Duviri Undercroft Survival Life Support - Am I doing something wrong?

[soniferousfox]

I have only been playing Warframe a couple of weeks and started the Warframe way, am up to MR8 and have 6 frames and have just opened Sedana junction. Completely solo. So I would class myself as OK. I played the Duviri Paradox and enjoyed it and have been trying the Experience or Lone Story Spirals. However, I keep getting survival in the first Undercroft and finding it nigh on impossible. I have absolutely no problem killing enemies and plenty of them, especially at the moment as I can use Rhino who is my main anyway. But, it is the lack of Life support that gets me every time. There is one delivered near the start and then another when that gets down to under 50% - but that is it. I sit and watch it tick down and listen to being told I am about to run out, but another one doesn't get delivered. 

From what I have been reading on here, killing enemies is supposed to help - "as long as you are killing enemies you are fine". Is it killing them that slows the drain or are they supposed to drop packs like in the main game? Because, neither seems to be the case. I am killing a shed load, not sure how much quicker I could be. 

So, am I missing something? Am I supposed to do something else to stop the support draining? Would really appreciate some advice as I can't even complete half a spiral at the minute!

[chaotea]

Just now, soniferousfox said:

Completely solo.

Just to say that the game is mostly balanced around a full squad of 4 players. I used to play solo years ago, but the games much more fun with others.

2 minutes ago, soniferousfox said:

From what I have been reading on here, killing enemies is supposed to help - "as long as you are killing enemies you are fine".

The issue you are having is that less enemies spawn when there are less players. Currently the life support is tight in a full squad, but solo your going to get alot less spawns.

[Seele]

Killing enemies drops small life support pickups which sustain you. You may be killing well, but you need to kill a lot to get a steady stream of the pickups.

They recently reduced the drop rate of these pickups in Duviri, so you need to crank up your damage output to compensate, and time your capsule use strategically.

[EDM774]

You need a really high KPM (kills per minute) to sustain yourself in solo duviri survival. I've done it but I'm LR3 with basically everything in the game. Like the tenno above said they made LS drops from mobs worse in duviri cuz it's just 5 mins and most ppl playing it (majority of veterans) were just shrugging it off so DE decided to make us sweat a bit. In turn ruining it for the new players... as usual *cough eximus rework cough*

Edited July 6, 2023 by EDM774

[Qriist]

40 minutes ago, soniferousfox said:

I have only been playing Warframe a couple of weeks and started the Warframe way, am up to MR8 and have 6 frames and have just opened Sedana junction. Completely solo. So I would class myself as OK. I played the Duviri Paradox and enjoyed it and have been trying the Experience or Lone Story Spirals. However, I keep getting survival in the first Undercroft and finding it nigh on impossible. I have absolutely no problem killing enemies and plenty of them, especially at the moment as I can use Rhino who is my main anyway. But, it is the lack of Life support that gets me every time. There is one delivered near the start and then another when that gets down to under 50% - but that is it. I sit and watch it tick down and listen to being told I am about to run out, but another one doesn't get delivered. 

From what I have been reading on here, killing enemies is supposed to help - "as long as you are killing enemies you are fine". Is it killing them that slows the drain or are they supposed to drop packs like in the main game? Because, neither seems to be the case. I am killing a shed load, not sure how much quicker I could be. 

So, am I missing something? Am I supposed to do something else to stop the support draining? Would really appreciate some advice as I can't even complete half a spiral at the minute!

Get to one side of the map, keep your back to the void, let the enemies come to you, kill them in the medium-ish distance. Don't move areas. You don't want the AI to have to re-path (it's notoriously bad at changing directions). Allow 5-6 capsules to pile up while you keep your kill rate up. Dart forward to get the capsules when you are about 70%, then return to keep killing. Done correctly, you won't need to pop a tower the entire mission.

If you have to leave your chosen spot to pop the towers, do both of them at once and find another place to put your back to the void. I recommend using void sling to travel quickly.

[soniferousfox]

10 minutes ago, Qriist said:

Get to one side of the map, keep your back to the void, let the enemies come to you, kill them in the medium-ish distance. Don't move areas. You don't want the AI to have to re-path (it's notoriously bad at changing directions). Allow 5-6 capsules to pile up while you keep your kill rate up. Dart forward to get the capsules when you are about 70%, then return to keep killing. Done correctly, you won't need to pop a tower the entire mission.

If you have to leave your chosen spot to pop the towers, do both of them at once and find another place to put your back to the void. I recommend using void sling to travel quickly.

Great advice, thank you! I will give this a go. 

