Enhancing Archon Hunts and Sorties (finding a squad)

[digimbyte]

Warframe's Archon hunts and sorties offer great challenges, but I've noticed two key issues that could be improved to enhance the team-based experience.

First, there's the issue of progression. If you advance slightly in a sortie or Archon hunt and then need to leave or fail a mission later, you're stuck. You can't go back to earlier missions to match with a potential open squad. This not only disrupts the flow but also limits the chances of finding an active squad, which can be frustrating. Allowing mission retries could be a great way to help lone players find a team or party, rather than being forced to go it alone or wait until the mission resets.

Secondly, there's the problem with the queue system. When you queue up a mission and pause it, the game consistently leaves you as the host for randoms to join, which can be an issue if you're looking to find an open squad. This setup forces you to load the mission, leave, and repeat until you find a group, rather than simply joining an existing squad from the start.

My Proposals:

1. Allow Mission Retries: Let players retry sortie and Archon missions, even after progressing. This could also help lone players meet up with a team or party. Additionally, there could be a system to balance the rewards, perhaps by reducing the benefits for repeated completions.

2. Provide a Squad Option: While hosting by default works for some, adding an option to wait for an open squad would improve team formation. If this complicates the game flow, consider changing the behavior for group-focused missions like sorties and Archon hunts to prioritize joining open squads rather than hosting a new squad when queued.

These changes would streamline the team-based experience in Archon hunts and sorties, making them more enjoyable and accessible for all players, whether they're looking to join a full squad or retry missions with a new group.

Edited August 27 by digimbyte
clarity of syntax

[dwqrf]

il y a 21 minutes, digimbyte a dit :

 

1. Allow Mission Retries: Let players retry sortie and Archon missions, even after progressing. This could also help lone players meet up with a team or party. Additionally, there could be a system to balance the rewards, perhaps by reducing the benefits for repeated completions.

2. Provide a Squad Option: While hosting by default works for some, adding an option to wait for an open squad would improve team formation. If this complicates the game flow, consider changing the behavior for group-focused missions like sorties and Archon hunts to prioritize full squads.

 

??? I don't get it, that's how the game works already. You can replay Archon hunt missions as much as you want.

And for the hosting issue... is that because you have a bad connection or a bad cpu ? I can understand sometimes it's frustrating not to be the best host ; but you can find group nontheless.

[digimbyte]

no its not consistent.
if you complete mission 1 but have not completed mission 2, you cannot repeat the previous mission.
I recall in the past it worked with a defense mission but its clearly not consistent.
likely a bug at worst, a flaw at best.

what happens is the dialog closes and nothing is queued

and no, I have a gaming rig,  I do NOT want to be the host by default. you misunderstand the framing of the issue.
the game only finds open squads on mission queue start. not after pausing.

Edited August 27 by digimbyte

[dwqrf]

il y a 2 minutes, digimbyte a dit :

if you complete mission 1 but have not completed mission 2, you cannot repeat the previous mission.

It works ; I mean ; you have to finish the three mission of sortie/hunt before you can replay any parts. But you are never stuck. I don't really understand the issue there.
 

il y a 5 minutes, digimbyte a dit :

the game only finds open squads on mission queue start. not after pausing.

I just did it. It works.

[digimbyte]

Thank you for the comments, but unfortunately, you’ve missed the key issue of this post. The main concern here is the struggle to find a squad to complete the sortie/Archon hunt.

For example, completing an excavation mission solo, while adventurous for some, is not an ideal setup for a solo MR 15+. The problem isn’t about being stuck but rather about the difficulty in finding a full squad to take on these challenging missions and resuming your progress. The game literally punishes you in Archon hunts by ejecting you from a party if you die before the objective is complete.

[dwqrf]

il y a 3 minutes, digimbyte a dit :

For example, completing an excavation mission solo, while adventurous for some, is not an ideal setup for a solo MR 15+. The problem isn’t about being stuck but rather about the difficulty in finding a full squad to take on these challenging missions and resuming your progress. The game literally punishes you in Archon hunts by ejecting you from a party if you die before the objective is complete.

