Changes to Spy mission type.

[TheMostFrench]

Spy is a pretty cool mission type, you sneak into vaults and have to hack the system in time to extract info. There are several paths through each vault, with easier ones avoiding most traps or detection. There are bonuses for no alarms, and it more or less makes sense for a game about fast, deadly ninjas in a sci-fi universe.

After figuring perfecting the puzzles after several years, the majority of people agree that it's best to split up and take on each vault solo. Maybe one or two people won't even go into a vault at all because their abilities make them slower or easier to be spotted.

IMO There are a few issues with the current design:

• Based on the above, once a person goes into a vault, it becomes a liability for anyone else to go in with them. No one else can actually contribute to completing the vault any faster.
   
• Only one person can hack the system at a time:
  When someone gets past all of the obstacles and reaches the data vault, only one of them can be hacking it, and anyone else will just be standing there waiting. If the first person does a bad job of hacking, it starts a count down timer which adds to the stress. They can keep spamming it again and again, even if someone else is there who could do a better job. As far as I know, there is also no external indicator that a person has failed a hack (their character doesn't shake their head, or look annoyed, nothing indicates that it went badly). This is especially frustrating in sortie missions where one person's mistake can fail the mission for the entire group, even if everyone else had impeccable performance.
   
• Frames like Wukong make the majority of spy vaults redundant, since he can avoid trap detection and skip parkour sections at the same time:
  To be fair, not everyone has Wukong, or will have one with them in their group, but if they do then the mission can probably be considered a success from the beginning. (This is really just a minor complaint, since you could say similar things about Loki, Limbo, Titania and Ivara, who all have methods for avoiding detection and parkour, but it's still worth mentioning at least once).

 

What do you suggest?

There could be a few other ways to handle a spy vault which don't require changing the layout of existing ones, could inspire new ones, but do allow multiple people to be inside and contribute to success, while also learning the layouts.

1. Change terminals inside of spy vaults so that they don't require conventional hacking. Instead, we interact with the main terminal (A, B, C) a progress bar or timer appears which counts down as long as we stay in the terminal room (for clarification, other doors and objects do need to be hacked, but the main terminal doesn't):
    
   • If a person reaches the terminal with no detection, the progress bar is quick (about 5 seconds to 10 seconds based on difficulty), because as far as the system is concerned, security is 100% operational and there is nothing to be concerned about. You're probably thinking "I could hack it way faster than that, and ciphers are instantaneous!" Well now no one needs to bring ciphers, and you can chill out for a moment.
      
   • Next, the more people you have with you in the terminal room, the faster the progress bar goes. The mere presence of Tenno is helping get the data out, so a full squad with zero detection could extract the data in 2 or 3 seconds, but a detected squad might take about 12 to 20 seconds. This way, even if you get detected and start a timer, being present at the terminal lets you get the data out faster and no one needs to worry about if they know how to hack or not - They just need to get inside and beat the timer. Being there gives everyone a better chance of earning a reward.
      
   • Every enemy you stealth kill ADDS time to the countdown timer because there are less people to respond to security interference. While you're on the way to the terminal, you can be giving yourself more insurance in the event of anyone else making accidental mistakes like dealing with traps.
      
2. Have other ways to extract the data successfully, or other types of 'vaults':
    
   • Remove it by force e.g 'You've got 5 seconds before they wipe the data so rip out the drives and hope for the best' which would basically be a last chance roll for success after an alarm, instead of failing that vault (maybe 20% - 40% to save depending on difficulty). IMO it's a little more exciting than watching the timer count down while you or someone else repeatedly fails to hack.
      
   • Multiple consoles acting as an input series or sequence which give you the data when entered correctly e.g Red/Orange/Green - The consoles are on a timer, so this can be completed faster by a group who all spread out inside the vault. We know that people enjoy enjoy puzzle style vaults, and something like this could work outside of Lua where a multi-person security system is completed by a single Tenno because they are just that fast.
      
   • Instead of a series of terminals, have tech officers or other high value targets in the mission who can be interrogated to form a complete data set (interrogation works the same as performing a stealth kill). There might be 3 or 4 targets around the map, and interrogating them would be faster for a group. This could use existing, non-spy tilesets. If you kill the targets before interrogation, or are detected by them or their escort, you have to take the data set to a computer inside the mission to be decrypted (that 'vault' objective turns into a defense objective).
     ^This is something everyone can do, and people aren't put at risk of total failure for small mistakes. In fact, some frames might even become more useful in the event of a failed interrogation, because they are more suited to a different type of objective.
      
3. Degrees of 'sensitivity' for security systems.
    
   • There are currently different vaults with different levels of complexity or 'difficulty', and any detection at all triggers an alarm, but what if some vaults were made less 'sensitive'? e.g When you enter the vault at the main door there is information on your UI about what threat the security system poses like 'lasers will trigger alarms' or 'cameras and sensors have 3 seconds detection'. This way, people have an opportunity to make mistakes, and can go inside and get used to moving around the layouts without feeling like a burden. Normally the community would encourage them to practice the missions by themselves, but a method like this lets them practice as part of their normal gameplay routine - no extra dedication is required.
      