Thanks for the other replies, it sounds like it's not ideal for an early Solo player though, which seem odd considering the Paradox can be chosen as a stating point. Then no explanation that if you enter again the Undercroft will be significantly scaled up! I know many others have said it, but I do wish they would have an Undercroft free mode! 

[Qriist]

34 minutes ago, soniferousfox said:

Great advice, thank you! I will give this a go. 

Good luck! Lemme know how it goes. :D

 

35 minutes ago, soniferousfox said:

considering the Paradox can be chosen as a stating point

Honestly? I've had this conversation a lot with a couple friends who started after Duviri dropped. The Duviri Paradox is a fantastic bit of content for established players but is a head-scratchingly bizarre place to look at and go "yup, noobs start here." I am sincerenly baffled by DE's rationale.

[_Hefty_]

2 hours ago, EDM774 said:

You need a really high KPM (kills per minute) to sustain yourself in solo duviri survival. I've done it but I'm LR3 with basically everything in the game. Like the tenno above said they made LS drops from mobs worse in duviri cuz it's just 5 mins and most ppl playing it (majority of veterans) were just shrugging it off so DE decided to make us sweat a bit. In turn ruining it for the new players... as usual *cough eximus rework cough*

The last update did the following

"Undercroft Survival Mission Changes

• Slightly reduced drop rate of Life Support capsules from enemies.
  • Since Undercroft Survival does not last longer than 5 minutes, it does not need to use the same rules that let players stay indefinitely in an endless Origin System’s Survival mission. As long as players are killing enemies and activating Life Support towers when needed, this shouldn’t cause any problems!"

You're doing nothing wrong. The spawn rate and running it solo is just a pain with the drops.

[AegidiusF]

il y a 5 minutes, _Hefty_ a dit :

The last update did the following

"Undercroft Survival Mission Changes

• Slightly reduced drop rate of Life Support capsules from enemies.
  • Since Undercroft Survival does not last longer than 5 minutes, it does not need to use the same rules that let players stay indefinitely in an endless Origin System’s Survival mission. As long as players are killing enemies and activating Life Support towers when needed, this shouldn’t cause any problems!"

You're doing nothing wrong. The spawn rate and running it solo is just a pain with the drops.

^^ This is a real problem for solo players ^^

A horrible change, in my opinion.

[Zakkhar]

4 hours ago, soniferousfox said:

I have absolutely no problem killing enemies and plenty of them, especially at the moment as I can use Rhino who is my main anyway. But, it is the lack of Life support that gets me every time.

Sounds like you have problem with what we call KPM (kills per minute). It is not only about killing without problem, it is also about finding them and to some extent also grouping them. Killing without problem is also not a good measure. We use TTK (time to kill).  In non-duviri surival endurance missions we tend to use loot-frames, which increase the drop rate of the Life Support without changing KPM.

Also make sure you do not waste any Life Support towers (they give 30%)

They may have overdone the change a bit as I managed to fail my first Duviri a while ago and it was Survival (SP) where i had some kind of wierd handicap where my weapons werent doing any damage - I still did 68% of the team damage with frame alone, but cant carry this hard.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Zakkhar

[taiiat]

4 hours ago, soniferousfox said:

Thanks for the other replies, it sounds like it's not ideal for an early Solo player though

it is indeed not.

Enemies dropped more Life Support in the past, but that was reduced for reasons unknown to any of us.
for now atleast, having a Kill rate faster than 1/sec might be enough, close to 2/sec would be a lot safer.

[Bradvaman]

Since last Kullervo hotfix  Circuit survival dont drop even single Life Support for our squad dunno what is wrong

 

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

Hello there. There may be some potential issues. other players have gone into this already.

1. First off playing solo can make this unintentionally trickier. Since you will spawn less enemies.

2. Also, as for the survival towers, this might be obvious, but you don't want to use them straight away. Like you should try and save them for when you need them, if you use them at around 80% that wastes some of it.

3. Then there is the map itself. Certain areas can have better enemy flow or build up. It can take some experience and practice learning where such good zones are, because ideally you want as many enemies to come to you, so you can kill them fast, and they are replaced with newly spawned enemies, that you continue to kill at a fast rate. 

4. Basically you don't want to run all over the map, killing one or two enemies, then running all over around again. This will result in enemies trickling in. You also don't necessarily want to camp in one spot either, you want to find places where, you can run around, and have a steady stream of enemies pouring in. 

