to the point of statistical unlikelihood, or you're being disingenuous. The AI gets stuck on all sorts of crap all the time. They also get their pathfinding mixed up and sometimes run in endless loops on certain tiles. It's a buggy hell hole of a mission. It's also just kind of a dumb mission mode conceptually. Vast majority of people I've ever met in a huge variety of games agree: They can't stand escort missions/quests. Usually it's for the same reasons, even across different games and different genres. I don't know why DE thought this would be a good idea outside of the idea that to earn this "priest" character you would have to go through an excruciating exercise in self-flagellation and long suffering that leaves you wondering whether there is a god, and if so, how it could allow this to exist.

[FrostDragoon]

40 minutes ago, trst said:

I always find defection complaints bizarre when the only complaint it should have is being boring. It's the only endless mode where killing enemies is entirely optional (Limbo/subsume Banish + augment or Vazarin Protective Dash) and literally has no fail state if you just take the correct frame and with a squad is possibly the fastest endless mode.

As well the pathing issues are more rare than people claim (though I'd suspect it's worsened by poor quality connections) and most if not all of them can be solved by walking into the stuck unit a few times.

As for the actual topic however, no. There is no reason to dilute more pools with one/two-off rewards when it is a perfectly fine mode when you bother to learn it.

It might be one thing if they actually fixed it, but this idea that it somehow works correctly... ever... is ridiculous. You are right that it's super boring, though. The rewards are also really lackluster outside of the one-offs. The drop chance is abysmal too.

If I was going to suggest any change to help fix this, it would be to get rid of the squads and replace them with single, beefier units, since a lot of the pathfinding bugs and issues are a result of too many entities in too small a space for the AI to handle correctly. The other big change I might suggest is to change the tile set to something with less crap for them to get hung up on, as that's where most of the game-breaking bugs I've seen tend to occur. The tile with the three paths into the room and a giant hole in the middle of it is particularly nasty about this.

[OwlOfJune]

On the AI getting stuck, I will admit it never got stuck anywhere whenever I did play there, but for some reason every couple squad one of those idiots will remain behind and get damaged.

 

Never found out why.

[FrostDragoon]

7 minutes ago, OwlOfJune said:

On the AI getting stuck, I will admit it never got stuck anywhere whenever I did play there, but for some reason every couple squad one of those idiots will remain behind and get damaged.

 

Never found out why.

It's just because of the issues I described above--cluttered/broken tile set, AI pathing bugs, too many entities too close together, etc.

[TARINunit9]

7 hours ago, FrostDragoon said:

Either you have been unlikely to the point of statistical unlikelihood, or you're being disingenuous. The AI gets stuck on all sorts of crap all the time. They also get their pathfinding mixed up and sometimes run in endless loops on certain tiles. 

Look, I have just never had them get stuck. They do get separated sometimes sure, and sometimes if they get knocked down they'll take the long way around something after standing up. But outright stuck? Never seen that. And I was grinding out trophies during the original event, so it's not like I've only played the mission once.

They're actually better at pathfinding than syndicate allies. I've seen syndicate dudes get pathfinding-locked just by getting hit by a melee attack, but the Kavor will wade through a dozen melee attacks as long as the Tenno heal the damage afterwards

[CalamitousPrime]

18 hours ago, (PSN)PheonixFontaine said:

The biggest issues with Defection:

1.  Survivor AI
2.  Survivor survivability and scaling per round. (Enemies hit harder, survivors take less punches.)
3.  Duration. If you have all groups moving at the same pace, it's sorta bearable, but maintaining batteries and survivor health and... it's a lot of extra steps.

If the first 2 issues (Survivors can repath if they get stuck and scale better per round), it would be bearable. It is literally an escort mission and that's the biggest note. Nobody likes Escort missions in games because the AI is tricky and can't defend itself properly when necessary.

It IS outdated and while I agree with this:

I also think tweaks could be done. Double-down on the intent of the mission, fix the major flaws/bugs and reduce the RNG problems.

