Ambulas bossfight is a bloated time-waster. Also just kinda sucks in general. Can we please do something about it?

[Artekkor]

Last sortie reminded me once again how badly designed Ambulas bossfight is. Every time i almost fall asleep while doing it. DE, its been years, can we do something about this please?

Issue #1: It takes way too long for the ship to arrive. What is it, like 2 minutes? That's way too long. It needs to be cut by 30 seconds, at least.

Issue #2: Enemies provide no resistance / challenge during the defense of a hacked ambulas. Even in sortie 3 players can safely hold them off with no effort, while the 4th player (me) gets to fall asleep from boredom because there's nothing to do. An addition of some bonus side-objective unrelated to murder could help alleviate that. Maybe going around hacking some special terminals to speed up the mission.
Or just enhance enemy ferocity for full squads, that could work too.

Issue #3: This bossfight breaks the golden rule of bossfights: you must do "the thing" 3 times, never more. This one requires 4. As such, it overstays its' welcome.
In this case "the thing" is trying to get as many hacked ambulas onto the ship as possible to reach that 6/6 requirement.
Unfortunately, you have to do it 4 times, because its 1+2+2+1.
I understand that the first lonely ambulas is like a tutorial one to get you prepared for the double-team, but that doesn't mean that we get to treat it as a separate instance of the fight and then just hit us up with 3 more rounds. Its exhausting.
Make the requirement 5 and we'll call it a day. Just this alone will cut down the time required to beat this mission by 2 minutes provided flawless performance.

Conclusion: On average the mission takes ~13 minutes to beat. Out of these thirteen - nine is just waiting around and defending hacked ambulas, INCLUDING waiting for the ship to actually arrive and take them away - because that's a separate set of events outside of timer. The definition of a bloat. It's like this was designed by Zack Snider.
The Ambulas themselves are a cool enemy, but we almost don't fight them during this "bossfight". They get downed and hacked in like 15 seconds and then its 2 minutes of slaying average grunts. Making the ambulas stronger while cutting the defense timer could make the mission a much better experience, because at least there's some actual bossfighting going on.

IMHO, the entire fight could probably be re-imagined from scratch, but since its part of a quest its probably too much hassle - a simple set of adjustments would go a long way making the current version a smoother experience.

[LillyRaccune]

Good ideas. I could dig a full rework of this robot boss fight. But a few tweaks would certainly be acceptable.

[Keiyadan]

how about we make him into a walking moa that is basicly a one shot hahaha
 

[Hello]

Worst fight in this game, also making Trinity the worst frame to farm for. 

All it does it combine one of the most boring mission types that DE is obssessed with throwing in everything, Mobile Defense. Then put three 2 minute versions (solo) of it into a single mission to make an insanely boring mission. Same reason why Plague Star sucks, the mobile defense part.

Even in Steel Path, it's not difficult. It's just a try not to fall asleep challenge. 

Personally, start Ambulus at 2 spawns per cycle. This would make it 2 rounds instead of 3 when solo. That would help a lot. Cut 2 minutes down to 1 minute, there is 0 reason why it should be 2 minutes at a time when there is multiple cycles. 

or as much as I dislike the parazon parts of the new Jackal fight. Make 1 ambulus have to take 4 stabs and a single 2 minute mobile defense. That's it, makes the fight like 5 minutes instead of 10+

[(NSW)Greybones]

Personally I rather like the Ambulas boss fight.

If you’re falling asleep out of boredom, I’m not sure… what’s being asked for here. You want to cut down on the time, but you want the time extended by giving you things to do and a fight you may well lose?

Wasn’t the whole point of being so powerful because the fight was already boring when guaranteed wins are the only outcome, and it’s better to bypass it because there’s no other option than making the fight boring for the sake of the grind? 🤨

[Artekkor]

46 минут назад, (NSW)Greybones сказал:

Personally I rather like the Ambulas boss fight.

If you’re falling asleep out of boredom, I’m not sure… what’s being asked for here. You want to cut down on the time, but you want the time extended by giving you things to do and a fight you may well lose?

Wasn’t the whole point of being so powerful because the fight was already boring when guaranteed wins are the only outcome, and it’s better to bypass it because there’s no other option than making the fight boring for the sake of the grind? 🤨

It's a question of balance between how long the fight takes and what experience it provides during that time. How can i put it... Making it feel fulfilling.

For example Profit Taker / Exploiter Orb fights - even if they are annoying for their own reasons - are pretty fulfilling fights because of how much effort they require and there's always something to do. They take about the same amount of time as Ambulas, but there's more weight to them and far greater rewards too.

Ambulas fight, in comparison, is not very fulfilling. It's a bloated time-waster with very little boss-fighting. The majority of time is eaten up by a generic MD style defense against waves of common grunts. This can hardly be called a boss-fight at this point, it's just MD disguised as one.