5. May be an issue with how fast you can kill. This isn't a negative judgement or reflection, you'll get stronger with time, and playing more, getting new mods, experience, etc but that can also help mitigate the issues above. Like there is a mode called Steel Path. Technically its supposed to be more difficult, but for myself personally and where I am in the game, it actually makes solo Survival easier, since I can kill enemies very fast and the mode gives me more enemies overall. Kind of ironic, really. 

So all in all, my general advice, would be to try adapt to your environment, especially consider your equipment. Like Rhino doesn't really have many offensive abilities, so you might have to rely on your weapon more for kills. Finding an area where enemies funnel in, can be good since they can be lined up and let you kill them faster, turn around see a group of enemies funnelling in, kill them, and so on. Save your life support towers only if you you need them (personally I tend to wait until I get the warning and the red number appears).

You are doing great though, welcome to the game and the forums. I think a lot of what you are encountering will get easier with a bit of time/understanding, though also it was made a bit trickier recently. I do hope that DE consider reverting the change. For many players who are more experienced, the change they made, was a bit annoying, but we have ways to still make it work, but for newer players especially, and especially solo players at that, this could be a far bigger hurdle to overcome.

[BR31]

there's no tricks- higher kills, more chances to drop. but yeah sp rng can be bad, i don't like the change,

better off trying to kill the player with death squads rather than - rng was bad -gg.

another problems- spawns, they are so far away, barely any density for sp, so it's harder that way too , esp when
your group runs across the whole map and divides already not juicy packs.

[TurjanMi.ir]

We just ran out of life support in normal mode with a 4 player squad. Yay...

 

Edit: And if you object that someone may have used the towers when they shouldn't have, sure, that may have been the cause, although I don't know. However, I don't quite see how I'm supposed to have any influence on this in a random squad

Edited July 7, 2023 by TurjanMi.ir

[kamisama85]

On 2023-07-06 at 4:14 AM, soniferousfox said:

So, am I missing something? Am I supposed to do something else to stop the support draining? Would really appreciate some advice as I can't even complete half a spiral at the minute!

OP you are not doing anything wrong.

After the last update, survival has been given stricter requirements to complete successfully. Since the drop rate of air support units has been reduced, it means that you will need to have a much more aggressive killing rate. You will probably have to consider some adjustments:

• Start modifying the warframes/weapons in your arsenal that may show up in circuit randomizer to be more ready to kill enemies faster.
  • All enemies in the circuit are Corrupted type and mostly big armor values. That means they are much more susceptible to viral or corrosive. Having corrosive damage on your weapons will greatly improve your performance against armored enemies that would other require more hits to kill.
• Change your decree priority as you progress through the rounds to ensure that you will last through the rounds longer depending on whether you prefer gunplay or melee. More decrees favor melee in general.
• Make sure your intrinsics for Duviri are near max or max as these can affect your circuit performance.
• Go with a friend or join a public group (the easiest adjustment you can make).
  • Going with one more person already makes it vastly easier since two people kill faster than one.

I would recommend that as a new player, focus on bringing some form of armor stripping (via warframe skill or with corrosive (toxin+electricity) damage) to the field as it will make the biggest difference for you right away against armored enemies. If you are spending too much time to kill a single enemy, that will be the bottleneck for you in a survival match and it just means you need to come with something that hits it harder per hit.

I can assure you solo play is not impossible nor do I feel its discouraged in circuit. I play circuit on steel path solo and most of the time I will complete at least 8-9 rounds alone if not more but I am a long time player and those adjustments are much easier for someone like me to make. But solo will always be the harder approach and will require you to do your homework otherwise it will be quite punishing. There is no shame in going with a friend or a group if you need until you are ready.

Good luck Tenno.

[(XBOX)Player244024418]

Don't activate the capsule until you're below 50%. Seems to be a common problem with newer players. Let your life support go down and don't waste extra LS. After activation you should not be at 100% or you wasted. Typically it's 30% in reg .missions. Not sure about circuit since I've never had this problem even solo Steel Path. GL

[ShadowStarx1]

have also noticed foes arnt dropping the mini capsules at the normal rate, or anything close.

[(XBOX)AlingsasArrende]

2 hours ago, ShadowStarx1 said:

have also noticed foes arnt dropping the mini capsules at the normal rate, or anything close.

Correct. As multiple people stated above, this was an intentional change in the last patch.

[MutoManiac]

Maybe it's just RNG or buggy? I'm not a beginner, but I just played a normal duviri survival solo and without using a tower I had at least 95% life support the whole time. I did have a good gun though, but no abilities were used. 
 

Update: Just did a bunch more and yes, the drops are now horrendous for some reason.

