Awful New Player Experience: Earth's Interception Missions

[SnaleKing]

For context: I am MR 9, with 500+ hours of gameplay.

 

If you've run an interception mission with new players before, feel free to skip reading this, you know what I'm talking about.

 

Today I thought I'd run a couple Interception missions, for sh*ts, and possibly giggles. I really enjoyed them during Tethra, and hadn't played them since.

 

I got paired with three MR 1-2 Braton/Lato/Skanas. No problem, I had Frost, and interception was basically a twist on defense, right?

 

No. A couple minutes in, I realized this is not a defense mission at all.

 

It's four. At once. With no break between waves. Let me ask, do you think a braton/lato/skana could handle a solo defense mission, even to wave five? No. Not at all. That's what Interception is asking each of them to do, though, hold their own against an unbroken swarm of grineer.

 

I tried to help, but as soon as I left to revive one of them, we'd lose a tower or another player would be downed. I couldn't keep snow globes up over 2-4 places at once.

 

Capturing towers was a painful process. First, we had to eliminate every single grineer in the tower, which would often take a minute or two, as there was always a Lancer or two hiding behind a box or under a grate. That's assuming, of course, more grineer weren't constantly running in the zone, which they were. Not to mention the constant hail of invisible hitscan bullets from a dozen or so Lancers hiding in cover.

 

Meanwhile, all the grineer have to do is let one guy punch a terminal for 10 seconds or so, which they were more than able to do while we were all pinned down at Alpha.

 

Another constant pain was the almost nonstop debuffs from enemy Leaders. I am all for Leaders in every other mission type, but holy hell, when you have no choice but stand in the open and take bullets, do you know how hard it is to pop a lancer or two even before they're snowglobed? Do you know how hard it is for a Braton to take down a normal heavy gunner, let alone a health-buffed lifesteal one?

 

Eurasia is a total roadblock. It essentially takes a endgame-level Trinity to carry a group of 3 braton/lato/skanas through it, and you can just forget about doing wave two.

 

Please, as a minimum, stopgap fix, lower the spawnrates on Interceptions. It is absolutely impossible for a group of 4 new players to beat, and it's a challenge even if one is replaced with an experienced player like myself. That is an awful difficulty wall, and makes players ragequit for good.

 

I say this all because I love this game, and want more people playing it.

Edited March 18, 2014 by SnaleKing

[.Talia.]

But if they lower the spawn rate the interception missions would go back to being boring.

 

They should make the spawn rate progressive, increasing with each wave. That way new players could do a reasonable 5 waves and extract.

[bejuizb]

Why not base the spawn rate according to Mastery Rank? A MR1 would have the old spawn rate while the rate only increases from there, capping out at the insane amount it is now, for a Mastery 8+ Tenno.

[LordMidnightX]

But if they lower the spawn rate the interception missions would go back to being boring.

 

They should make the spawn rate progressive, increasing with each wave. That way new players could do a reasonable 5 waves and extract.

then let us have interception mission on higher levels, or let us pro players set difficulty or something. 

[.Talia.]

Oh i would like harder interception missions on other planets, with different tilesets.

[SnaleKing]

I would love to play interception on Derelicts or Void towers.

 

"Tenno, there are ancient Orokin secrets being transferred to another tower. We must intercept the transmission, but the Neural Sentry will try to stop you. Dominate the transmission points, and send the message back to us."

[aavvdkdk]

If Frost hadn't been changed you wouldn't have a problem. Just saying...

Interception and Survival both need a system so that players are matched with equally experienced players or the option to tweak the difficulty. I am quite tired of being forced to leave a Survival after 15 minutes when soloing further wouldn't be a problem. Also, it's not a great feeling you have when accidentally forcing lower leveled players to stay. It works both ways (at least in Survival).

[Un1337ninj4]

I constantly help out, playing with pugs to get them past it. With a Trinity and a Penta you can solo 2 points while the other 3 move as a pack and secure either 1 point or the other two if they're awesome.

[Archistopheles]

It was supposedly toned down already.

[SnaleKing]

The problem isn't frost's rebalancing (He's my main, IMO he's pretty balanced now) It's mostly that I never had enough energy to keep 4 snowglobes up simultaneously.

[StevangarCronox]

I support the idea of either scaling or difficulty.

[TC-Guardian]

If the make it less difficult the what incentive is there to level up and become more powerful, also what about for the more powerful players who don't mind a challenge. I'm a rank 15 who just cracked 400 hours and when I get a crew together we usually find that 2 people hold off the main barrage while the other 2 do nothing. However it depends on which level you do, the large level is hard while the little level is a cruise for 2, while the other 2 work their arses off.