Yes, the game is not going to reward you the success of the mission if you die out of reach of your teammates 2mn prior to the end of the mission, and afk till then ; because of how afk-flagging works. But that's the design of hard missions.

Then, you can go back to navigation, possibly refine your build, and find another group.

It works.

[digimbyte]

none of that except the last part is the topic of discussion, please remain ontopic.

[dwqrf]

il y a 9 minutes, digimbyte a dit :

none of that except the last part is the topic of discussion, please remain ontopic.

il y a 24 minutes, digimbyte a dit :

The game literally punishes you in Archon hunts by ejecting you from a party if you die before the objective is complete.

The game doesn't eject you from the group if you are all at the same stage. You cannot be at the same stage if you didn't complete the previous missions (by being flagged afk because you died way before the end of the mission, hence, not validating the current mission).

I am on topic bro. You just don't really like it :(

If you have issue with matchmaking (which I don't, as I've been able to find public groups by just clicking on each single mission of the Hunt during this conversation ; which took less than a few seconds of paused matchmaking) ; maybe it's either a unpopulated region, your time zone, or your matchmaking setting (max Ping, or Crossplay, and such) -or few/all of the above- which is causing issue. I wouldn't expect someone living in the Australian desert, at 4am, not playing crossplay enabled, and looking for a group with less than 30ms, to ever find a group ; mate'.

[LuckyNecro]

Mostly i leave the squad after the mission and many others too and i never get the expierens to not find a new squad when i started the next missions.

[Zakkhar]

4 hours ago, digimbyte said:

you're stuck. You can't go back to earlier missions to match with a potential open squad.

1. You can.

2. There is no reason to as you will find the squad easily for stage 2 or 3. I actually always leave my squad after a mission.

Only thing that has continuous group is EDA.

[digimbyte]

16 hours ago, dwqrf said:

I am on topic bro. You just don't really like it :(

the entire point and topic is match making, "mate"
I provided an example that leads to a situation of how a player can end up in a situation alone as the party cannot progress, leaving that player behind. 
this is called context priming.

this topic is about amending match making to improve player engagement and eliminate gameplay deadzones.

Im pretty sure that you have the capacity to step back and look at it objectively and not base it on your existence alone.
this, regardless of your experience has been mine for 3+ years

sure, there are a minority of players who for some reason bail after each mission, but even you must admit would not be a common practice for majority of players.
 

13 hours ago, Zakkhar said:

1. You can.

2. There is no reason to as you will find the squad easily for stage 2 or 3. I actually always leave my squad after a mission.

Only thing that has continuous group is EDA.

1, video evidence says otherwise

2. how long should someone wait? my common play times are between 9am to 2pm

 

I can speculate that most looking for a squad to join will be in mission 1 and then 3 and then 2


My proposal is to allow those stuck in mission 2 and 3 have access to the same player pools as mission 1 if they so choose.
but since video 1 shows that you cannot re-attempt mission 1 to find a squad, its severely lacking.

perhaps a "JOIN ANY" as a button is a compromise instead of gate-keeping squad access.

Edited August 28 by digimbyte

[dwqrf]

il y a 27 minutes, digimbyte a dit :

sure, there are a minority of players who for some reason bail after each mission, but even you must admit would not be a common practice for majority of players.

100% of the players replying to your topic having no matchmaking issue actually leave after each mission and find group for the next within a few seconds.
 

il y a 27 minutes, digimbyte a dit :

 "mate"

Il y a 17 heures, dwqrf a dit :

I wouldn't expect someone living in the Australian desert, at 4am, not playing crossplay enabled, and looking for a group with less than 30ms, to ever find a group ; mate'.

The joke <--------------------------- You
 

il y a 27 minutes, digimbyte a dit :

1, video evidence says otherwise

2. how long should someone wait? my common play times are between 9am to 2pm

Maybe you shouldn't spam the "find group" button and cancel it as you do in the provided example, making your sessions unavailable ; and instead, just click once, pause, and wait.
When you have a buggy session, you can just leave navigation, and refresh the matchmaking session by going again in the navigation. It takes only a few seconds to step back and try again.

