I would like to not fail Circuit Survival due to a lack of enemies

[Probably_Asleep]

The spawn rate was so low in the Survival round that I lost an hour and a half of progress. I'm not trying to make excuses here, there were only about four enemies available to kill at any given time. It was a small map too so it's not like there was a bunch of them hiding somewhere.

Is this a bug? I had done two other Survival rounds prior to that and they were fine (too many enemies to distinguish/count via radar). The difference with this round is that I got Luscinia's Suffering and Lodun's Rage active by this round. Could that be an issue? I know the Switch really struggles with SFX. I've had to disable all particle effects and graphics enhancements just to keep the game from crashing during the Fragmented fight. Should I avoid Decrees that cause visual effects? Does frame rate in any way affect spawn rates?

 

So the feedback is that I'd like the Survival round in Circuit to produce enough enemies to clear the round. (Even while playing solo) And if it supposedly already does, this consider this a bug report.

[VibingCat]

Unfortunately, survival has much lower enemy density whenever a console is hosting a game, so make sure a PC is going to be the host by having that one player invite everyone else from Teshin's cave, in "friends only" mode. This isn't an actual solution but the problem is safely bypassed.

[Famecans]

The next update will improve the circuit mode, basically the progression points will be collected by server with each change of scenery, failing mission or forcing exit will not penalize all rewards points.

[Probably_Asleep]

51 minutes ago, VibingCat said:

Unfortunately, survival has much lower enemy density whenever a console is hosting a game, so make sure a PC is going to be the host by having that one player invite everyone else from Teshin's cave, in "friends only" mode. This isn't an actual solution but the problem is safely bypassed.

Thanks for the tip! I only play solo, but I know I'm in a minority so this is good information regardless.

But it's also helpful just to know it's a problem with consoles particularly. That gives some evidence toward it being a lag or FPS issue. I'll experiment with some options like avoiding graphics-impacting Decrees and perhaps staring at the floor so see if I can get more enemies to spawn when I need them.

 

40 minutes ago, Famecans said:

The next update will improve the circuit mode, basically the progression points will be collected by server with each change of scenery, failing mission or forcing exit will not penalize all rewards points.

That'll be nice. It seems only fair that if the game limitations force a mission failure then it should compensate you with something. (And the points alone would be worth it! It's not like I need the resources; I've got enough Rune Marrow)

[EDM774]

3 hours ago, (NSW)Probably_Asleep said:

Does frame rate in any way affect spawn rates?

unfortunately yes. The game logs everything it does to a file and the speed at which said file is updated is tied to FPS higher the FPS more updates it can push to the file and these updates can be anything from you dealing dmg to an enemy to an enemy spawning etc. so sadly there is no exaggeration in the phrase PC masterrace on this one.

EDIT: and that's not even the fun part, fun part is, that in matchmaking clients sync their log file update rates with the host so if say someone with a PC running 140+FPS gets a last gen console or god forbid in the near future a mobile phone host.... let's just say there's gonna be a lot of rustled jimmies. So spawn rates and by proxy loot drops and hell even DPS is FPS dependant.

Edited February 20 by EDM774

[Probably_Asleep]

9 hours ago, EDM774 said:

unfortunately yes. The game logs everything it does to a file and the speed at which said file is updated is tied to FPS higher the FPS more updates it can push to the file and these updates can be anything from you dealing dmg to an enemy to an enemy spawning etc. so sadly there is no exaggeration in the phrase PC masterrace on this one.

EDIT: and that's not even the fun part, fun part is, that in matchmaking clients sync their log file update rates with the host so if say someone with a PC running 140+FPS gets a last gen console or god forbid in the near future a mobile phone host.... let's just say there's gonna be a lot of rustled jimmies. So spawn rates and by proxy loot drops and hell even DPS is FPS dependant.

Interesting! (Also mildly disconcerting...)

There's only so much I can do do increase processing cycles, but now I'm really excited to try it out and see if I can notice a difference.

It's nice that my Switch is no longer the worst in the bunch. (Though not by much I'd imagine)

[CrownOfShadows]

On 2024-02-20 at 4:41 AM, (NSW)Probably_Asleep said:

So the feedback is that I'd like the Survival round in Circuit to produce enough enemies to clear the round. (Even while playing solo) And if it supposedly already does, this consider this a bug report.