Unfortunately, the biggest sour note to come from Tennocon is Pablo's comment about it being better to do newer things than fix older things. This shines in Defection and many game modes. I think we need them to revisit these bad things and either tweak them better or erase them from the game. Many of these changes I think would be simple changes, like tweaking the unit survivability of the Grineer defectors themselves. These should be built-in, but imagine if you tweaked their base stats better by a bit. Simple, but effective. AI would be a lot harder to fix I think though.

This mission mode also forces very specific warframes. This isn't anyone's game and that's a very unappealing factor.

 

Side Note: The Plot surrounding it is actually kinda important for Steel Meridian and Red Veil, but lacks a lot of context. So that's a thing.

 

This in particular is the most unbearable thing about defection. I cannot tell you the amount of times a defector has gotten stuck and was forced to just die. 

[CalamitousPrime]

18 hours ago, Fallen77 said:

What do you mean you looked for a squad ? Just grab your favorite healer and get it done, you would have done that many more runs in the time you looked for squads.

And maybe, as you keep going at it, you'll be better and better at the game mode, thus giving you a nice sense of accomplishment when you finally drop the part.

Or we can all whine until it's moved to another place that would make the process of getting the system as brainless as it is to get the chassis.

I'm dramatizing the solution of course, but you get the point, just let rewards like this be nice unique small experiences of their own, that you have to get out of your way to get, rather that something that requires very little comitment, just as exciting as a piece of rubedo.

I heard "Play a warframe you dont want to" and "Farm petty resources while you waste time not doing higher level content" tbh. 

But yes, I understand what you mean, but "Just adapt" doesnt help solve the problem as a whole. Playing by oneself is never as entertaining as just running it solo the whole time and that is something that DE understands and has tried to address in other situations (Such as railjack) .

Also, only having a healer isnt enough . There needs to be: 

- CC for higher level infested

- A vauban to make speed pads 

- Healing

- AOE burst 

Otherwise there arent enough optimizations to make your time well spent. Youll spend half an hour in this mission waiting for defection to snail crawl all the way there. 

 These are pretty much the staples for defection. The best squad you can have for this is: 

- Equinox 

- Vauban 

- Wisp 

- Pick a fourth . 

Because believe me , Ive done plenty of tier III defection at this point and I gotta say, 11% drop chance for a harrow chassis is a lie. 

[CalamitousPrime]

23 hours ago, ZeroX4 said:

INFESTED SALVAGE is a joke to you?

Lmfao sorry, youre right . That game mode needs better rewards in it too. 

[CalamitousPrime]

18 hours ago, ebrl said:

Gara with Mending Splinters makes defection completely trivial. If you think you need a squad to hit a C rotation, that's a you problem.

Actually its quite funny yo usay that . That was the first strategy I employed when doing the defection as I like to play as gara, but unfortunately that splinter dmg resistance probably Either:

- Doesnt apply in full to defectors 

- Or their base stats are so low that when it comes down to the infested reaching a higher level that the damage resistance does little to no effect. 

as after about 10 rounds the splinters do nothing. I doubled down and made sure that I have enough strength to get the 90% resistance but alas, I did and gave up on the strategy.

Plus, the over encompassing problem here is that yes, the splinters give 90% resistance but you have to recast it on all 4 to 8 defectors every time it runs out. 

This drove me mad and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that this strategy is just too much of a hassle to employ. You're more worried about the splinters duration of defectors than you are about the rest of the game mode. Too distracting, wisp is better as a support task and Gara should use CC instead.  

And I never claimed I couldnt hit C rotation, I can. But the problem is that its not efficient by yourself and overall not worth the time. Players now have to farm for TWO harrow systems instead of just one. 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Why get better at the game, when we can just put literally all rewards in survival and disruption only? Help me DE I'm weak, lower the bar for me.

