Replacing Exterminate

[Eurhetemec]

And allow me to say it again. I am not saying to remove exterminate all together. But whatever.

 

Yes, you are. You literally said that.

 

Nobody? Or nobody vocalizing their opinion in this particular thread? 4 pages deep this conversation is going to pretty much remain between a few of us.

 

We have no evidence that anyone supports your position beyond two upvotes which may well be from people who didn't fully understand your position. I've never seen anyone suggest the exterminate needs to be removed because it's "too safe" before, and I don't agree, personally. It's certainly not some sort of common opinion with a lot of support, as you seem to think it is.

 

Even if one agreed, what you're essentially demanding is that older players get a big advantage over newer players. If Exterminate really is "easy", then the fact that older players have been able to take advantage of that for years, and thus newer players get punished by having to deal with harder content.

 

Further, you seem unable to grasp the concept that different levels of difficulty within mission types is FUNDAMENTALLY GOOD FOR A GAME. It gives people choice and opportunity. If every mission is equally hard, and plays identically (which is your "perfect world", apparently, as you put it), then people have no choice beyond what they're farming. In reality, and I do mean this as a fact, diversity is an asset - "the easy mission" or "the easy dungeon" gives people a choice.

 

Plus, risk vs reward - Exterminate is less rewarding, so it makes sense that it is somewhat less risky. Plus you need to factor time into the equation. It's very slightly more likely that I will get killed on, say, a Sabotage mission or the like (pretty low odds, though), but I can guarantee that it will take less time than a typical Exterminate - the fact that you have to kill ALL the enemies makes it more time-consuming than other missions, and helps to balance it that way, too.

 

I think Exterminate is a little easier, but I don't think it's a problem - it gives a different experience, different pacing, allows a different approach to the game, and has lower rewards over time than other mission types. That's fine, and you don't seem to be able to accept that.

Edited May 12, 2014 by Eurhetemec

[Dequire]

Personally, the current exterminates work just fine.

 

Your idea, however, is f**ing amazing and it needs to be it's own special mission type. Please. Please DE, make this a thing. We need more dynamic and complicated missions. THIS is how you make a mission longer, not with huge maps.

[Xylia]

Why should high level content be easy?

 

.......becuase it does not reward anything more than Low-Level Content does?

 

Seriously, go do a Pluto Exterminate and then go do a Venus Exterminate and look at the difference in "rewards". You get the exact same mods, a smidge higher XP (but not MUCH higher, 25% per mob if that), and the end-of-mission rewards are 5-6k credits higher, which really isn't much.

 

So... 25% XP and 5-6k Credits. Otherwise you get basically the same stuff out of doing a Venus mission.

 

Why, again, should a Pluto Exterminate be much harder than a Venus Exterminate when it doesn't give any good rewards?

 

Void 3 Exterminate can still be difficult if you don't have good gear; some of those mobs actually do hurt and can take a bit to kill if you're not geared for it, Void 2 Exterminate is fairly easy, sure. But then Void 2 wasn't meant to be ridiculously hard, either.

 

"High Level" doesn't mean anything in Warframe as far as Effort vs Reward. It never did. Unless you are talking about Void 3 but even that's a crapshoot because most of the time you'll just get the Frost/Latron/Reaper piece anyways.

Edited May 12, 2014 by Xylia

[Mokkania]

There's a reason I ignored it. I can't counter an opinion, it's an opinion. I can disagree with it, but I can not counter it.

considering 90% of what you say, this one is the strangest thing you said.

 

See I don't mind it being on the lower end of a spectrum section for each level of content. My problem is that it's so far below that these exterminates on as high as Ceres are no harder(in fact easier) than a 15 wave defense on Venus or a Capture on Phobos. The spectrum section should NOT expand that far.

this one is your most essential argument I'd say

[Eurhetemec]

this one is your most essential argument I'd say

 

It's the closest he comes to making sense, but he doesn't give a rationale for it, or logic, so it's a floating opinion of zero value, along the lines of "all warframes should be shocking pink with navy stripes!". The question is why? And that's unanswered.