I'm sorry you struggle to find group, truly ; but as many people stated here, I'm not the only one not having any issues with the matchmaking. You have to understand that maybe the way you bully the game doesn't give it room to work properly. I've never encounter issues, unless it's really late and doing weird content, and that's 10years of experience.

If you want to prove your point again, you may show us a clip of you in Orbiter, then sitting in navigation, then opening Sortie/Hunt tab, and then clicking on the mission, then pausing (in that order, step by step). And if you really can't find a group then, check your matchmaking (ping, crossplateform) options.

The best to you Tenno.

Edited August 28 by dwqrf

[Zakkhar]

1 hour ago, digimbyte said:

2. how long should someone wait? my common play times are between 9am to 2pm

Check your region, use the region for your peak hours. I play on EU and have no trouble finding groups even at 4 am. Also check if you have crossplay enabled (people with crossplay disabled only match with other people with disabled one, regardless of platform)

Between those hours employeed people are at work/kids are at school (soon). If you are in EU try US.

Also, like that previous dude said, you have some real patience issues. Matchmaking doesnt work better the more time you reset the queue.

Edited August 28 by Zakkhar

[Zakkhar]

1 hour ago, digimbyte said:

can speculate that most looking for a squad to join will be in mission 1 and then 3 and then 2

Nope. Nobody waits for previous group for next stage. We just leave, take a break, change a frame and requeue. If anything, people may have trouble with later stages, so they will look for group then, while they solo or carry previous ones.

[digimbyte]

56 minutes ago, Zakkhar said:

Nope. Nobody waits for previous group for next stage. We just leave, take a break, change a frame and requeue. If anything, people may have trouble with later stages, so they will look for group then, while they solo or carry previous ones.

I have rarely seen this behavior so it maybe a regional thing.
leaving half finished just seems wrong. but this just comes back to play style and preference.

As for the video I specifically needed my queue state to be in the "pending" phase, this puts your session in a looking for players state and changes the way the way matchmaking is prioritized vs fresh start players.

however if the solution is to region hop, then perhaps DE needs to implement an option to region hop if you are sitting in the queue for more than X minutes

I think that relying on these techniques and 'player hot fixes' simply shows that improvements are needed.

 

[Zakkhar]

17 minutes ago, digimbyte said:

I think that relying on these techniques and 'player hot fixes' simply shows that improvements are needed.

We are not relying on anything like that. We have no trouble with matchmaking. The problem is entirely on your side. I will ask again, do you have crossplay enabled? If you do not, it limits your playerbase to PC players + in your region + with crossplay disabled. Which I assume is gonna be about 5% of the available playerbase in your region. Maybe less.

17 minutes ago, digimbyte said:

As for the video I specifically needed my queue state to be in the "pending" phase, this puts your session in a looking for players state and changes the way the way matchmaking is prioritized vs fresh start players.

That is not how it works. You have to let the timer count. Sometimes you get players while the timer countrs down, sometimes after it ends, sometimes in loading screen, sometimes they join after the mission already started. If you do this half measure, your queue is frozen and you will never find anything. Just click the mission and wait - stop toying with it the pause button. 

Edited August 28 by Zakkhar

[digimbyte]

CrossPlay is enabled, been enabled since its launch. and yes, changing regions for online service games is not common practice, most games require you to log out and in to switch regions.

even in Warframe its hidden behind game settings under networking, not directly accessed in navigation. its not intended to be changed on a whim. else it would be under session settings.

and yes, what you are describing is the first 2 states of the match making. pausing is how you 'wait' for others.
the issue is the gameplay narrative prioritizes you getting into a game session, not finding a squad.
finding a squad is the objective of pausing the missing queue, but it is only limited to the odd random and makes you the defacto host.

match making should allow my pending queue to be the sub- and join an existing squad.

This confusion between your perspectives and mine show there is clearly issues to resolve and areas to improve.

my points still stand

Edited August 28 by digimbyte

[Calebnewt46]

Please come up a way that you can log out with consoles because with cross save there should be like a way where you can log into it without having to be on the same console