A New Type Of Mission To Replace/add To Invasions.

[Yastin]

I was thinking, earlier, about the sad state of invasion missions, and really most of the default mission types in general. They're often repetitive... They're not very rewarding... Some just don't feel well thought-out. But I've got a new mission-type in mind to make things far more interesting.

 

Many of the invasion missions already start on your faction's ship, and move to the opposing faction's ship, right? Well, what if the goal of invasion was to take the other faction's ships? Not just as we do now, with exterminate, but say, a multi-objective offense/defense mixed mission? I know how that sounds, but hear me out,

 

Each of the levels for this game-type would take place with two semi-random ships, but they would no longer be completely linear. There would be no exact amount of enemies or allies, and the point would be to attack several objectives aboard the enemy ship, whilst protecting the one you've signed on to. Imagine waves of Corpus and Grineer attacking each other, while the Tenno organize a deep strike to cripple the opposition's reactor, or mangle their life-support, or even de-calibrate their main guns.

 

As the level progresses, random events can happen. Either side can gain an advantage, another ship can latch on to the other side of either, the Corpus could open portals, the grineer could shoot those attack pods into rooms, assault squads could be sent in to attack particular systems, etc. This could even turn into an endless mode, where-in you hop aboard a ship and see how many others you can board and destroy while keeping your own in good repair, scoring a point towards battle-pay and a reward for each enemy you take down. Hell, this could even turn into a PvP mode, if people were so inclined, with Tenno on each side of the conflict.

 

The main point of this game-type would be that it rewards every type of frame and playstyle. From assassins and rushers, taking out high-priority enemies and circumventing counter-attacks, to defenders hunkering down and keeping the reactor from being blown to hell. Everyone could specialize, even intruder may find a use in hacking defenses. So, what does everyone think? Ideas, suggestions? I would love to see what more open maps and real faction wars could look like...

[Post_Scriptum]

I like the idea, except the part about possible pvp(i personally dont want to see pvp introduced to regular gaming, conclave and dojo duels seem fine enough for me)

Anyway, this would be true invasion, and i can see lots of frame being useful there. Defensive frames defending objectives, utility frames(i mean nyx/nekros/loki/etc) causing mass chaos on the battlefield, offensive frames pushing the wave of grineers, and heck, i can even see stealth being implemented there, slipping into enemy territory unseen and sabotaging things.

Edited January 1, 2014 by Post_Scriptum

[Yastin]

I like the idea, except the part about possible pvp(i personally dont want to see pvp introduced to regular gaming, conclave and dojo duels seem fine enough for me)

 

That would be true invasion, and i can see lots of frame being useful there. Defensive frames defending objectives, utility frames(i mean nyx/nekros/loki/etc) causing mass chaos on the battlefield, offensive frames pushing the wave of grineers, and heck, i can even see stealth being implemented there, slipping into enemy territory unseen and sabotaging things.

 

Believe me, I don't give a rat's patoot aboot PvP, but it's something to get more support for a new game-type. This would be cool though, to me. It's a lot of gameplay experiences, and a way to challenge the players without being reliant on damage sponges. Your group needs actual organization, if there's say, three objective in each ship, you'd need to find a decent way to split up your cell, do you stick to twos and move from objective to objective together? Split up? 3 defenders? Leave a frost at home and run for each objective? This offers a lot of tactical decisions.

[Cptcuddlybuns]

This sounds fuckin' rad. My only concern would be length. Doing this kind of this right would lead to long missions. Long missions (as far as I'm aware) aren't well-received by the community. Also, it seems like it would be almost impossible to solo. And soloers make up a huge part of the community. Other than that, it sounds amazing. 

[Yastin]

This sounds fuckin' rad. My only concern would be length. Doing this kind of this right would lead to long missions. Long missions (as far as I'm aware) aren't well-received by the community. Also, it seems like it would be almost impossible to solo. And soloers make up a huge part of the community. Other than that, it sounds amazing. 

 

Well, the first thing to go would be the five mission requirement. Fold it into three to match infested invasions, or even make it less. And here's an idea, instead of scaling the enemies to match players, scale your allies. If you are alone in solo, make a bunch of allies spawn to hold the lines better and decrease the frequency of special events. It makes sense, even, that a strong crew would get issued a single Tenno as a trump card, while the less experienced members of a faction might be issued more, both to safe-guard the investment of their ship, and to prepare their troops with a live-fire demonstration of the Tenno's abilities... It's not much, but letting your recruits see the death-machine that may one day run them through after sprinting sideways through a hallway at mach 2 might result in fewer brown stains to deal with while salvaging space-suits.