[Phaenur]

The worst part of this is that I agree with the entire proposal except "replace Exterminate."  The mission design is an idea a lot of us have had in the past - in fact, it sounds refreshingly like Cells - and there are plenty of excellent places to implement it.  Heck, make it a "Nightmare" option on Exterminate nodes you've cleared; if you want to run a quiet, easy, straightforward mission you can always opt out.  It would also be a beautiful addition to/replacement of Invasion Exterminate specifically, adding variation and replayability to a mode that's arguably the most blatant grind in a game already full of it.  If that's not enough, toss it onto branch nodes in the various sectors as a standalone mission type - I'm sure it would be welcome as another endless or at least nearly endless game type.  And to be honest, I miss the old bonus objectives sometimes, even if they did make me pull off a Rescue after gathering four datamasses against Infested with the Sicarus once upon a time (actually, come to think of it that mission might have been the most fun I had in a single game).

 

But for all the reasons Xylia, Eurhetemec et. al. have shared, don't just delete Extermination to make room for this mode.  It's an awesome idea, but Exterminate is a good training ground and much more controlled environment for players to experiment with playstyle and new equipment.

Edited May 12, 2014 by Phaenur

[Sindrall]

Lol well the guy in the other thread was trying to insult me over a "wall of text" that.. well yeah was short.. and i was on my phone so i was un able to organize into paragraphs but.. that really isnt important and a poor excuse to try to come up with to either insult someone or to try to avoid acknowledging what i was actually saying... i don't normally organize into paragraphs in this kind of thing because it doesnt feel natural in conversation terms. That's what you do when you write a paper lol XD and I dont mean for my comment to come across as an insult, i was saying that your responses to other people sounded like insults. If thats not the case on your end then i apologize >.<... also did you pick up the subtle insult to the guy in the other thread lol? well it was kinda subtle.. was the whole post i made XD

[Sindrall]

Also like i said before, I like your idea, as a few others have said, just removing any exterm is not a good idea lol.

[TheThreadWeaver]

I appreciate the thought you put into this, but I completely disagree with you.

 

The mission you put forth is fine from an expert gamer's perspective. But think about this from the perspective of a new gamer?

 

You get to Venus, where the first mission is Exterminate, and this is what you run into. A lengthy endeavor that can eat up about 40 minutes of your time in a single solid brick.

 

Yes, Exterminate missions are short. But I feel that's kind of the point. They're kind of an easier, simplistic island in a sea of more complicated missions. They're quick, simple and consumable in short ~10 minute segments. That brevity, and the break it provides, is important. It helps prevent gamer burnout. Having to go through numerous Mobile Defenses and other multi-stage missions one after another is taxing to a gamer.

 

What you're proposing is an endeavor that would take at least an hour for the average player to complete. And while that's fine for the "hardcore", you've forgotten that the demographic for this game is made up of many different kinds of core, many of whom would find the whole ordeal too taxing to bother with. Having it replace EVERY single exterminate outside of Mercury (this would include the void) would be just too much.

Edited May 12, 2014 by TheThreadWeaver

[DeadlyFred]

There's plenty of room for "new" missions without getting rid of Exterminate. Though since it's a map with fixed spawns, maybe it could be adapted/altered to give some benefit or added reward for stealth gameplay? Because stealth is pretty much broken on a gamemode where enemies spawn behind you.

Edited May 13, 2014 by DeadlyFred

[Wolfstorm18]

There's no problem with exterminate missions. Its fine the way it is. They should remain. Instead, a new type of mission can be worked and new nodes added. 

 

Good ideas in the topic, but interception should be changed to mobile defense, since the current interception mode sucks. 

 

1 - hack a console, get the datamass (spy). 

2 - instead of going to extraction, you'll go sabotage the ship. First you have to clean an area between the console you hacked and the ship controls (exterminate, 50-100 enemies).

3 - then enter the area of ship control and insert the hacked datamass there (deception). 

4 - wait for Lotus to hack the ship controls (mobile defense). 

5 - then go to the reactor. First you have to clean an area between the ship controls and the reactor (exterminate, 100-150 enemies). 