And like... Ambulas themselves are an interesting enemy. 1v1 with weak gear sometimes they actually feel like a real boss with their weak points and unique AoE attacks.
Unfortunately none of that is experienced in a full-team sortie 3, where the poor things get their legs broken by some melee-spamming tenno in 5 seconds after they appear.
They need to last like 20 seconds under focused fire from the whole squad to feel threatening.

 

For a different side of the spectrum: The Sergeant.
This guy is a pathetic "Boss" who usually dies in a single shotgun shot. But at the very least he has the courtesy to do just that, while Ambulas' design completely refuses to respect my time.

[Lutesque]

It's not actually a Boss Fight.... It's a Mobile Defense Mission Pretending To Be a Boss Fight...

Just like Defense Missions are just Stationary Exterminations.

You know what's messed up though....

DE Actually succeeded into making me believe this Actually was a Boss Fight so yeah... Shame on me...but now I know.... Let's see if they can Fool me again next time... 😈...

3 hours ago, Artekkor said:

 

Issue #2: Enemies provide no resistance / challenge during the defense of a hacked ambulas.

Why would you want them too ? 🤔 Infact I would rather they Didn't appear in the first place... Adds are a cheap and ineffective way of making a boss challenging anyways... Or did we learn nothing from The Profit Taker ? 😐

3 hours ago, Artekkor said:

Even in sortie 3 players can safely hold them off with no effort, while the 4th player (me) gets to fall asleep from boredom because there's nothing to do.

I mean.... All I can say is Good for you.... Back when I was MR. 8 this mission was almost impossible to to do....

After banging my head against it so many times my friend felt sorry for me and just bought and gifted me Trinity from the market...

Remember that there are Other Tenno also trying to defeat the Ambulus.... It can't just be all about you.

3 hours ago, Artekkor said:

Making the ambulas stronger while cutting the defense timer could make the mission a much better experience, because at least there's some actual bossfighting going on.

Do you really think Giving The Ambulus Lich Style Damage Reduction is going to make them any better ? 😐

1 hour ago, Hello said:

Worst fight in this game, also making Trinity the worst frame to farm for. 

Ash would like to have a Word with you... 🤔

23 minutes ago, Artekkor said:

Ambulas fight, in comparison, is not very fulfilling. It's a bloated time-waster with very little boss-fighting. The majority of time is eaten up by a generic MD style defense against waves of common grunts. This can hardly be called a boss-fight at this point, it's just MD disguised as one.

Well making it drop Arcanes us definitely not going to Fix it.... Although it was good enough for Railjack so I guess it would work here too.

25 minutes ago, Artekkor said:

And like... Ambulas themselves are an interesting enemy. 1v1 with weak gear sometimes they actually feel like a real boss with their weak points and unique AoE attacks.

Oh please... They're just Glorified MoAs.... There's literally nothing they can do that I haven't seen MoA doing before.... This doesn't change just because you can't one shot them.

27 minutes ago, Artekkor said:

Unfortunately none of that is experienced in a full-team sortie 3, where the poor things get their legs broken by some melee-spamming tenno in 5 seconds after they appear.
They need to last like 20 seconds under focused fire from the whole squad to feel threatening.

Damage Sponges are Even worse... I'd rather fall asleep with the Timers...

28 minutes ago, Artekkor said:

For a different side of the spectrum: The Sergeant.
This guy is a pathetic "Boss" who usually dies in a single shotgun shot. But at the very least he has the courtesy to do just that, while Ambulas' design completely refuses to respect my time.

Exactly...

Sarge is the Best Warframe Boss...♥️ !!!

 

[(NSW)Greybones]

1 hour ago, Artekkor said:

It's a question of balance between how long the fight takes and what experience it provides during that time. How can i put it... Making it feel fulfilling.

For example Profit Taker / Exploiter Orb fights - even if they are annoying for their own reasons - are pretty fulfilling fights because of how much effort they require and there's always something to do. They take about the same amount of time as Ambulas, but there's more weight to them and far greater rewards too.

Ambulas fight, in comparison, is not very fulfilling. It's a bloated time-waster with very little boss-fighting. The majority of time is eaten up by a generic MD style defense against waves of common grunts. This can hardly be called a boss-fight at this point, it's just MD disguised as one.

And like... Ambulas themselves are an interesting enemy. 1v1 with weak gear sometimes they actually feel like a real boss with their weak points and unique AoE attacks.
Unfortunately none of that is experienced in a full-team sortie 3, where the poor things get their legs broken by some melee-spamming tenno in 5 seconds after they appear.
They need to last like 20 seconds under focused fire from the whole squad to feel threatening.