   • A person who is used to beating spy missions flawlessly won't have to worry about easier vaults being less sensitive, because they won't be making mistakes anyway, right? Meanwhile, things like sortie modes can play around with more sensitive security systems - instead of cameras or sensor bars, have turrets or elite guards at the doors. Maybe randomise a few things to keep people on their toes. But IMO remove the instant failure for sortie spy missions, because it's just way too harsh compared to other mission types.

[Pakaku]

1 hour ago, TheMostFrench said:

Based on the above, once a person goes into a vault, it becomes a liability for anyone else to go in with them. No one else can actually contribute to completing the vault any faster.

Why are you going into someone else's vault, when you should be heading to one of the other two vaults? Three people cracking three vaults at once is how you contribute to the mission faster.

[Katinka]

4 hours ago, TheMostFrench said:

Based on the above, once a person goes into a vault, it becomes a liability for anyone else to go in with them. No one else can actually contribute to completing the vault any faster.

Off the top of my head, there's a vault on Jupiter that requires walking past the main terminal to go hack two points then return to the main one on the way out.  That could be done quicker by having two people go in and a third wait at the start to cut out the time it takes to travel from one terminal to the next.  There's also a Grineer one that has sweeping sensors by the main terminal that can be deactivated by hacks above and below it so that could also be done marginally faster by sending a person to each.  Ultimately though, you'll save more time by having those people go do other rooms instead, considering to the mission as a whole rather than worrying about individual rooms.

[taiiat]

5 hours ago, TheMostFrench said:

• Only one person can hack the system at a time:
  When someone gets past all of the obstacles and reaches the data vault, only one of them can be hacking it, and anyone else will just be standing there waiting. If the first person does a bad job of hacking, it starts a count down timer which adds to the stress. They can keep spamming it again and again, even if someone else is there who could do a better job. As far as I know, there is also no external indicator that a person has failed a hack (their character doesn't shake their head, or look annoyed, nothing indicates that it went badly). This is especially frustrating in sortie missions where one person's mistake can fail the mission for the entire group, even if everyone else had impeccable performance.

FWIW failing a Hack in a Sortie is supposed to be shocking you with Elec Status - not the most immediately obvious thing to everyone else, but it's there. the Grineer one might even hit you with Magnetic but i don't remember for certain.

[TheMostFrench]

4 hours ago, Pakaku said:

Why are you going into someone else's vault, when you should be heading to one of the other two vaults? Three people cracking three vaults at once is how you contribute to the mission faster.

True, but then there's still potentially one person with nothing to do, which is good or bad depending on how you look at it. Maybe that person is ok with it?

For a long time the spy mode has been very solo-centric, and I constantly see people complain that other squad members either contribute nothing by standing around outside vaults, or complain that other people have ruined their experience by not knowing how to complete them.

I'm offering suggestions for how the game mode might allow people move together as a group of 3 or 4, but none of my suggestions actually require people to work together if they don't want to - a group who is good enough can still do all of the objectives on their own, just like current spy missions.

[BiancaRoughfin]

7 hours ago, TheMostFrench said:

• Frames like Wukong make the majority of spy vaults redundant, since he can avoid trap detection and skip parkour sections at the same time:
  To be fair, not everyone has Wukong, or will have one with them in their group, but if they do then the mission can probably be considered a success from the beginning. (This is really just a minor complaint, since you could say similar things about Loki, Limbo, Titania and Ivara, who all have methods for avoiding detection and parkour, but it's still worth mentioning at least once).

Simple solution, replace the Laser/Sensor barriers with Nullification Barriers, only literally invisible frames will not be detected by Cameras.

7 hours ago, TheMostFrench said:

1. Change terminals inside of spy vaults so that they don't require conventional hacking. Instead, we interact with the main terminal (A, B, C) a progress bar or timer appears which counts down as long as we stay in the terminal room (for clarification, other doors and objects do need to be hacked, but the main terminal doesn't):
    
   • If a person reaches the terminal with no detection, the progress bar is quick (about 5 seconds to 10 seconds based on difficulty), because as far as the system is concerned, security is 100% operational and there is nothing to be concerned about. You're probably thinking "I could hack it way faster than that, and ciphers are instantaneous!" Well now no one needs to bring ciphers, and you can chill out for a moment.
      
   • Next, the more people you have with you in the terminal room, the faster the progress bar goes. The mere presence of Tenno is helping get the data out, so a full squad with zero detection could extract the data in 2 or 3 seconds, but a detected squad might take about 12 to 20 seconds. This way, even if you get detected and start a timer, being present at the terminal lets you get the data out faster and no one needs to worry about if they know how to hack or not - They just need to get inside and beat the timer. Being there gives everyone a better chance of earning a reward.
      