Edited July 21, 2023 by m_a_r_c_h_

[soniferousfox]

Sorry for not responding sooner, but I have only just plucked up the courage to give it a go again. Long story short, the first Undercroft I got was of course survival, and thanks to your replies, I actually managed to survive! the best advice was to stay in one place and wait for a few life supports to drop before running forward to get them, but also waiting until 50% left to activate one of the pillars. I think it helped that I got given my Hek which could 1-2 shot most of the enemies! Although I was crippled with using  Wukong who I have never used so had no idea what I was doing with him! I was given the choice of 3 that I own but have not used yet. Which actually really works against you alot, as they start at zero rank and have to be ranked up - so basically you start with just the one ability available. Anyway, luckily I did it with about 15% renaming! I didn't actually manage to reach stage 6 on that playthrough (failed the Void flood Undercroft), but you keep intrinsicts up to a certain point so that enabled me to upgrade some stuff.

So, next time through I was lucky to get Loki which has recently been my main and my Ortho which just ripped through everything - so I guess it is definitely the luck of the draw with Frames and Weapons! Anyway, I enjoyed this playthrough and did a few side quest to build up the Decrees and managed to reach the Wyrm (I got Excavation and Exterminate which were both a breeze with Loki and Orthos!) Sadly with just one section left, I ran out of revives :( - soooo close!) Not sure how you are supposed to deal with all that fire and all the enemies at once - and not a single Energy pickup in sight, so ran out of invisibility. Are there not meant to be Energy pickups or did I miss them?

Oh, and I always struggled a bit with Drifter combat, so decided to buy myself the Edun - what a beast that thing is, made everything so much easier. 

Anyway, I really appreciate all the replies, they really did help. Thanks! 

 

[Zakkhar]

13 hours ago, soniferousfox said:

so basically you start with just the one ability available

Luckily unlike most of WFs 1st ability of Wukog is his most useful one (combatwise).

PS: I think they corrected the overcorrection a bit for solo players (it is still bad in squads where people are slacking, but i have not managed to fail any other mission yet).

Edited July 22, 2023 by Zakkhar

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

14 hours ago, soniferousfox said:

Sorry for not responding sooner, but I have only just plucked up the courage to give it a go again. Long story short, the first Undercroft I got was of course survival, and thanks to your replies, I actually managed to survive! the best advice was to stay in one place and wait for a few life supports to drop before running forward to get them, but also waiting until 50% left to activate one of the pillars. I think it helped that I got given my Hek which could 1-2 shot most of the enemies! Although I was crippled with using  Wukong who I have never used so had no idea what I was doing with him! I was given the choice of 3 that I own but have not used yet. Which actually really works against you alot, as they start at zero rank and have to be ranked up - so basically you start with just the one ability available. Anyway, luckily I did it with about 15% renaming! I didn't actually manage to reach stage 6 on that playthrough (failed the Void flood Undercroft), but you keep intrinsicts up to a certain point so that enabled me to upgrade some stuff.

So, next time through I was lucky to get Loki which has recently been my main and my Ortho which just ripped through everything - so I guess it is definitely the luck of the draw with Frames and Weapons! Anyway, I enjoyed this playthrough and did a few side quest to build up the Decrees and managed to reach the Wyrm (I got Excavation and Exterminate which were both a breeze with Loki and Orthos!) Sadly with just one section left, I ran out of revives :( - soooo close!) Not sure how you are supposed to deal with all that fire and all the enemies at once - and not a single Energy pickup in sight, so ran out of invisibility. Are there not meant to be Energy pickups or did I miss them?

Oh, and I always struggled a bit with Drifter combat, so decided to buy myself the Edun - what a beast that thing is, made everything so much easier. 

Anyway, I really appreciate all the replies, they really did help. Thanks! 

 

 

 

 

Congrats and good for you for persevering. With time, more Intrinsics, more practice, more gear and so on, it will get easier and easier.

Like you said, having to start with an unlevelled Warframe can be tough. The energy economy for the Orowyrm fight can be pretty tough. Often for myself, its just that I am using my own builds with a lot of better Modding options, like Primed Flow and Streamline that you don't have access to quite yet, that lets my energy economy in the green. Mind you, at my progression stage, I don't really need to use my powers in the Orowyrm arena fight.

Edun is a great weapon, am glad its serving you well. Hope you continue to persist, and further your progression. All the best to you and good luck! 

[soniferousfox]

Managed to defeat the worm at last!

I then decided to give circuit a go for some practice and discovered it is a great way to level up frames and weapons. I got Wukong again and maxed him out in 3 rounds along with Dread  bow that I only just built as well.