Returning player on why I'm finding myself increasingly frustrated with Zariman content

[RottedApples]

When veilbreaker dropped i decided to get back into the game after having not played for a while. I needed to do the new war to get to veilbreaker and also zariman for mats to get the segment for the archon shards to do those hunts. 

Anyway i've enjoyed the hunts so far, i'm very happy with my main oberon with the shards i've put on him. I've started to turn my attention to other farms i need to do to get through content i've missed, one of which being Zariman;

Initially I was unsure of zariman but after getting my feet wet i actually like it. the new game modes are cool, the tileset is cool and offers a lot of breakable things for my lizard brain to enjoy. the incarnon weapons are cool and i've been having a nice time going through the faction. However not all the grinds there are as nice.

There's a couple weapons from the bounties that require pieces, to get the pieces i need to do C rotations of the endless game modes. Now i don't particularly mind this part of it, though the rewards for C rotations if i don't hit the weapon parts are pretty poor, but getting to the C rotations has been quite a chore for no good reason.

The problem is simple, i grab my bounty and join a mission, we do the bounty, and everyone leaves right away. Now i don't expect people to just always go to the C rotation, but it's basically never happening at all. surely people must need the weapon parts and yet i never see anyone stay for the C rotation, ever.

Fine, maybe i can get there myself after everyone else leaves, this place has solo extract after all! except well, it's not implemented well, even compared to other places in the game. When everyone inevitably runs to extraction as fast as they possibly can they sit there and extract. Some people know you can hit the elevator to solo extract, though i'll admit i was unsure if i was at first as it looked like i pulled everyone in the squad to me when i hit it and that seemed like a $&*^ move. But most people don't seem to realize you can solo extract, or they don't care when 3/4 people are sitting in the elevator.

Ordinarily i shoudn't be complaining about this, however for whatever reason the solo extract in zariman is different, and objectively worse, than other game modes. When people sit on the extract, and the timer runs out, you get pulled to them, this happens in eidolon and fortuna and deimos, but in those you can leave the squad, you can't do that in zariman. If it were a normal survival or defense mission on the star chart then when you leave, or the timer runs out, you don't pull the rest of the squad, the people who wanted to leave just leave, and anyone who was still in stays in. It was great when we got that tech in survival, i remember that change, when it used to pull the rest of the squad before, and then there was a patch, and now it doesn't. 

So basically what happens is if we get to the C rotation before the bounty ends and everyone leaves, a big if, half the people don't know how to solo extract, so I have a minute to try to finish the C rotation myself or i'm just S#&$ out of luck for no reason. It's like someone got halfway there on the extract, and then just forgot the most important part, leaving the people who want to stay, in the mission...

 

[sunderthefirmament]

31 minutes ago, RottedApples said:

The problem is simple, i grab my bounty and join a mission, we do the bounty, and everyone leaves right away. Now i don't expect people to just always go to the C rotation, but it's basically never happening at all. surely people must need the weapon parts and yet i never see anyone stay for the C rotation, ever.

I believe people clear bounties for bounty rewards and plumes.  If you want higher rotations, you should consider running the normal missions (or steel path for added goodies) off of the star chart.

 

31 minutes ago, RottedApples said:

the solo extract in zariman is different, and objectively worse, than other game modes.

Agreed.  If the host solo extracts, odds are good that the other players will lose their rewards.  It got to the point that when loading in I would kindly request that the host not solo extract.  They were usually receptive.

[SprinKah]

have you tried going into recruiting chat to look for people to do the missions with?

like H> Zarmian "mission type" for x amount of waves/rounds.

I think the whole "able to extract on your own" goes both ways, sometimes you really just want to stick around to do sth and the other players can simply extract and leave you to your lonesome to do whatever. And that's good justification.

Of course, there are other cases as well, where you want to keep going for more but ppl want to extract, like in your case. 

[iHaku]

ye me and several other people made topics about this already aswell. solo extraction is a great concept, but DE failed misserably to translate that its even there, for many people. they just sit there in the elevator and everyone who doesnt wanna leave is forced to leave with them... EVEN THO DE already made solo extraction by waiting possible in regular endless missions. feels like they literally just forgot to add it, while ignoring the forums about this issue.

 

[RottedApples]

15 hours ago, sunderthefirmament said:

I believe people clear bounties for bounty rewards and plumes.  If you want higher rotations, you should consider running the normal missions (or steel path for added goodies) off of the star chart.

i don't know why i would do the normal mission and not just run a bounty along side it to also get the bounty rewards while i'm farming. other than the timed exterminate mission i see no benefit to running the mission from the star chart when i can just also add the bounty reward which again, other than the timed exterminate, is usually a task that is easy enough to do, or already something you are going to do in the first place. Admittedly i'm playing late at night which is not peak times but when i was clearing nodes to unlock steel path, again, i didn't ever see anyone in the star chart nodes. I just tracked which zones i needed to clear, and got bounties to get squads. maybe it's the enemy levels but i feel like i can just do one rotation to C, leave, grab another bounty, and go to C again, and if i really have to solo it to C every time on the highest bounty tiers i'll make adjustments to my own loadout to do that.

9 hours ago, SprinKah said:

have you tried going into recruiting chat to look for people to do the missions with?

like H> Zarmian "mission type" for x amount of waves/rounds.

