Sorties need more love (...for the thousanth time)

[SasoDuck]

I'd asked quite a few times over the years, but DE... please. Sorties need more love.
While they've fallen from end-game to more mid-game, they're still a prevalent part of daily activities and need to be maintained with current standards.

MOB DENSITY
With the advent of Steel Path and its gobs of mobs, Sorties have felt significantly lackluster mob-wise since they don't keep up with SP levels. They don't need to have the SP buffs to make them stronger, but for this non-standard-starchart activity, I want to wade through swaths of enemies like I do in SP. It's just flat-out more fun.

BRING THE NEW CONTENT IN TO THE OLD CONTENT
Sorties are like the slice-of-life of everything the game has to offer, except much of the new stuff hasn't made it to Sorties at all, such as:
- Orb Vallis freeroam
- Cambion Drift freeroam
- Conjunction Survival (Lua)
- Zariman (could make the Orowyrm of Duviri be the presiding boss here if a boss is chosen)
- Jordas Golem
- Zeloid Prelate
- Ropadopalololalyst
- Mirror Defense
- Hell, I'd even be pretty cool with Railjack and Archwing missions appearing as one of the sortie components

NEW HAZARD TYPES
Not needed as badly, but would spice things up to have some new hazard conditions than the few we have currently
Just some random on-the-spot spitballing:
- Basically anything from Nightmare modes
- Solo-only
- No minimap
- No companion
- Not allowed to die (akin to Archon Hunts)
- Reduced max ammo
- Invisibility not allowed
- Enemies move/shoot faster (like having a Speed Nova constantly active)
- Enemies are equipped with cloaking devices

REDO THE WAY SORTIES CHOOSE MISSIONS
I believe right now, it seems the way Sorties choose a mission is by randomly selecting one of the existing starmap nodes. This is a problem because it means that mission types that have only one single node (i,e. Plains of Eidolon freeroam, any Lua mission, etc.) are vastly overshadowed by the mission nodes that appear on the same tileset in multiple different locations. I won't pretend to know exactly how the mission choosing logic is written, this is only my assumption, but if it's accurate, then we'd be much better off with a system that instead chooses first from a list of gamemodes at random and then chooses a tileset at random that is compatible with that gamemode. This way, EVERY tileset and EVERY mission type get a fair chance at appearing, and I'm not doing my 1000th Mobile Defense on Earth instead of something like Kuva Fortress survival that I rarely do since I stopped needing Kuva. I don't even remember the last time I saw Lua Spy come up in the sorties (not that I'm really complaining there, but... yknow).

[Tiltskillet]

Greater mob density is something I think is mostly better suited to SP versions of sorties.

More variety would be nice, although your suggestion of Ropalyst made me groan.

17 minutes ago, SasoDuck said:

I don't even remember the last time I saw Lua Spy come up in the sorties

Update 20.4 (2017-05-04)

• Removed Lua Spy missions from Sortie rotation due to extensive Client loading times on min spec machines. Please note that we are working to fix this and add Lua Spy missions back into the Sortie rotation.

[BroDutt]

Considering the RNG reward (another ayatan or kuva 😒) maybe they can add another fix reward like Archon Shard (just an example) or better like  those common/uncommon arcane.

[SasoDuck]

2 minutes ago, BroDutt said:

Considering the RNG reward (another ayatan or kuva 😒) maybe they can add another fix reward like Archon Shard (just an example) or better like  those common/uncommon arcane.

While I have no problems with the current rewards (basically every reward is worthwhile to get in some fashion), I'd not complain about additional rewards. Not sure how they'd incorporate Archon Shards into it lore-wise, but lore be damned. It'd be a good way to get more Shards than just hunts and <groans> Kahl. Maybe just make it so the sortie ones can't ever be Tauforged?

[SasoDuck]

17 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

Update 20.4 (2017-05-04)

 

• Removed Lua Spy missions from Sortie rotation due to extensive Client loading times on min spec machines. Please note that we are working to fix this and add Lua Spy missions back into the Sortie rotation.

Huh... have they not been added back?

21 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

More variety would be nice, although your suggestion of Ropalyst made me groan.

Eh, ya gotta have it though right? Not everyone's gonna like every boss, but there's those who do. I'd personally take Ropy over the bullS#&amp;&#036; that is Mutalist Alad V....

[taiiat]

as mentioned, stuff like Enemy density is probably better suited to Steel Path versions of whatever at this point since the precedent has been established.
and how convenient that we do have a Steel Path form of Sortie already. 

 

1 hour ago, SasoDuck said:

Eh, ya gotta have it though right? Not everyone's gonna like every boss, but there's those who do. I'd personally take Ropy over the bullS#&amp;&#036; that is Mutalist Alad V....

ironically it feels like we spend less time waiting for Mutalist Alad V than we do that other thing

[Pakaku]

Sorties are mid-level, so anything like mob density doesn't feel fitting unless it's a modifier

The worst part about Sorties is just how unfinished they are. We have missions up to the Plains, yet nothing on Fortuna, Deimos, or even things like the Zariman (which, to be fair, is a point in the game further than TWW)

[DrivaMain]

8 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

Removed Lua Spy missions from Sortie rotation due to extensive Client loading times on min spec machines. Please note that we are working to fix this and add Lua Spy missions back into the Sortie rotatio

I swear I remembered doing a Lua Spy sortie back in 2018. I guess RNG hasn't chosen that one it a while.. given that we have what.. more than 200 nodes?

[HasagiReportJngl]

15 часов назад, SasoDuck сказал:

I don't even remember the last time I saw Lua Spy come up in the sorties (not that I'm really complaining there, but... yknow).

Please anyone stop him.

Lua Spy is the worst mission I ever seen.

[SasoDuck]

16 hours ago, taiiat said:

as mentioned, stuff like Enemy density is probably better suited to Steel Path versions of whatever at this point since the precedent has been established.
and how convenient that we do have a Steel Path form of Sortie already.

Archon Hunts are only once a week, not daily, and I still feel that more mob density is just straight up more fun. It shouldn't be limited to just one single mode.

[SasoDuck]

9 hours ago, DrivaMain said:

I swear I remembered doing a Lua Spy sortie back in 2018. I guess RNG hasn't chosen that one it a while.. given that we have what.. more than 200 nodes?

Well that's one of my main points. It shouldn't choose one of the nodes as a sortie mission. It should just choose a mission type at random and then randomly choose a tileset that's compatible with that mission type. That way every mode and every map has a fair chance at appearing instead of the modes that only appear in one single node having a S#&amp;&#036; chance against the modes that appear in many nodes.

2 hours ago, HasagiReportJngl said:

Please anyone stop him.

Lua Spy is the worst mission I ever seen.

It's fun, and requires a little brainpower and memory. The horror.

[taiiat]

4 hours ago, HasagiReportJngl said:

Please anyone stop him.

Lua Spy is the worst mission I ever seen.

:(

2 hours ago, SasoDuck said:

Archon Hunts are only once a week, not daily, and I still feel that more mob density is just straight up more fun. It shouldn't be limited to just one single mode.

i'm just saying that we have an upgraded Sortie in Steel Path already - and so, that's a good place for such things to reside.

while i'm here it would be neat if each stage of each had Rewards, that would be a way to adjust things a bit to have more desire and interest to the first two Stages vs just the one that actually gives you a Reward.