Ascension is Excellent

[PlanAHasFailed]

I've only played it on SP, but this game mode rocks!  What I love about it...

• Feels hectic in a good way
• Vertical design makes good parkour skills feel impactful
• Sister beacons adding a nice optional mini boss (love this, wish other modes had something like it)
• Jade Eximus feel dangerous without being annoying

My only nitpick (and it's a very minor one) is that I wish we could just interact with the node to drop in the power cells as opposed to the throwing mechanic, but I kinda wish that was true for Alchemy as well.   

[(PSN)AbBaNdOn_]

You Can chuck cells/alchemy reagents from very far away though.   It feels awesome to be like 3-4 stories above the elevator and chucking cells at the mote container lol.   You can also just chuck them at the elevator so other people can use them as they see fit.   Chucking stuff at the target while I'm jumping through the air is super fun for me in alchemy/ascension lol.  

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I thought everyone would flood this mission with titanias and jades and wukongs.   But its pretty awesome just to parkour around and I kinda love.   All that time I spent as a noob trying to get up the water pipes in Uranus?  mastering how to wall jump, double jump, bullet jump and combining them all has never paid off as much as in ascension.   I even get a little wall sticky action in sometimes to look around for beacons =P.  

Overall I really like the mission!!  I only have 2 minor feedbacks for the actual mission.

• A Notification/audio/pop up when all 3 sister beacons have been found is a MUST!!!!!!!!!!

You got audio lines for when you find the first sister beacon but God damn I REALLLY NEED a GIANT UNAVOIDABLE POP UP NOTIFICATION for when all 3 beacons have been found.   Or even a simple Audio line like "Good job operator you found all 3 beacons, you butt is screwed,  good luck with the sister".   But OMG I am always running around looking for those and I when I get tired and look up to check they have already been found.  I could have been helping speed up the elevator.   

• For the love of God make lich fights more special!!

It sucks pretty bad that Lichs don't have special rooms when you confront them in Railjack.   But here again in Ascension was another great opportunity to do something special and you guys blew it.   You just make the sister spawn off to the side of the elevator at the top.. so lame....   The mote container could have rolled off the elevator and through the first door into a big room where there sister could have been waiting.   You could have given us a little hero moment cutscenes like the one at start of Ropalolyst.    

• The end of the missions could have been something special where you see the mote egg get sucked into the air by an orbitor as you see the squad fending off the corpus.

 

I realize cutscenes would drag out mission times a little bit and sure it might be bad now while the operation and farming is going on but eventually things will slow down and people would enjoy that stuff.  

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I hope Ascension can be folded into Void fissures and other things so we can enjoy it long after jade.   I didn't keep note of all my times but I would say on average it takes 7-10 mins on normal.  That's kind of long for a one off mission.  But in my opinion that's a good thing.  Makes it better than a capture or rescue mission that people fly through in 2-3 minutes that barely gives me enough time to load in. 

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But you guys know what you did to the drop tables >=(

[Gullim92]

I think Ascension introduces a lot of absolutely excellent ideas that I want to see iterated upon in future mission design.

For one, I think that having the mission stall for a minute when the pod takes critical damage instead of instantly failing the mission is just top tier design. It makes me feel like I can bring whatever I want instead of a dedicated defense frame, and be confident I'll be able to finish the mission even if it's one or two minutes longer.

Another addition is the sister fight. This is, if I remember correctly, the first and only time we've seen a sister or any "adversary" spawned without going through the whole secret mercy creation system. If this is DE experimenting with having adversaries as a semi-regular spawn or a miniboss in normal missions without players having to create them, I think that has some very interesting possibilities in the future.

Lastly, the use of mobility. I think void flood was an okay attempt at a mobility based mission that ultimately didn't quite work out in execution, but I love how this mission incentivizes mobility, alongside giving us a buff to parkour.

Just overall another absolutely cracked addition alongside Alchemy. I'm also happy to see a new non-endless mode for once, it feels like a damn eternity since we got one.

 

Edit: Also that dialogue, by far one of the highlights of the update for me. Ordis literally telling Parvos to go take his meds is peak writing.

Edited June 19 by Gullim92
I love Ordis beefing it out with Parvos

[Mr.Holyroller]

Ascension needs a lot of work imo. 

I think the corpus railjack where you're on the car thing is a much better system.

They need to improve the tileset or the enemy spawning/AI so that you're always in combat and loot/enemies arent all over the place.

Your map becomes an incomprehensible mess if you have animal instincts on

Edited June 19 by Mr.Holyroller

[Aazhyd]

Trying to catch up with a moving elevator while you fell down isn't fun, imho. Also the jump pads are odd. Some lift you just one level, others give a huge push. And then you need to find out where to go, while the elevator is still moving.

Also I agree there are almost no enemies on the elevator itself. That should be more. It doesn't feel like a defense mode now.

What's the best strategy? Going up, so you're always above or on the elevator?

 

Edited June 20 by Aazhyd

[PlanAHasFailed]

After realizing that the mission can't be failed, I have a question...

If the mote collector getting 'destroyed' does nothing other than slightly slowing the mission down, why make it destroyable at all?  Why not come up with some other mechanic that the players have to engage with to keep the mission moving along, or maybe having to keep throwing the power cells into the collector to make sure it reaches the extraction point?

 

[TimTechDude]

On 2024-06-20 at 11:56 AM, Aazhyd said:

Trying to catch up with a moving elevator while you fell down isn't fun, imho. Also the jump pads are odd. Some lift you just one level, others give a huge push. And then you need to find out where to go, while the elevator is still moving.

This! It's an annoyance.

[--END--Rikutatis]

100% agree with OP. This game mode is brilliant. I honestly didn't think I'd enjoy a non-endless mission so much, but Ascension is awesome. By faaar my favorite non-endless mission in the game. The verticality of the elevator reminds me a lot of the elevator sequence in the old Jordas Verdict trial, but done much better. It's so satisfying to parkour around powering the lift and then fight the Sister at the end. Well done DE! 

[S074]

Excellent variation of mobile defense/escort mission.
Verticality gives an extremely good spin to many warframe abilities. Valkyr's ripline never felt so satisfying to use!

Give us a Grineer variation inspired by the Ceres' vertical shaft side room full with bridges that only has a couple chests and lockers (as a much wider area though!) and an infested one maybe on Eris inspired by the infested sinkhole in the Isolation Vault.