Acolyte Spawns - Tie them to Mission Progress

[BiancaRoughfin]

Swazdo-Lah!

Been doing the daily 5 Steel Path missions to accumulate Essences for when Umbral Forma pops up. The 5 guaranteed Steel Essences are good but its better when the Acolytes show up for the party.
Sadly, its not always the case, in most missions they dont get the chance to spawn or spawn just as the group is extracting given the pace of the game.

I would like to kindly ask if it would be possible to tie their spawn to the mission progress in Non-Endless missions?

Examples:

Sabotage - Starts the spawning process just after the console is hacked to expose the core If none of the reactor coolants are destroyed.
Capture - Starts the spawning process as the Capture target is being taken.
Exterminate/Crossfire - Starts the spawning process once 50~75% of the required enemies are killed.
Rescue - Starts the spawning process once the Jail room has been breached.
Mobile Defense - Starts the spawning process once the Second Console is hacked (Since some missions only have 2).
Spy - Starts the Spawning process once two of the Terminals have been successfully Hacked with no Alarms having been triggered.

Thoughts?

[German]

Good idea. Waiting around for Acolyte to spawn isn't what I'd call fun or engaging so might aswell get rid of it.

[16Bitman]

They tied it to time and kills so everyone just doesn't spam capture to speed farm SE.

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

Ehh... Not inherently for or against changes, but with a suggestion like this, you have just now greatly incentivised that people spam Capture even more, and disincentivised others, like Rescue. Also solo and group play can be quite different. For any that like to play solo and go a bit slower to enjoy the pace of the game more, you can get two Acolyte spawns, or more, depending on how slow you might be going. 

Basically such a change, would be a positive for some, but a negative for others, and in such a way I am not necessarily sure DE would want to encourage. Even if the positive would probably be more popular in a vacuum, there are other nuances/considerations as far as how you incentivise content. 

Probably wouldn't happen, but potentially having such a system for some missions, and not others could be interesting. For example, it does suck when a public group Capture or Exterminate is done so fast, no Acolyte spawns, especially if you have a booster. Having one tied to progress there could be nice, but if you are a solo player who likes to scan plants, and look for caches in a Sabotage, because its the NW for that week, and you are using an off meta weapon, for fun, you can still get multiple Acolytes as per usual, without 10 minutes going by, because you haven't started the reactor, because its deemed more popular to cater to fast Capture players. Not to mention, say for Sabotage, there are different lengths/types of Sabotage (some you just need to destroy one thing then leave, others require defending for a bit, as well as destroying one thing). You might also disincentivise/incentivise different maps this way too. Not that, that doesn't already happen, but further amplifying the issue more.

[sunderthefirmament]

2 hours ago, BiancaRoughfin said:

Capture - Starts the spawning process as the Capture target is being taken.

Over all, I love your suggestion.  This is the one area that I think should be removed or changed.  DE already kind of hates how fast capture missions are.  I mean, they're exempt from Steel Path Void Fissures.

 

The rest of your changes I support though!

[quxier]

4 hours ago, (PSN)slightconfuzzled said:

Basically such a change, would be a positive for some, but a negative for others, and in such a way I am not necessarily sure DE would want to encourage. Even if the positive would probably be more popular in a vacuum, there are other nuances/considerations as far as how you incentivise content. 

Probably wouldn't happen, but potentially having such a system for some missions, and not others could be interesting. For example, it does suck when a public group Capture or Exterminate is done so fast, no Acolyte spawns, especially if you have a booster. Having one tied to progress there could be nice, but if you are a solo player who likes to scan plants, and look for caches in a Sabotage, because its the NW for that week, and you are using an off meta weapon, for fun, you can still get multiple Acolytes as per usual, without 10 minutes going by, because you haven't started the reactor, because its deemed more popular to cater to fast Capture players. Not to mention, say for Sabotage, there are different lengths/types of Sabotage (some you just need to destroy one thing then leave, others require defending for a bit, as well as destroying one thing). You might also disincentivise/incentivise different maps this way too. Not that, that doesn't already happen, but further amplifying the issue more.

What about doing both: random spawn and "spawn on condition" as OP suggested? So you get random STalkee's friend every ~5 minutes + 1 or more on certain condition like hacking 1 console.

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

58 minutes ago, quxier said:

What about doing both: random spawn and "spawn on condition" as OP suggested? So you get random STalkee's friend every ~5 minutes + 1 or more on certain condition like hacking 1 console.

 

Yeah that could be a potential solution, nice thinking. Not sure if DE would do that, but it would aim to cater to multiple play styles/types. 

[PollexMessier]

They could and should be tied to mission progress in endless missions too imo.

And I don't agree with the the no alarms requirement on spy. That'll just lead to unnecessary player aggression towards eachother. Which is already an issue spy has. Just clearing two vaults is reasonable enough.

Edited November 12, 2023 by PollexMessier