 

EDIT: As a note, this would be a perfect way to get Darvo in the game more. Him, and a Grineer counter-part could be part of these missions, communicating when various systems need defending, or telling you when certain objectives are ill-defended.

Edited January 1, 2014 by Yastin

[Cptcuddlybuns]

Fair enough.

[Post_Scriptum]

No, darvo should be like 'I'm out of stock, but i do know a certain ship ripe for picking....if you would help me of course' and go space pirating. That way, we can hear darvo in-game again! XD That or 'one of my competitors are trying to get his competitions out of the way, if you know what that means. I can pay you, so would you help me?'

Edited January 1, 2014 by Post_Scriptum

[Yastin]

No, darvo should be like 'I'm out of stock, but i do know a certain ship ripe for picking....if you would help me of course' and go space pirating. That way, we can hear darvo in-game again! XD

 

Well, sure, if they're just gonna make this an event. But I'm thinking this could be a normal thing. If they standardized the layouts of each faction's "ships" a bit they could even add new tile-sets as they do more factions, and even have custom planet attacks where it's landing-craft against encampments for Phobos, or against those gas-refinement plants on Jupiter, etc.

[Post_Scriptum]

Well, sure, if they're just gonna make this an event. But I'm thinking this could be a normal thing. If they standardized the layouts of each faction's "ships" a bit they could even add new tile-sets as they do more factions, and even have custom planet attacks where it's landing-craft against encampments for Phobos, or against those gas-refinement plants on Jupiter, etc.

I meant that darvo should have a special type of invasion(maybe like an alert or the current infestation outbreak) since darvo needs lots of stock and has many competitors, it doesnt have to be an event.

And there should be the 'regular' invasions. I think it would be better if lotus took care of the 'regular' invasion. She'd notify us or guide us(supervise it)

And definitely, new tilesets should be added to accomodate this type of invasion. Make 'stealth routes' for sabotaging, too.

[Yastin]

Heh, mostly I'd just like to see a "real" battle between the two factions... I mean, the coolest rooms from the current invasion sets are always the middle rooms, where the two factions converge in equal numbers, so seeing them in a larger, more open environment? And with all their unit types there? It'd be awesome to see, even better when you heft your weapons and wade into the fray, or parkour over it, if you're the sneaky type. That, and having a set of objectives to go for that you can accomplish however you like is really something this game needs. This type of mission opens up the game for emergent gameplay. That, and on the subject of long missions. The only reason the community doesn't like them is that the shorter the mission, the more rewards per minute. So, why not make the objectives in this mission type give a reward per obj.? You're guaranteed as many rewards as there are enemy objectives, plus at least one reward for something on 'your' ship still being alive to defend. Having a good defense team or a fast offense would then ensure even more rewards for each well-defended objective, and keep everyone from rushing out and ignoring their 'obligations' to the ship whose faction employed them.

[Cptcuddlybuns]

Heh, mostly I'd just like to see a "real" battle between the two factions... I mean, the coolest rooms from the current invasion sets are always the middle rooms, where the two factions converge in equal numbers, so seeing them in a larger, more open environment? And with all their unit types there? It'd be awesome to see, even better when you heft your weapons and wade into the fray, or parkour over it, if you're the sneaky type. That, and having a set of objectives to go for that you can accomplish however you like is really something this game needs. This type of mission opens up the game for emergent gameplay. That, and on the subject of long missions. The only reason the community doesn't like them is that the shorter the mission, the more rewards per minute. So, why not make the objectives in this mission type give a reward per obj.? You're guaranteed as many rewards as there are enemy objectives, plus at least one reward for something on 'your' ship still being alive to defend. Having a good defense team or a fast offense would then ensure even more rewards for each well-defended objective, and keep everyone from rushing out and ignoring their 'obligations' to the ship whose faction employed them.

This idea. I like it.

[Yastin]

This idea. I like it.

 

Well, I figure the community doesn't hate long missions. In fact, everyone loves survival. But that's just it. The longer you're in survival, the more rewards you get. AND it has ensured rewards, the key at 15:00. So the community, in my eyes, doesn't hate long missions, it hates broken risk/reward ratios.

[Cptcuddlybuns]

Well, I figure the community doesn't hate long missions. In fact, everyone loves survival. But that's just it. The longer you're in survival, the more rewards you get. AND it has ensured rewards, the key at 15:00. So the community, in my eyes, doesn't hate long missions, it hates broken risk/reward ratios.

That's a good point, I never thought of it that way.