It’s not hard to understand that a fight that lasts a while with no counter-threat doesn’t feel fulfilling. I see it a lot around lichs/sisters; players bring equipment that can easily hose down their lich/sister in damage, but they’re not about to let the enemy threaten them, so it simply becomes a slog of un-interesting “Just keep shooting until thing is dead”. This is exactly what the player wanted, mind you; power to destroy as fast as possible with as little threat, because these fights have become so boring that the best option is to get the fight over with ASAP with guaranteed success.

Theoretically, the “thing to do” while the Ambulas is waiting to be picked up is to survive against and fight against the enemies who spawn. Usually the “survive” isn’t a problem, and the “fight against” tends to boil down to “What colour fireworks do I want to see?”. I can see how it’s a problem in multiplayer because players insist on bringing only the most powerful, either because there’s some sort of proof-of-strength that they require of themselves, or because they’re looking to grind as easy as possible, or because they simply find it fun. That can be a little difficult to sort out, especially when some players are convinced it’s the only way to play

[LillyRaccune]

I like the "big picture" effect of this boss fight. Having spaceships attacking us from orbit feels epic (even if the actual attack is kinda meh).

[DoomFruit]

14 hours ago, Artekkor said:

This bossfight breaks the golden rule of bossfights: you must do "the thing" 3 times, never more

Sonic would disagree. Robotnik at the end of each zone always needed to be bopped on the head 8 times to die.

But yes. I hate ambulas as well. Any sortie with that gets skipped.

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

A Fix:

Add a terminal that lets you summon More Ambulas

so if you are Really So Overleveled that this fight has devolved from Challenge to Waiting Game (OP, apparently)

now you can just fight all 6 of them Simultaneously with only 1 dropship timer.

 

 

[Silligoose]

On 2021-12-04 at 8:52 PM, Artekkor said:

Last sortie reminded me once again how badly designed Ambulas bossfight is. Every time i almost fall asleep while doing it. DE, its been years, can we do something about this please?

Issue #1: It takes way too long for the ship to arrive. What is it, like 2 minutes? That's way too long. It needs to be cut by 30 seconds, at least.

Issue #2: Enemies provide no resistance / challenge during the defense of a hacked ambulas. Even in sortie 3 players can safely hold them off with no effort, while the 4th player (me) gets to fall asleep from boredom because there's nothing to do. An addition of some bonus side-objective unrelated to murder could help alleviate that. Maybe going around hacking some special terminals to speed up the mission.
Or just enhance enemy ferocity for full squads, that could work too.

Issue #3: This bossfight breaks the golden rule of bossfights: you must do "the thing" 3 times, never more. This one requires 4. As such, it overstays its' welcome.
In this case "the thing" is trying to get as many hacked ambulas onto the ship as possible to reach that 6/6 requirement.
Unfortunately, you have to do it 4 times, because its 1+2+2+1.
I understand that the first lonely ambulas is like a tutorial one to get you prepared for the double-team, but that doesn't mean that we get to treat it as a separate instance of the fight and then just hit us up with 3 more rounds. Its exhausting.
Make the requirement 5 and we'll call it a day. Just this alone will cut down the time required to beat this mission by 2 minutes provided flawless performance.

Conclusion: On average the mission takes ~13 minutes to beat. Out of these thirteen - nine is just waiting around and defending hacked ambulas, INCLUDING waiting for the ship to actually arrive and take them away - because that's a separate set of events outside of timer. The definition of a bloat. It's like this was designed by Zack Snider.
The Ambulas themselves are a cool enemy, but we almost don't fight them during this "bossfight". They get downed and hacked in like 15 seconds and then its 2 minutes of slaying average grunts. Making the ambulas stronger while cutting the defense timer could make the mission a much better experience, because at least there's some actual bossfighting going on.

IMHO, the entire fight could probably be re-imagined from scratch, but since its part of a quest its probably too much hassle - a simple set of adjustments would go a long way making the current version a smoother experience.

I agree with some of the points here:

• Too easy - a general issue with Warframe at the moment (and has been for a while)
• Golden rule of 3. It actually feels like it used to be only 3 waves with a 1-, 2-, 3- Ambula defence sequence years ago. I might be mistaken

I don't mind the mission however, basically a capture-into-defense with some environmental spice thrown in and I don't mind the defense time for each stage, so personally I don't feel a need for a re-imagining of the mission, but doing it four times instead of three feels off and lack of challenge makes it a chore instead of engaging.

[Lutesque]

2 hours ago, (PSN)haphazardlynamed said:

A Fix:

Add a terminal that lets you summon More Ambulas

so if you are Really So Overleveled that this fight has devolved from Challenge to Waiting Game (OP, apparently)

now you can just fight all 6 of them Simultaneously with only 1 dropship timer.

 

 

Booben Humbly requests this Change 😁 !!!