6 - arrive at reactor area and destroy it (sabotage). 

7 - when the reactor is destroyed, there will be no oxygen in the ship. Go to next area where Lotus will send oxygen units (survival, endless waves of enemies until you exit). There will be a timer to arrive at this new area, since the reactor area will explode. 

 

Six maps in one single mission. Lets call it the new raid mission mode. 

Edited May 13, 2014 by Wolfstorm18

[KorbanGado]

Also I'll say it again, I didn't suggest to remove it completely. I simply stated to switch it to alerts and tutorials while replacing it on the starmap with some other mission and a new mission type(most planets have 2 exterminates). We could increase the rate at which exterminate alerts appear if that makes you happy.

Yeah, you totally said to leave it on the one planet. It still exists guys!

Alright, got that sass out of my system, time to get serious.

 

Everything in this thread is total opinion. You don't like exterminates because you are (presumably) the kind of person who plays to be rewarded. Everyone is different! Some people only have a short time to play, and enjoy the relatively short Exterminates. Me? I love exterminates for the one thing they do that no other stage does (and in my opinion it's the best thing they do) - lock enemies from endlessly respawning over, and over, and over ad nauseum. It's not a matter that they are safe, it's a matter of in my mind it's logical. If i wanted endless waves of enemies, I'd do horde mode (of which the game has many choices similar to but not the exact thing, from LS controlled Survival, box controlled Defense, blahblah) instead. 

 

That being said, I like your idea of adding a new mission type that blends multiple things together more consistently (reminding me of the gameplay from ME3's MP, which got me into Warframe in the first place). Heck, I'd love a good plethora of game modes to be added that let me last as long as I feel like as opposed to some arbitrary number on a bar or RNG drop - but that's not to say we should replace missions that have their point. How about some melee-centric mission moments where an enemy leader "calls you out" and its mano-a-creep duel of the death (similar to stalker, except without the 4v1 and overall sort of weakness)? Missions with less enemies are going to have less rewards from baddy drops obviously, but if the complaint is that then why are we not trying to replace sabotage? You can run through those without killing a single person after all.

 

Case in point, we could use a better variety of missions on a whole, but we shouldn't remove all but one of something just because a subset of folks don't like them because it doesn't cater to their style. If anything should be argued to be replaced, it's survival missions on open-air planets. Who turns off life support on a planet anyways? Do Infested even know how to use a computer to run of a planet's life support?

[Xylia]

If anything should be argued to be replaced, it's survival missions on open-air planets. Who turns off life support on a planet anyways? Do Infested even know how to use a computer to run of a planet's life support?

 

This, so very much this.

 

They really need to change Survival (made a new Survival Mode) for Planets.

 

Maybe instead of Air, you have to, I don't know... you have to carry a Jammer on you, and this Jammer prevents an enemy battleship from locking onto your position, because the enemy wants to take you out with huge ship lasers (that do incredible damage very quickly). But they can't, if they can't get a fix on your position (which is what your Jammer prevents).

 

However, the Jammer requires power to use. Lotus can air-drop powercells and you can find powercells on enemies you kill. For extra variety, we can make some changes to the game mode so that it is different than Ship Survival:

 

1). Each person has their own Jammer, and each air-drop that Lotus sends can be used everybody in the mission. A Ship firing on an unprotected Tenno does mild AoE damage.

 

2). Each Powercell drop acts like ammo -- everybody can pick it up. This encourages Tenno to stick together, rather than wandering away from each other.

 

3). The game mode does not end until everybody is dead. If you run out of Jammer power, it is actually possible to re-power it by picking up more power cells.

 

4). The ship's lasers can actually kill you completely. When killed by the ship's lasers, you cannot be rezzed by a teammate (similar to Stalker)

 

5). Using a Revive makes sure you have at least 10-25% Jammer power (but won't add any if you have more than that, if you got killed by an enemy and weren't revived), just enough that you won't get killed immediately after getting back up.

 

6). The Ship's lasers are more like Heat Rays -- that explains why the ship's weapons can damage you underneath ceilings and while you're in tunnels as the convection goes through the ceiling and still hurts you anyways.