[CalamitousPrime]

9 hours ago, FrostDragoon said:

Either you have been unlikely to the point of statistical unlikelihood, or you're being disingenuous. The AI gets stuck on all sorts of crap all the time. They also get their pathfinding mixed up and sometimes run in endless loops on certain tiles. It's a buggy hell hole of a mission. It's also just kind of a dumb mission mode conceptually. Vast majority of people I've ever met in a huge variety of games agree: They can't stand escort missions/quests. Usually it's for the same reasons, even across different games and different genres. I don't know why DE thought this would be a good idea outside of the idea that to earn this "priest" character you would have to go through an excruciating exercise in self-flagellation and long suffering that leaves you wondering whether there is a god, and if so, how it could allow this to exist.

+

[CalamitousPrime]

17 hours ago, (XBOX)GearsMatrix301 said:

They could put it into a Railjack mission :D 

Im honestly up for that idea. I actually like railjack...

Did I just say that? 

[CalamitousPrime]

16 hours ago, V2lkyr said:

Harrow Prime is next after Nidus,if you give up you can get his prime

Unfortunately that doesnt solve the problem with subsuming. 

[CalamitousPrime]

10 hours ago, trst said:

I always find defection complaints bizarre when the only complaint it should have is being boring. It's the only endless mode where killing enemies is entirely optional (Limbo/subsume Banish + augment or Vazarin Protective Dash) and literally has no fail state if you just take the correct frame and with a squad is possibly the fastest endless mode.

As well the pathing issues are more rare than people claim (though I'd suspect it's worsened by poor quality connections) and most if not all of them can be solved by walking into the stuck unit a few times.

 

As for the actual topic however, no. There is no reason to dilute more pools with one/two-off rewards when it is a perfectly fine mode when you bother to learn it.

Oh believe me.. I was forced into learning it just fine xD. 

The problem with this suggestion is that it is the same as every other. "Use a synergy!" 

Ok, Id love to use a limbo right now! Oh, well what about Unairu dash? 

This doesnt work. First and foremost not everyone does have the ability to go and grab a Lua lens and slap it on a burst/dps frame for ESO to farm focus, let alone do an effective tricap for focus.  But what would you tell a player who is less adept than that? What if they never picked Unairu? What if they dont have XYZ? Would you really recommend that someone go out of their way to , on the first day farm all the parts .Maybe by the end of first days quest build parts, then the frame for another 3 whole days just to grab harrow? 

 

"Go farm Limbo and unairu to get harrow" is just not a good suggestion. And it doesnt solve the overall issue that this game mode has nothing in it other than one part for a warframe. 

Also. I think it would be wise for people to realize this as well: 

That is a 2020 usage statistic for every warframe in the game. Im sure it hasnt changed much by now. Go and check out harrows percentage... he is right next to mag prime, a vaulted prime frame as old as the dang game. 

[trst]

36 minutes ago, CalamitousPrime said:

Oh believe me.. I was forced into learning it just fine xD. 

The problem with this suggestion is that it is the same as every other. "Use a synergy!" 

Ok, Id love to use a limbo right now! Oh, well what about Unairu dash? 

This doesnt work. First and foremost not everyone does have the ability to go and grab a Lua lens and slap it on a burst/dps frame for ESO to farm focus, let alone do an effective tricap for focus.  But what would you tell a player who is less adept than that? What if they never picked Unairu? What if they dont have XYZ? Would you really recommend that someone go out of their way to , on the first day farm all the parts .Maybe by the end of first days quest build parts, then the frame for another 3 whole days just to grab harrow? 

 

"Go farm Limbo and unairu to get harrow" is just not a good suggestion. And it doesnt solve the overall issue that this game mode has nothing in it other than one part for a warframe. 

Also. I think it would be wise for people to realize this as well: 

That is a 2020 usage statistic for every warframe in the game. Im sure it hasnt changed much by now. Go and check out harrows percentage... he is right next to mag prime, a vaulted prime frame as old as the dang game. 

