One semester has passed and defense is still a stop button in The Circuit

[cybercesoir]

For years, defense has been an outdated mission with scaling troubles. Defending an objective in a horde shooter is basically calling for binary strategies, either by taking nuke or control-heavy loadouts. It is without a doubt one of the most impopular missions in Warframe, yet reused in Duviri.

Past the first defense mission in the Circuit (reminder : you pick a loadout through randomized items), a solo player will basically exit as soon as he sees the next mission being defense. He won't even try, 'cause why should he risk losing one hour of progress (yes, you promoted a roguelite system that actually manages to cancel your progression if you die) ?

 

The defense target sure scales, but insufficiently, especially in Steel Path. Add to the matter that if your loadout isn't able to nuke or deploy heavy control tactics (i.e. Nyx), you're screwed even with an excellent DPS. It's hard to do in pubs, even harder in solo, barely doable in an organized squad. More scaling is not a solution. A target that you can revive is not a solution. Defending in a horde shooter is dumb. Period.

 

You managed to introduce plenty of better modes : Spy, Void Cascade, Volatile, Alchemy are all better choices than the stick-to-the-target binary design. For the love of God, use them instead of always trying to implement defense missions.

[.LeiA._]

Bud, this is DE for [DE]fense, the only mission that I truly hate the most is Defense, but guess what? There is always Defense mission we like it or not. They have the brains to make new mission that isn't Defense, just like you said: Spy, Cascade, Volatile and Alchemy. But there'll be always reskinned mission, look at Mirror Defense (and Conjunction Survival) 

If I could time travel and go to DE's HQ, I would be the brain of the one that started Defense mission idea.

[cybercesoir]

il y a 5 minutes, .LeiA._ a dit :

Bud, this is DE for [DE]fense, the only mission that I truly hate the most is Defense, but guess what? There is always Defense mission we like it or not. They have the brains to make new mission that isn't Defense, just like you said: Spy, Cascade, Volatile and Alchemy. But there'll be always reskinned mission, look at Mirror Defense (and Conjunction Survival) 

If I could time travel and go to DE's HQ, I would be the brain of the one that started Defense mission idea.

I can't help but share with you my hate of defense missions.

 

To be fair, I thought Conjunction Survival was a welcome change. It makes the gamemode (that is basically a DPS check getting more and more difficult) more dynamic. Survival probably lacks of accessibility in steel path, where the timer goes a bit too quickly and tend to make a tedious (but doable) run for single target weapons. However, it's nowhere as binary as defense. And the gameplay is more adapted to a horde shooter.

However, defense and mirror defense are horrendous mission types. The latter is incredibly slow, with the parkour mechanics being poorly rewarded (especially true for the new one in WotW). It basically makes defense even worse than it was, inviting you to focus on other things than the bloody squishy defense target and stretching the pain with a walking session between two objectives. The only great aspect is that the objectives have actual timer, not forcing you to chase the last enemies in the tileset.

[Probably_Asleep]

I do agree that I will usually exit right before one of the Defense rounds in Circuit. I only have Mag(Prime)s in my Arsenal, so I can reliably get Mag every run. This lets me always have a viable frame for defense, but even then it's still the most risky round and not worth it after round 12-ish. (Especially because I only do it solo)

That said, I will say that there have been times when I decided to push the envelope and go for a >15-round Defense mission, and it was one of the most thrilling experiences I've had in a long time on Warframe. Keeping the protective Death Bubble up, Armor Stripping like crazy, locking down the map with Counter Pulse, creating choke-points with my two spare bubbles, keeping my Zenurik Wellspring active, and keeping an eye open for Thrax Centurions and Blitz Eximus so end them before they get in range. It was just a couple of minutes, but I'm not sure if I took more than three breaths each wave. Knowing that if I died the Defense Target would be gone before I had an opportunity to fill Last Gasp or even self revive, and also with the fact that I'd lose so much progress if I failed, made it an absolute surge of adrenaline. And afterward I felt like did Mag proud by letting her show what an angel of death she truly is.

But with that said, it's not like I want to feel that much stress every week. I play for fun, not to flush out my cholesterol. I usually just go two to three defenses in depending on how early the first Defense was, and extract at around the 12th round. It's fun to say I've done it, but I wouldn't say it's fun to actually do it (at least not regularly).

[(NSW)Greybones]

I like missions where it’s not just us that’s at risk; means alternative strategies can be called for, and target priority and general situational awareness comes forward a lot more since the defense objective can’t run away like we can, and also gives a chance to do things like lay traps.

We’re also confined to the local area while needing to be the mobile target but also not get shot up, and maintaining distance and positioning and movement within a small area while also juggling the defense target can be pretty fun

Edited December 19, 2023 by (NSW)Greybones

[Steel_Rook]

Personally, I see Defence as by far the worst mode in the entire game. It's not just that it's easily failable, but also that it's just... so dull. We sit in one spot, often not even moving, and just keep shooting enemies as they appear. I'm reminded of old-school Virtua Cop at times. What's worse is it basically mandates a meta. If you don't have a Frost or Limbo or a similar Warframe, you're at a massive disadvantage.

Honestly, I wish DE would bite the bullet and replace all Defence missions with a variant of Mirror Defence. I don't need to have a moving defence objective, but collecting items to heal/protect the objective is SO much nicer than just having to shield it all of the time. Also makes the mission a bit more interesting since it gives me reason to move around.

[Yamazuki]

As someone who doesn't like Defense, Defense SP Circuit is still easily doable regardless of Warframe, did it with max level enemies including Excav where they actually die instantly if you let them get hit.