[-CM-Aeon]

How about a WAR mission where you get constant flow of enemies towards you. HUGE Number of enemies. Maybe a new form of exterminate-survival and defense.

[Xylia]

How about a WAR mission where you get constant flow of enemies towards you. HUGE Number of enemies. Maybe a new form of exterminate-survival and defense.

 

Problem with that though is between the ridonkulous mods and stuff like MPrime, Rhino Stomp, Energy Siphon, enemies dropping Energy Orbs, it'd just be an endless slaughter where a group of 4 Tenno will just murder everything endlessly with Warframe Powers.

 

And the amount of resources and mods you'd get out of this type of game mode would be even more ridiculous than existing Survival, so nobody would have any reason to do anything but this mode to farm for stuff.

[Eurhetemec]

6). The Ship's lasers are more like Heat Rays -- that explains why the ship's weapons can damage you underneath ceilings and while you're in tunnels as the convection goes through the ceiling and still hurts you anyways.

Nice ideas, and that would be awesome, but a minor note on 6 - heat rays are unnecessary and would make people ask a lot of questions. Gamma-ray lasers would do the trick (and are an old Sci-Fi standby) and are simpler to explain (imo) (heavy rock will degrade them, not stop them).

 

War would make a good Invasion/Alert only mission type (if it had a time limit).

[KorbanGado]

This, so very much this.

 

They really need to change Survival (made a new Survival Mode) for Planets.

 

Maybe instead of Air, you have to, I don't know... you have to carry a Jammer on you, and this Jammer prevents an enemy battleship from locking onto your position, because the enemy wants to take you out with huge ship lasers (that do incredible damage very quickly). But they can't, if they can't get a fix on your position (which is what your Jammer prevents).

 

However, the Jammer requires power to use. Lotus can air-drop powercells and you can find powercells on enemies you kill. For extra variety, we can make some changes to the game mode so that it is different than Ship Survival:

 

1). Each person has their own Jammer, and each air-drop that Lotus sends can be used everybody in the mission. A Ship firing on an unprotected Tenno does mild AoE damage.

 

2). Each Powercell drop acts like ammo -- everybody can pick it up. This encourages Tenno to stick together, rather than wandering away from each other.

 

3). The game mode does not end until everybody is dead. If you run out of Jammer power, it is actually possible to re-power it by picking up more power cells.

 

4). The ship's lasers can actually kill you completely. When killed by the ship's lasers, you cannot be rezzed by a teammate (similar to Stalker)

 

5). Using a Revive makes sure you have at least 10-25% Jammer power (but won't add any if you have more than that, if you got killed by an enemy and weren't revived), just enough that you won't get killed immediately after getting back up.

 

6). The Ship's lasers are more like Heat Rays -- that explains why the ship's weapons can damage you underneath ceilings and while you're in tunnels as the convection goes through the ceiling and still hurts you anyways.

Alternatively, why not have a beacon on the players that requires power/battery. I mean, the point of a survival mission is that we are supposed to be making a ruckus so that the Lone Operative isn't discovered right? So you hack that initial console to get the beacon tied to it, then just sort of broadcast your location with the beacon to draw attention. Instead of LS capsules we just get (generic power source) capsules to fuel that.

If they really wanted to do it like this, then they could just turn off enemy spawns at power level 0, forcing a player to leave or spend a very boring amount of time wandering around doing nothing.

[tmtke]

Hehe, maybe a nightmare exterminate, where you also have a time limit for reaching the extraction, or it will start over and you have to make your way to the other end of the ship :) of course not on top of current nightmare modifiers.

[Ghobe]

Alright, I've sat back and thought for a few days(lies, been focused on TI4 Prelims). So let me make a post that refines/concedes/reveals conceded points....word...trying to find it...can't think of it...I know it starts with a c though...I think...anyways...

 

So it's clear to me that you guys don't want exterminate gone from the starmap. So allow me to point this out.