Banish or Protective Dash are just the most straight forward and effective options that turn the mode mindlessly infinite. The alternatives are using frames like Trinity, Oberon, Garuda, Gara, Nezha (needs augment), or Harrow (if you run with someone who already farmed him). Pretty much every frame with a heal trivializes it and there is also the other alternative of any frame that can grant a speed buff. And I don't think it's unreasonable to expect players to drop one farm to work on another first when it'll make other farms easier one might be struggling with.

Also Harrow's usage is low for being a janky support frame that's punished by allies taking kills from him. There is a reason his only real use is in Eidolons.

[FrostDragoon]

1 hour ago, trst said:

The alternatives are using frames like Trinity, Oberon, Garuda, Gara, Nezha (needs augment), or Harrow (if you run with someone who already farmed him).

I tried it with Trin, Oberon, and a few others, but the best option was Wisp. She gives them max health, regen, and movespeed--everything they need, except good AI and pathing.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

2 hours ago, CalamitousPrime said:

Im honestly up for that idea. I actually like railjack...

Did I just say that? 

I like Railjack too, but DEs implementation of rewards into it has been awful. Especially the old frame farms that they moved into it.

[Aldain]

Can we just delete Defection from the game while we're at it?

[CalamitousPrime]

4 hours ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

Why get better at the game, when we can just put literally all rewards in survival and disruption only? Help me DE I'm weak, lower the bar for me.

A very disingenuous approach to the situation as obviously there are true reasons why this game mode struggles.  You did not participate in the discussion you merely made a conclusion based on negativity. And therefore it is not considered. 

[Berzerkules]

DE would probably move it to some endless RJ mission on a terrible map with trash drop rates. Defection is pretty bad but at least it's not RJ. 

[FrostDragoon]

4 hours ago, CalamitousPrime said:

A very disingenuous approach to the situation as obviously there are true reasons why this game mode struggles.  You did not participate in the discussion you merely made a conclusion based on negativity. And therefore it is not considered. 

He does that quite a bit, but I tend to forgive some of his salt because he's been playing forever and is probably just burnt out.

[MqToasty]

Wow, I'm surprised to see how passionate people are about this game mode.  I might have just gotten lucky with it, but I do not recall Defectors ever getting stuck, and found it to be pretty trivial with Wisp and strategically placed motes.  Now, it is far from my favorite game mode and I will only play it for the rewards, but I do not recall the farm for either Ash or Harrow parts to be particularly painful or memorable in Defection...

[FrostDragoon]

28 minutes ago, MqToasty said:

Wow, I'm surprised to see how passionate people are about this game mode.  I might have just gotten lucky with it, but I do not recall Defectors ever getting stuck, and found it to be pretty trivial with Wisp and strategically placed motes.  Now, it is far from my favorite game mode and I will only play it for the rewards, but I do not recall the farm for either Ash or Harrow parts to be particularly painful or memorable in Defection...

I only run it to help others get the part they need. It has nothing for me, incentives wise. The easy way is to get two Wisps, place motes on A, B, C, and the defector exfil site. After that it's a matter of keeping trash under control, life support mostly full, and praying to RNGesus that they don't get stuck or glitch out.

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

On 2021-07-24 at 5:36 PM, ZeroX4 said:

INFESTED SALVAGE is a joke to you?

I actually enjoy Infested Salvage. I just don't play it because there isn't anything there that I need.

If DE gave that gamemode a decent droptable, with interesting items, then I would play it.

[Aldain]

33 minutes ago, MqToasty said:

Wow, I'm surprised to see how passionate people are about this game mode.

Honestly I think it isn't passion for the game mode so much as the "You must go through the same pain I did" or "I had no problem so you're lying about it being buggy" syndrome that a lot of Warframe has.

...Like the Sibear Cryotic farm which still has people crawling out of the woodwork saying that changing it would be a slap in their face, despite them likely having long since leveled/sold the Sibear for Mastery Fodder.

Every time DE makes anything less stupid of a grind there's always at least one person who thinks their time has retroactively been invalidated...like when the adjusted the stats on Reactors in Railjack...or when they changed what Reactors did on Railjack...or every time Riven mods get changed, the list is very long.