 

[(NSW)Greybones]

6 hours ago, (PSN)haphazardlynamed said:

A Fix:

Add a terminal that lets you summon More Ambulas

so if you are Really So Overleveled that this fight has devolved from Challenge to Waiting Game (OP, apparently)

now you can just fight all 6 of them Simultaneously with only 1 dropship timer.

 

 

I’m getting deja vu in regards to another topic in General where someone wants the Sortie reward to basically be a daily login reward, instead of having to slog through easy-peasy Sorties for a chance at something they may not need at the moment.

🤔 I’m pretty sure the game is in the way for a lot of people, and what would solve the problem is a little interface update where a player selects a mission, a little Roulette wheel appears, and the mission rolls for a chance at a mission drop. Rinse and repeat

[Lutesque]

3 hours ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

I’m getting deja vu in regards to another topic in General where someone wants the Sortie reward to basically be a daily login reward, instead of having to slog through easy-peasy Sorties for a chance at something they may not need at the moment.

Easy Peasy ? 😱

Melee Only Kela DE Thayme would like to have a Word with You 🤨

3 hours ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

 

🤔 I’m pretty sure the game is in the way for a lot of people, and what would solve the problem is a little interface update where a player selects a mission, a little Roulette wheel appears, and the mission rolls for a chance at a mission drop. Rinse and repeat

Yes... This would be lovely... I want this !! 

[(NSW)Greybones]

1 hour ago, Lutesque said:

Easy Peasy ? 😱

Melee Only Kela DE Thayme would like to have a Word with You 🤨

Yes... This would be lovely... I want this !! 

Haha, I guess they never did Melee Only Kela.

Also, I bet that an interface roulette’d be popular 😋

[DoomFruit]

3 hours ago, Lutesque said:

Melee Only Kela DE Thayme would like to have a Word with You

Mesa and a redeemer says hi.

Or Titania. Or Excal.

[(XBOX)Bloxanity2816]

On 2021-12-05 at 3:39 AM, LillyRaccune said:

I like the "big picture" effect of this boss fight. Having spaceships attacking us from orbit feels epic (even if the actual attack is kinda meh).

Yeah, it's also one of the reasons this mission is interesting, ignoring the fact that Frohd still uses the old Corpus Obelisk model.

May I ask how you managed to get that GIF? It seems so realistic and can be used in Oplink rather than this code exchange thingy we had in scarlet spear.

[Lutesque]

2 hours ago, DoomFruit said:

Mesa and a redeemer says hi.

Or Titania. Or Excal.

Doesn't make up for The Lack of Ignis... 😝

 

[LillyRaccune]

1 hour ago, (XBOX)Bloxanity2816 said:

May I ask how you managed to get that GIF? It seems so realistic and can be used in Oplink rather than this code exchange thingy we had in scarlet spear.

A Reddit User named Sketchboard113 made the original (and much better looking) video (https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/iwtpvq/how_photon_strike_works/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), I downloaded it, fed it into ezgif.com, and edited it a bit to make it faster.

I'm glad you enjoy it. I've been thinking about making a personal version from scratch, but for now I'm happy with this one. It always makes me giggle.

 

[Kaichi16]

it doesn't feel like a "boss fight". it feels like generic corpus mission. i like it but it's not a good boss fight.

[Lutesque]

@LillyRaccune out of all the things I've Embedded... This one is the strangest 🤔....

 

[LillyRaccune]

1 hour ago, Lutesque said:

@LillyRaccune out of all the things I've Embedded... This one is the strangest 🤔....

I have that experience as well when posting twitter and reddit posts here. When it happens, I click the button on the bottom of the editor box "paste as plain text instead" or "display as link instead".

 

[(XBOX)Bloxanity2816]

On 2021-12-04 at 9:52 PM, Artekkor said:

It takes way too long for the ship to arrive. What is it, like 2 minutes? That's way too long. It needs to be cut by 30 seconds, at least.

It wasnt always like that. After an update some time ago dropships became incredibly slow and nothing is being done about it. Heck, even after Frohd's ship explodes, you can still see the storm dropship for some time before it disappears.

On 2021-12-07 at 8:30 PM, LillyRaccune said:

A Reddit User named Sketchboard113 made the original (and much better looking) video (https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/iwtpvq/how_photon_strike_works/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), I downloaded it, fed it into ezgif.com, and edited it a bit to make it faster.

I'm glad you enjoy it. I've been thinking about making a personal version from scratch, but for now I'm happy with this one. It always makes me giggle.

 

Yeah, and it even feels more realistic, reminds me of the Obelisk we see in orbit in the Ambulas boss fight, one of the good things in that fight let me tell you that, if the Corpus can easily work together through space and ground like that, why can't we? 

[Stevens]

Just give us 2 Ambulases on 2nd round