 

Planet | # of exterminates

Mercury: 1

Venus: 1

Earth: 2

Jupiter: 3

Mars: 4

Saturn: 4

Sedna: 2

Europa: 0

Phobos: 2

Uranus: 4

Eris: 4

Neptune: 1

Ceres: 2

Pluto: 1

 

Ok. As we can see MOST planets have at least 2 exterminates. Now we clearly don't need as many as 4 on a single planet(though we should probably have at least 1 on each of them). So here's what I'd like to have happen with current exterminates.

 

I'd still like to see their enemy counts increase but allow me to pick new numbers.

 

Mercury: 60-120

Venus: 100-175

Earth: 180-240

Jupiter/Mars/Saturn: 220-280

Everything else: 250-300

 

However, nightmare difficulty applies a random multiplier between 1.5 and 2.0x.

 

Next remove additional exterminates beyond 2 from each planet's map and for each planet that has a 2nd exterminate, increase the enemy count by 20% on that 2nd exterminate. Next replace those extra nodes with either the new game mode I suggested or another mission type altogether, and on planets beyond Earth, if there isn't an applicable node, then add a new one with the mission type I referred to.

 

For those of you against Interception missions, I welcome you to create suggestions for improving the game mode type rather than trying to have it removed. I actually kind of love the mode. Yes I agree it's annoying when a guy hacks the console for instant cap and the fact that the enemy forces cap faster naturally, but these are just tweaks the game mode needs, not a total removal. I'd personally like to see them cap at the same speed and instant cap be changed to just a neutral override rather than a full cap.

 

For those of you concerned with how long it takes, I apply your argument of keeping exterminate back to you: "you don't have to play it if you don't want to".

 

Sound better? Or did I still miss something?

 

...COMPROMISE! That's the word!

[Xylia]

For those of you against Interception missions, I welcome you to create suggestions for improving the game mode type rather than trying to have it removed. I actually kind of love the mode. Yes I agree it's annoying when a guy hacks the console for instant cap and the fact that the enemy forces cap faster naturally, but these are just tweaks the game mode needs, not a total removal. I'd personally like to see them cap at the same speed and instant cap be changed to just a neutral override rather than a full cap.

 

Here are the issues I have against Interception:

 

1). The instant cap as you said is just assinine: It punishes a player unfairly for making a single mistake that takes (what feels like) several minutes to recover from.

 

2). The Arena is set up in such a way that covering the myriad of points nearly impossible.

 

3). The spawning of the enemies is unbalanced -- too few or simply too many.

 

4). It didn't help that the ONLY interception was Grineer.

 

5). The rewards blew, out of the several times I did Interceptions, I always wound up with the same stupid crap.

 

So with that in mind...

 

1). Reduce the number of computer consoles; make them all spawn in the open area. Add 3-5 seconds to how long it takes an enemy to hack the computer console. Allow players to similarly hack the computer console, OR, make it so that the enemies have to fight for the cap. Maybe make it that hacking the computer console resets it to neutral.

 

2). Tweak the arenas to allow the points to be more easily covered.

 

3). Tweak it so that there's a steady stream of enemies but it isn't so ridiculous that you can't kill them fast enough (though problem #1 above was half of the reason why this was an issue).

 

4). Make one for Corpus.

 

5). Improve the rewards; Common Mods should never be in Defense/Interception. The rewards should be a mix of Uncommon, Void Keys, Rare, and Rare Resources. Please: No stupid credit caches. Those always stunk because they were so pointless. Nobody cares about "ZOMG 2000 CREDITS!"

[Eurhetemec]

Mercury: 60-120

Venus: 100-175

Earth: 180-240

Jupiter/Mars/Saturn: 220-280

Everything else: 250-300

 

However, nightmare difficulty applies a random multiplier between 1.5 and 2.0x.

 

Next remove additional exterminates beyond 2 from each planet's map and for each planet that has a 2nd exterminate, increase the enemy count by 20% on that 2nd exterminate. Next replace those extra nodes with either the new game mode I suggested or another mission type altogether, and on planets beyond Earth, if there isn't an applicable node, then add a new one with the mission type I referred to.