   • Every enemy you stealth kill ADDS time to the countdown timer because there are less people to respond to security interference. While you're on the way to the terminal, you can be giving yourself more insurance in the event of anyone else making accidental mistakes like dealing with traps.

No thanks, i prefer my 3~4 second hacking expertise without relying on other players to slow down my progress.

7 hours ago, Pakaku said:

Why are you going into someone else's vault, when you should be heading to one of the other two vaults? Three people cracking three vaults at once is how you contribute to the mission faster.

Iv had missions where i was the last player to load, there was already one player in each terminal, i managed to reach them one by one, pass the player that was in the terminal, hack and leave before they even reached the console room and grab all 3 terminals my self.

[Tyreaus]

9 hours ago, TheMostFrench said:

Based on the above, once a person goes into a vault, it becomes a liability for anyone else to go in with them. No one else can actually contribute to completing the vault any faster.

This makes intuitive sense, though. Consider, for example, if you're sneaking past a camera sweep. If you're just one person, you can skip by when it's looking the other way. If you're four people, each of you has to skip by, potentially on different sweeps. That increases the time taken and the chance of being spotted.

This is also why the progress bar idea doesn't really do what you want it to do. If you go in a squad, the console hacks faster, but your odds of hitting the longer 12-20 second time—someone buggers up—is greater. Go in solo and it may take 10 seconds versus 3 undetected in a squad, but you're much more certain to get the undetected length.

On top of that is concurrence: if you have a full squad, it takes 3 seconds, but that's 3 seconds per vault in sequence—9 total, best case. If you split up, it may take 10 seconds, but those 10 seconds can run concurrently, turning the entire mission "Spy" time to maybe 12 or 15 seconds. A little longer, but as above, much more sure-fire, especially since you'd need the entire squad to be on the same page and we've seen that not happen plenty when it comes to Liches. And that's still shorter than the fully detected squad.

So even with this idea, the gameplay seems the same: split up, stay out of vaults to ensure players get the stealth bonus on hack time, and if something goes topsy-turvy, run in to help because you can't make it worse anyway.

But I also don't think that's a problem. As I said, it makes sense you don't want a team of ninjas doing a one-ninja job. The problem is that—with three vaults—player four has nothing to do. There have been suggestions around P4 being in some sort of control room, able to contribute to all three vaults in some way. One way that could be done is leveraging this hack timer idea for player four: they can hack consoles in a central control room corresponding to each data vault, instantly gathering the data and completing the vault once the other player reaches that area. They could also short-circuit security in case a player is detected, perhaps nullifying the detection to give that player an extra chance—and maybe getting security called on them, instead, to distract the enemy from the vault. That'd be good not just as a counter to instant fail conditions, but also if someone is learning the vaults: you can let them learn and help them get through so it isn't so "pass / fail."

[dizontix]

i know DE will prob not do any of this, so i share mine as well

i have read your @TheMostFrench comment and read @Tyreaus, and others as well, i liked some of it, inspired me to come up with an idea, let me see if i can deliver something satisfactory.

so here i go describing using lots of text:

name: conjunction spy

Needs wanted a system

enemies minimum lvl +200 to 400 (yes lvl 400)

1. three vaults
2. each vault needs a password before data can be extracted (the password is for the data vault, not the door of the room)
3. password of each vault is held by a mini-boss, somewhere on the map, once killed the password gets uploaded to all players instantly (hopefully the 4th player will do this)
4. a player must interact with the data vault, to start downloading, and must be 10~15 meters close (the data destruction timer of each vault only occurs if you raise the alarm in each vault by walking in front of cameras or lasers, an AI inside the vaults has to manually start the data destruction so you have a small chance (lvl 200) to kill em, but lasers can instantly start data destruction)
5. once downloaded, a data package comes out that must be carried to extraction, if the player carrying the package dies (bleeding out), the package also gets destroyed. 
6. as soon as the player carrying the data package enters the extraction point the data is saved (to avoid being ganged up on by AI at the extraction point while waiting for other players)

enemies can raise wanted lvl

each wanted lvl spawns a swarm of lvl 250 enemies that hunt and kill loud noisy players only (where ever that player is no matter how far till he is dead or hidden)

dead bodies, noises, being spotted, causes alarm (yep that's how annoying i wanted to be, even the password holder enemies but only for the player who does the killing)

parazaon mods, chippers, and abilities delay the destruction and speed up the download

3 package data saved = rotation C

2 package data saved = rotation B

1 package data saved = rotation A

only 0 package data mission failed , even for sorties

 

ofc you can solo this

and yes i know still ivara, loki, limbo will be most used in this, maybe more ability disablers?

 

final note: what causes someone to be sneaky? fear

fear of dying, losing the rewards, fighting someone stronger than yourself, or disappointing your teammates, thats what makes you take it slow and be ninja-ee.

 

anyway i tried to mash up all your ideas