A Quick Fix To The New Ospreys Without Nerfing Them

[KillianJones]

A lot of people have been struggling with the new Ospreys in infested missions. Me too.

I gave it a bit of thought, and have thought of how to fix this problem without just nerfing them.

Because we seem to be having trouble with them on defense maps and whatnot, I think that the new ospreys should be removed from certain game modes.

It was easy for me to not be bothered by them in Hive missions, but I think that they will be tedious in the following modes:

-Exterminate (not as bad as Defense or Mobile Defense)

-Defense

-Mobile Defense

-Spy (maybe not, I just see them farting up next to the consoles, making it hard to spawn the payload without dying)

When I call this a fix without nerfing, I still think the hitboxes are ridiculous and do actually need fixing. Not nerfing; FIXING.

Anyways, what do you guys think? Exclusive to certain game modes: yes or no?

[Xievie]

I actually agree, they haven't been as much of a problem in other missions, but it's way too easy to get overwhelmed in Defense missions.

[Stormandreas]

The toxic cloud needs reduced range and duration. THATS the issue with them, and the only one.
Also, I don't think the dropper ones should have a charge attack... that should fall under an infested Oxium Osprey, not Infested Bomber Osprey.

[DarkRedeemer]

the new ospreys are awesome and there is absolutly nothing wrong with them. ppl just want them out of defence missions so they can still go forever without worrying of a bunch of toxic clouds. did 60 waves of infested and not one member in the group died from an osprey.

[zerogear5]

toxic does need to be adjusted it basically one shots any frame with lower then 200 health.

[Xievie]

the new ospreys are awesome and there is absolutly nothing wrong with them. ppl just want them out of defence missions so they can still go forever without worrying of a bunch of toxic clouds. did 60 waves of infested and not one member in the group died from an osprey.

Is it wrong to not want to die to a toxic cloud?

I personally would rather die to something more avoidable. It's extremely difficult not to drown in their farts because it's actually hard to see them.

Any competent group can make it far, but it's annoying how I see a bunch of randoms dropping dead at wave 1. Your group that hit wave 60 means nothing to me since you either played with people you knew or actually found a competent group.

[Erelas]

Agreed with topic starter.  I don't have a problem with how they work, but where they're placed and the fact that they're getting stuck on mission types that take a lot longer now b/c of that.

Additionally, the target box IS quite small on them making them hard to scan and shoot with the movement they have.

[EliteRider]

Their toxic cloud still need a damage nerf, most of the frames i have are squishy and those toxic clouds take me down so fast before i even notice that i'm being poisoned by them, even i can barely do anything with Ember or Nyx with those ospreys spreading those clouds every where i go.

Edited June 20, 2014 by EliteRider

[Lost_Cartographer]

Is it wrong to not want to die to a toxic cloud?

I personally would rather die to something more avoidable. It's extremely difficult not to drown in their farts because it's actually hard to see them.

 

Stationary toxic clouds are about as avoidable as danger comes, though they could stand to be more visible to facilitate this.

 

Previously I thought they procced viral, but in fact the hive clouds do that.  I'd have preferred with the toxic clouds did toxic damage, but procced viral, or not at all.  Getting out of the cloud should be rewarded instantly with not continuously suffering from having stepped into it.

[Erelas]

Their toxic cloud still need a damage nerf, most of the frames i have are squishy and those toxic clouds take me down so fast before i even notice that i'm being poisoned by them, even i can barely do anything with Ember or Nyx with those ospreys spreading those clouds every where i go.

I disagree.  The clouds are just fine, it's nice having some challenge in the game, and to utterly prove that this is valid I went in on my Nekros, (basically) no shields and a little bit of HP, Rage, and Antitoxin equipped at max.  Never went down and was standing in the stuff.  It hurts still, obviously, but that's what it's suppose to do.  

 

The players complaining about it and whining make me disgusted.  We finally got something in the game that made us go, wow, that hurt and I need to back off and whiners be like nope, get rid of it, it's too hard.

Edited June 20, 2014 by Erelas

[Quiet_Time1]

lol

Edited June 20, 2014 by Amethyst.zero

[-Scourge]

or add elemental/ proc resistance.

 

Armor 2.0 And Survivability Mods

Edited June 20, 2014 by -Scourge

[Shanicus]

My biggest issues with the new ospreys is that a) They spawn way to early in defense missions (in even the low-level areas - they're absolute lowbie destroyers there), b) the cloud is barely visible - I died a few times in a DS defense because I just couldn't tell where the clouds were, and c) the gas-proc is a bit much, especially since it does more damage per tick than the actual cloud does (I took about 35 direct health damage from walking through a cloud but around 400 damage from the DoT it placed on me).