[notionphil]

needs spawn rate & leader% to scale with 'difficulty' value. Should be difficulty 1 on earth.

 

Newbs don't need this kind of headache. Vets however, would love it.

 

 

 

If the make it less difficult the what incentive is there to level up and become more powerful, also what about for the more powerful players who don't mind a challenge. I'm a rank 15 who just cracked 400 hours and when I get a crew together we usually find that 2 people hold off the main barrage while the other 2 do nothing. However it depends on which level you do, the large level is hard while the little level is a cruise for 2, while the other 2 work their arses off.

 

Dude, its on Earth. De borked up by putting it there, but lets not make the game impossible for newbs.

Edited March 18, 2014 by notionphil

[SnaleKing]

If the make it less difficult the what incentive is there to level up and become more powerful, also what about for the more powerful players who don't mind a challenge. I'm a rank 15 who just cracked 400 hours and when I get a crew together we usually find that 2 people hold off the main barrage while the other 2 do nothing. However it depends on which level you do, the large level is hard while the little level is a cruise for 2, while the other 2 work their arses off.

 

You misunderstand the choice faced by new players. It's not "Wow, this is tough, how can I grind to beat it?" That's a veteran player's mentality.

 

A new player gets roadblocked by crap like this and goes "Wow, this is tough, I don't understand this game, why have I been playing for thirty hours and still have default equipment that's just as bad as it was when I started, this is bullsh*t I'm going to play candy crush. At least that rewards advancement before the 100 hour mark."

[LordMidnightX]

You misunderstand the choice faced by new players. It's not "Wow, this is tough, how can I grind to beat it?" That's a veteran player's mentality.

 

A new player gets roadblocked by crap like this and goes "Wow, this is tough, I don't understand this game, why have I been playing for thirty hours and still have default equipment that's just as bad as it was when I started, this is bullsh*t I'm going to play candy crush. At least that rewards advancement before the 100 hour mark."

that's true

also up until that point the new players have probably been able to handle the missions on solo so when they hit that and get owned they give up. 

[Kempeck]

I run my Oberon with Energy Siphon, Streamline, Fleeting Expertise, Stretch, Reckoning, Intensify and Equilibrium.  I use my Ignis 6x forma's maxxed Corrosive and Blast.  i can hold 2 positions, easily.  Usually C & D or C & B.  C (where is comes out of the cave, going right from the drop, seems to get the most action in the tethera runs, so that's where I start my base and rotate between the 1-2 others.

[TC-Guardian]

Dude, its on Earth. De borked up by putting it there, but lets not make the game impossible for newbs.

You misunderstand the choice faced by new players. It's not "Wow, this is tough, how can I grind to beat it?" That's a veteran player's mentality.

 

A new player gets roadblocked by crap like this and goes "Wow, this is tough, I don't understand this game, why have I been playing for thirty hours and still have default equipment that's just as bad as it was when I started, this is bullsh*t I'm going to play candy crush. At least that rewards advancement before the 100 hour mark."

You two have a good point, maybe moving it to a later planet would be good, as it forces team work which will ruin a solo's time. Though when I started I didn't buy new weapons or work to be more powerful, or work with others till about Saturn as I didn't feel the challenge. Also rank 1's do not need to be weak, yesterday me, a rank 6 and a rank 1 excal, braton, aklato, skana did Kappa, 30 min cassini, Illiad and a couple of others. He stayed up stronger than the rank 6 and only downed past 20 min on cassini. I wasn't doing anything for him other than reviving and killing normally.

[Wahooo]

The issues is the roadblock that is Eurasia as was mentioned.

 

Move it to an arm so you can work through earth without having to pass the inception, like Lua, but still need to pass it to clear the whole node.

Also there have been tweeks to the spawns and difficulty and I think it is in an ok spot, but it takes some experience to do this right.  

The leader spawn rate is way too high for the level however.

[notionphil]

You two have a good point, maybe moving it to a later planet would be good, as it forces team work which will ruin a solo's time. Though when I started I didn't buy new weapons or work to be more powerful, or work with others till about Saturn as I didn't feel the challenge. Also rank 1's do not need to be weak, yesterday me, a rank 6 and a rank 1 excal, braton, aklato, skana did Kappa, 30 min cassini, Illiad and a couple of others. He stayed up stronger than the rank 6 and only downed past 20 min on cassini. I wasn't doing anything for him other than reviving and killing normally.

 

I agree with your mentality, throwing some serious challenges the newbs way is a good thing, IF they can choose to skip the challenge and come back when they're more ready. However, it's a roadblock currently.

 

I remember how videogames used to throw a few level 20 enemies in the level 1-5 area...so you'd know how far you've come once you can actually take them out. Good times!