On PC and usually solo (because everyone tends to drop out in the first few rounds) I'd just like to say that while I've never actually failed survival due to lack of enemies the number of times that is has been dangerously, nail-bitingly close have been unacceptably high, and I've even had this in squads too. The thing is this is completely out of the control of the user, and worse - the life support is not replenished as in regular survival - you have two and that's it.

If you don't have a nuker, survival is a massive gate against you.

Also while I'm here: I hate how long survival is in the Circuit. It's way too long. Like how many times do you need me to wipe the map for you before this is finally over? Especially when you compare it to exterminate, which is over so fast solo that you usually don't even have time to grab all the decree fragments. The length of it actually incentivizes hiding from the enemies because killing them feels pointless, but of course that's the only way to get support drops.

[Probably_Asleep]

8 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

On PC and usually solo (because everyone tends to drop out in the first few rounds) I'd just like to say that while I've never actually failed survival due to lack of enemies the number of times that is has been dangerously, nail-bitingly close have been unacceptably high, and I've even had this in squads too. The thing is this is completely out of the control of the user, and worse - the life support is not replenished as in regular survival - you have two and that's it.

If you don't have a nuker, survival is a massive gate against you.

Also while I'm here: I hate how long survival is in the Circuit. It's way too long. Like how many times do you need me to wipe the map for you before this is finally over? Especially when you compare it to exterminate, which is over so fast solo that you usually don't even have time to grab all the decree fragments. The length of it actually incentivizes hiding from the enemies because killing them feels pointless, but of course that's the only way to get support drops.

Thanks for the PC Solo perspective. I've noticed personally that I rarely (though I can't say never) have to worry about Survival Rounds in Steel Path. My typical strategy is to kill enemies until I can count 15 LF-Drops. 3% x 15 = 45% x 1.5 = 67.5s from drops; + 150s default; + (45s x 2) from towers = 307.5 Seconds total. (Wiki says the LF-Drops should give 5%, but I only see 3% on both normal and SP) After that I run around getting Decrees. On SP this works pretty much every time. But on normal just getting those 15 LF-Drops is a crap-shoot. There's obviously something wrong with the design when the increase in difficulty makes a mission easier to complete.

And yes! If they made it 3 minutes and didn't provide any life support towers then I'd be just fine with that. I'd only need to collect 7 LF-Drops, so I'd end up with more time to hunt for Decree fragments and spend less time in the round itself.

 

On 2024-02-20 at 5:03 AM, EDM774 said:

The game logs everything it does to a file and the speed at which said file is updated is tied to FPS higher the FPS more updates it can push to the file and these updates can be anything from you dealing dmg to an enemy to an enemy spawning etc. so sadly there is no exaggeration in the phrase PC masterrace on this one.

So I did some experiments, and the results were shocking. There's an option in accessibility settings called "Visual Effects Intensity" that can be turned down to 10%. I tried that and it actually removed several bugs I was seeing with Mag. Mag's Pull just doesn't work when there are several enemies in front of you in Duviri/Circuit. (On Switch) 3 or 4 enemies are fine, but when there are a lot then all Pull will do is grab a couple enemies and the rest will just flinch. Also, enemies that ragdoll either from Pull, Crush, or a Melee Smash attack, will often times just die regardless of their HP. It's kind of fun, but it's usually more frustrating than anything else. I want to pull enemies to location so I can cast the death bubble, but everyone that does get pulled over dies instantly.

Those bugs stop though when I turn the Visual Effects Intensity all the way down. (I also deactivated screen shake and all VFX enhancements I could find). I can pull much more enemies, and they actually stand back up so I can cast the bubble. I feel like a super soldier! Being able to actually use Mag the way she's intended in Circuit is so much easier and I wish I tried this out months ago when I was still farming all the Adapters.

The one downside though is that with the Visual Effects Intensity turned all the way down, I can hardly see Mag's bubble, and the Decree Fragments are pretty much invisible. (Just little black specs you can hardly see from a distance)

[Pakaku]

8 hours ago, (NSW)Probably_Asleep said:

The one downside though is that with the Visual Effects Intensity turned all the way down, I can hardly see Mag's bubble, and the Decree Fragments are pretty much invisible. (Just little black specs you can hardly see from a distance)

The game hasn't been very well-tested without max effects, I guess, but at least I can see for the most part....

[Probably_Asleep]

3 hours ago, Pakaku said:

The game hasn't been very well-tested without max effects, I guess, but at least I can see for the most part....

Pakaku! I say your name out loud every time I see your first post on a new thread. If you must know, I say it in a soft whisper with a voice tone like I'm realizing something very important.

Also thanks for testing