You're absolutely right i could do that and it would probably make my life easier. generally i'm a casual player i just want to hop into missions and do things, if i don't get a squad that wants to go to a c rotation that's fine. i'm being lazy with the recruiting chat. i haven't been using it for void fissures because i'm missing so much random stuff that i'm getting occasional parts just by running pubs, of course as i narrow down what i need i'll have to find dedicated squads but that's fine. I'll have a look around and see if other people are running zariman missions there

 

Anyway it's clear that people are on the same page with the extraction system not being quite right. I've definitely experienced issues with host migrations at extraction and whatnot but i feel like that's something that can eventually be improved, while this system will still exist even if it is. i'd prefer to just be able to leave squad if people want to extract and i'm not the host, like plains, because those host migrations seem to be the least buggy in my personal experience.

[(PSN)FunyFlyBoy]

If you're going to join a pug with your personal outlook of what is efficient then I would suggest not to join a pug. I am one of those who will not do a rotation beyond the bare minimum to extract on bounties because it's extra time for no reason for the goal I am aiming for; farming Endo rewards.

I don't care about the Hespar (already have it,don't care enough to sell sets). I don't care about C Rotation. All I care about is the Bounty reward, an Angel Voidplume Pinion (note, Pinion, not Crest, not Down, not Vane, but Pinion), and Arcanes. Anything not related to those three things is a waste of time towards the goal, and quite annoying when most of the group is off doing just the objective and some random is miles behind collecting Voidplumes, hunting for the Cephalon award, etc, and then getting annoyed with everyone else when it's 2/4 to 3/4 at extraction because they want to use bounties to hunt the other loose change stuff.

Sure, you could argue, "Well why don't you just solo the bounty and leave before Extract C?" I actually do occasionally if I am not in the mood to deal with host migration or other bugs causing me to lose all rewards. But I am sure you've noticed the argument goes both ways with the answer lying in which aligns best with what you're trying to do. Most pugs aren't staying for Rotation C therefore I would not expect them to and I take my chucklef*** arse to Star Chart if I am hunting for non-bounty rewards. 

[Lotus-123]

On 2022-11-05 at 11:14 AM, (PSN)FunyFlyBoy said:

I don't care about the Hespar (already have it,don't care enough to sell sets). I don't care about C Rotation. All I care about is the Bounty reward, an Angel Voidplume Pinion (note, Pinion, not Crest, not Down, not Vane, but Pinion), and Arcanes. Anything not related to those three things is a waste of time towards the goa

I don't know that there is a single 'right answer' to this problem of host migrations. For the most part, I'm in the same boat with FunyFlyBoy. I've got what I needed from the C rotations, just want more arcanes and stuff. In my opinion, the solo extractions are a pain. Most of the time, the entire squad is racing for extraction - but each one does a solo extraction. That's just rude. The rest of us have to sit around for 10 to 15 seconds, waiting for the host migration before we can start running again. And since host migration ends a lot of abilities and bonuses, it can be harder for the rest of us to survive. On the other hand, I've used solo extraction myself - when it looks like the squad is going to fail the mission by being too late to extract (void cascade).

But, as I was saying, I don't think there is a perfect cure to host migration from the programming side of things. Doesn't the problem stem from the fact that people in a public squad may have different goals? Ideally, you'd team up with people who have the same goal - but I don't see how DE can make that happen.

[RottedApples]

i've still been noticing people leaving after the A rotation a lot in the star chart so that just confuses me even more on what people are trying to achieve here. I have gotten to the C rotation more often though so i guess that's cool.

 

I think the only "right answer" to host migrations is them not existing but that would involve ditching the P2P matchmaking all together which probably has some pretty big implications and I'm sure there's a lot of reasons why DE doesn't want to do that and i'm not bothered much by it either.

[Lotus-123]

Host migrations continue to annoy. While racing to the elevator extraction from a cascade mission, a squad member jumps ship. 15 seconds of waiting for the migration, then all my buffs are gone. Cast my abilities again so that I won't die, . . and another squad member extracts. Wait another 15 seconds for the migration, and buffs all gone again. Luckily, I have enough energy to cast my abilities again - but the door that I was racing toward is now closed - and won't open again. I run away, but the extraction is still through that shut door. Finally it opens. Losing health. I barely make it to the elevator.

Does anyone think this is a good, fun, gaming experience?

[Frendh]

A leave squad option would be nice. Should be simple enough to introduce.

[Lotus-123]

9 hours ago, Frendh said:

A leave squad option would be nice. Should be simple enough to introduce.

Zariman missions do have a Leave Squad option. I would find it easier to accept the long delays every time someone leaves the squad if it didn't also remove all my buffs. Abilities like Wukong's clone or Rhino's iron skin are currently lost. Also any stacked benefits from Health Conversion or Molt Vigor are also gone.

[Frendh]

14 hours ago, Lotus-123 said:

Zariman missions do have a Leave Squad option. I would find it easier to accept the long delays every time someone leaves the squad if it didn't also remove all my buffs. Abilities like Wukong's clone or Rhino's iron skin are currently lost. Also any stacked benefits from Health Conversion or Molt Vigor are also gone.

This is a non issue for me if I leave the squad. I am aware of what will happen and can easily prepare for it. If someone else host migrates me then yes, I might get cucked.