 

For those of you against Interception missions, I welcome you to create suggestions for improving the game mode type rather than trying to have it removed. I actually kind of love the mode. Yes I agree it's annoying when a guy hacks the console for instant cap and the fact that the enemy forces cap faster naturally, but these are just tweaks the game mode needs, not a total removal. I'd personally like to see them cap at the same speed and instant cap be changed to just a neutral override rather than a full cap.

 

For those of you concerned with how long it takes, I apply your argument of keeping exterminate back to you: "you don't have to play it if you don't want to".

 

Sound better? Or did I still miss something?

 

...COMPROMISE! That's the word!

 

Compromise only happens when both sides want change. You don't seem to understand that.

 

You want to change Exterminates a lot without much reasoning (your alternate game type is okay with me, but only on non-progression nodes - i.e. optional ones).

 

Nobody else does. It's like me walking up to you and saying "Give me $100!", obviously you say "Get stuffed!", so I say "How about just $50, COMPROMISE?", and expect you to agree.

 

No. Nope. Not how it works. :)

 

I don't know what your obsession is with higher numbers. All that does is make exterminates more time-consuming and tedious, but not harder or more interesting. Have you played Warframe, I wonder? If so, why, exactly and in detail, do you think "longer and slower" is a good design for this mission? I've played 180+ enemy exterminates. They're an exercise in boredom, and you want to make that the norm! There's a reason the numbers are the way they are now, you know.

[BiancaRoughfin]

Yes extermination missions are to easy and lame but still valuable to the game. As the OP i normaly do over 300 kills on a Mission (At least wile not rushing it.) and exterminate shouldnt give less then that number of enemies on missions with level above 10.
Also, all enemies in the stage should have knowlage of the player`s current location and rush to them to try in overwhelm.

 

DE shouldnt replace any other missions and maybe add new nodes on the map for new missions instead. Having replaced the Raid missions with Mobile Defense was a bit mistake, one becouse it was a intresting mission type and two becouse farming items in the void is becoming almost impossible since you have a large list of possible items in one single mission and they should have kept the Raid missions to split some of the drop tables into it. Also, im pretty shure DE could easly have added two new mission nodes to every planet for the Mobile defense.

[KorbanGado]

Yes extermination missions are to easy and lame but still valuable to the game. As the OP i normaly do over 300 kills on a Mission (At least wile not rushing it.) and exterminate shouldnt give less then that number of enemies on missions with level above 10.

Also, all enemies in the stage should have knowlage of the player`s current location and rush to them to try in overwhelm.

 

If I blew a hole in the side of their ship to board it, then by all means they should know where I am andrush to kill me. If, however, I snuck in through some shifty air vent in the ceiling (like Tenno are apt to do) then they shouldn't even realize that I'm on their ship or else what's the point of being a ninja? Thats the entire point behind being able to turn off alarms from phase 1 after all - allowing a player to use stealth when they want to.

 

As for the kill count, again it depends on your playstyle. On any mission that isn't wave-based (mobile defense, defense, survival) or with a hard set number (exterminate), I would wager I got through most of them sub-150 kills. Simply increasing the number of guys will do nothing to make an exterminate mission any more interesting, fun, challenging, or less tedious than it's current state (I'm assuming here that you don't enjoy them as otherwise you wouldn't see it as any of those things negatively necessarily). The only difference the number of troops makes is how long you are in the match - and if most people want to play a match with the potential to take 10+ minutes will simply play defense or survival anyways. Beyond that, you could argue that yes you get more affinity because more people to kill (to which massive increases would be needed to draw people away from the almost limitless amounts that could be garnered from survival/defence), or that maybe more items would be dropped.

Honestly, leaving the exterminates alone would be a better option, and then just adding a new mission type. Something multiple-tiered like previously suggested in the thread would provide (possibly) interesting (and although the game sometimes randomly hi-jacks mission types during already) alternatives to other missions. Even if it was a simple 3 waves of generic exterminate followed by a mission-jack, followed by 3 more waves of exterminate, followed by a new roll on the mission-jack table, so on and so forth.