Even though it's easy, I still don't like it because the mission type is fairly dull. Thankfully they at least lowered the number of rounds, and I wish they would do the same for Archon Hunts, etc.

[cybercesoir]

il y a 49 minutes, Yamazuki a dit :

As someone who doesn't like Defense, Defense SP Circuit is still easily doable regardless of Warframe, did it with max level enemies including Excav where they actually die instantly if you let them get hit.

I'd be glad to know what build you're using to handle waves of enemies in defense and excavation as, let's say, Inaros or Nezha. I may have missed something in their kit.

Il y a 6 heures, Steel_Rook a dit :

What's worse is it basically mandates a meta. If you don't have a Frost or Limbo or a similar Warframe, you're at a massive disadvantage.

Honestly, I wish DE would bite the bullet and replace all Defence missions with a variant of Mirror Defence. I don't need to have a moving defence objective, but collecting items to heal/protect the objective is SO much nicer than just having to shield it all of the time. Also makes the mission a bit more interesting since it gives me reason to move around.

Agreed on the first point. On the topic of mirror defense, while more engaging, I feel they need balance adjustements like a diminution of the number of crystals/glyphes/whatever they come with required to enable overshields. 50 in solo is definitely on the high end of the stick.

 

Il y a 18 heures, (NSW)Greybones a dit :

I like missions where it’s not just us that’s at risk; means alternative strategies can be called for, and target priority and general situational awareness comes forward a lot more since the defense objective can’t run away like we can, and also gives a chance to do things like lay traps.

What you say is interesting on paper. I think that the situational awaress falls short with the concept of hordes of enemies, especially if they're protected on overguard and can't be contained by crowd control. You'll need high reflexes and a bit of luck on the spawns to prevent them from reaching the objective on higher levels.

As for traps and CC abilities on delimited zones, they're limited to certain Warframes. However, Circuit is meant to be a bit more universal than the traditional gamemodes.

 

Il y a 18 heures, (NSW)Probably_Asleep a dit :

That said, I will say that there have been times when I decided to push the envelope and go for a >15-round Defense mission, and it was one of the most thrilling experiences I've had in a long time on Warframe. Keeping the protective Death Bubble up, Armor Stripping like crazy, locking down the map with Counter Pulse, creating choke-points with my two spare bubbles, keeping my Zenurik Wellspring active, and keeping an eye open for Thrax Centurions and Blitz Eximus so end them before they get in range. It was just a couple of minutes, but I'm not sure if I took more than three breaths each wave. Knowing that if I died the Defense Target would be gone before I had an opportunity to fill Last Gasp or even self revive, and also with the fact that I'd lose so much progress if I failed, made it an absolute surge of adrenaline. And afterward I felt like did Mag proud by letting her show what an angel of death she truly is.

Must have been thrilling ! Mag is, ofc, an ideal pick for defensive and stationary missions. She's nearly perfect for everything and scales like a truck, to be fair.

[Tiltskillet]

8 minutes ago, cybercesoir said:

I'd be glad to know what build you're using to handle waves of enemies in defense and excavation as, let's say, Inaros or Nezha. I may have missed something in their kit.

Don't know about Inaros, but Nezha has the Safeguard augment, which can be cast on defense objectives and excavators, and a semi-decent CC in Divine Spears.  (Maybe a second one in Fire Walker, but that's much harder.)  Plus a ton of flexibility in his kit  that doesn't directly help with defense, but can do so indirectly.  I'm always happy to see Nezha come up in Circuit.

[(NSW)Greybones]

23 minutes ago, cybercesoir said:

What you say is interesting on paper. I think that the situational awaress falls short with the concept of hordes of enemies, especially if they're protected on overguard and can't be contained by crowd control. You'll need high reflexes and a bit of luck on the spawns to prevent them from reaching the objective on higher levels.

It’s interesting in practice too; if someone gave me a build and mission combination where I’m standing around like a lump and I’m not looking to stand around like a lump, I’m either going to rebuild it or take it somewhere where I can’t do that

I love overguard and the interplay of Operator and Warframe it can call for and the wrinkle in a fight it can bring, and the Eximus rework was done quite well in my opinion. If you’re referring to spawn problems though, I’m assuming you’re referring to unfair and unbalanced Steel Path with its 4-player spawns for one player, which yes, is unfair, and because of how the mode is unfair, can shift more towards reliance on builds than what the standard non-SP game enables

edit: Personally I find missions like Void Flood kind of… meh. A change of pace where we can slow down and not worry about any objectives, but also, we’re not worrying about any objectives

Edited December 19, 2023 by (NSW)Greybones

[ShogunGunshow]

After the scaling changes, I've never had an issue keeping the defense objective alive. Any time there's a failure nowadays it's because people were basically coasting until a Survival hit where we actually needed everyone to be contributing to kpm, and oopsies maybe I should've been paying more attention to that jackhole that has 1% of damage done and 20 kills after 40 minutes. 😅 

[Steel_Rook]

18 hours ago, cybercesoir said:

Agreed on the first point. On the topic of mirror defense, while more engaging, I feel they need balance adjustements like a diminution of the number of crystals/glyphes/whatever they come with required to enable overshields. 50 in solo is definitely on the high end of the stick.

That's fair enough. I'd argue that quite a few game modes could use better scaling with team size. Incidentally, legacy Defence is one of them, as it's harder for a solo player to cover multiple approach vectors :) For whatever reason, DE have been doing the opposite of late. The Abyssal Zone, for instance, hard-limits rewards based on player count, so solo players face the same amount of difficulty for a quarter of the rewards.

So yeah, replacing Defence with "Unmirror Defence" would probably require tweaks to the number of pick-ups required or the rate at which they respawn.