 

I'd say boost them to spawning on wave 10/15 (alongside Ancients or something) at least in the lower level areas, make the cloud more visible and reduce the damage and proc chance of the gas tick while boosting the damage of the cloud. Making them bigger certainly couldn't hurt - at the moment they're half the size of a charger, which makes them both a) a pain in the &#! to hit with anything not super accurate and b) really easy to miss if you're looking around/moving too quickly.

[Shanicus]

I disagree.  The clouds are just fine, it's nice having some challenge in the game, and to utterly prove that this is valid I went in on my Nekros, (basically) no shields and a little bit of HP, Rage, and Antitoxin equipped at max.  Never went down and was standing in the stuff.  It hurts still, obviously, but that's what it's suppose to do.  

 

The players complaining about it and whining make me disgusted.  We finally got something in the game that made us go, wow, that hurt and I need to back off and whiners be like nope, get rid of it, it's too hard.

So it was perfectly fine to stand in... with a rare mod, maxed damage resistance and a frame that spits health orbs out like no tomorrow? That's... probably not a perfect test. Try it again in say, a Mag or a Loki without the resistance. The instant-health damage is pretty brutal against squishier frames and if it procs on you, you're screwed if you don't have the resources to craft dozens of health restores.

The difficulty of seeing the clouds (especially when there's multiple ospreys, as they can carpet bomb an area with invisible death) and the sheer amount of damage the procs do is a legitimate concern. The fact  that they appear on even the low level infested missions (like the Infestation on Venus) is a problem, since the high-damaging gas proc and direct-HP damage is VERY harmful to newer players who don't have access to the myriad of health restores and auras veteran players have. To put it in perspective:

 

-Toxic Ancients (direct HP damaging units) don't appear until wave 15 and very, VERY rarely appear in level 15 or lower missions, only really spawning in the higher level areas.

-Mutalist Osprey - appear in first 5 waves of defense missions and at levels as low as 4. Still deal direct HP damage, often times very high damage based on procs.

They're a great enemy and add a new hazard to the infested so they aren't just a 'stand in one place and mash melee' faction, but damn do they need a bit of balance tweaking first, especially in regards to newer players. Shifting them up alongside Toxic Ancients solves the newbie problem at the very least.

[Erelas]

So it was perfectly fine to stand in... with a rare mod, maxed damage resistance and a frame that spits health orbs out like no tomorrow? That's... probably not a perfect test. Try it again in say, a Mag or a Loki without the resistance. The instant-health damage is pretty brutal against squishier frames and if it procs on you, you're screwed if you don't have the resources to craft dozens of health restores.

 

You're all over the place here, where should I start.

1) It was a good test.  The Nekros is one of the squishier frames out there.  And I would have stated if I had health orbs to pick up while standing in the pool, I didn't, check that one off the list.

 

2) Antitoxin is not a rare mod.  It's actually Uncommon, but drops like flies at a zapper off of MOAs, and quite often at that.

3) Maxed dmg resistance? Hmm..not sure what you're referring to here, please elaborate.  If it's the aforesaid mod, then you're just repeating yourself, if you mean I had something else on other than Rage and a Health mod, that's a pretty common duo to have on a Nekros and many other frames.  But no, I didn't have any other resistance other than the one I clearly stated before.

4) Tried it on a Mag recently without anything but a basic Health mod and Antitoxin.  Again, not a problem, hurts yes, but not beyond its bounds. 

Everything is pointing toward a solution which the players can easily choose to equip should they wish to do so, might be smart since the upcoming infested may be dropping similar toxin based dmg.  If they don't have Antitoxin, it's not hard to pick up.

All in all, these drones while hard to hit and annoying on certain mission types do not need to see any changes, it's the players themselves that need to evaluate and change, that's what the mods are there for.

I will confess that low ranking players will have a hard time with these should they be placed in low level content, no doubt.

[F1UXie]

Personally, I don't have much of a problem dealing with the Ospreys. If there was one change I would make it would be to give them a more distinct audio cue when they charge like the Oxium Ospreys have.

Also, make the gas clouds more visible with a persistant hiss when you get near them.

[Shanicus]

You're all over the place here, where should I start.

1) It was a good test.  The Nekros is one of the squishier frames out there.  And I would have stated if I had health orbs to pick up while standing in the pool, I didn't, check that one off the list.

 

2) Antitoxin is not a rare mod.  It's actually Uncommon, but drops like flies at a zapper off of MOAs, and quite often at that.

3) Maxed dmg resistance? Hmm..not sure what you're referring to here, please elaborate.  If it's the aforesaid mod, then you're just repeating yourself, if you mean I had something else on other than Rage and a Health mod, that's a pretty common duo to have on a Nekros and many other frames.  But no, I didn't have any other resistance other than the one I clearly stated before.

4) Tried it on a Mag recently without anything but a basic Health mod and Antitoxin.  Again, not a problem, hurts yes, but not beyond its bounds. 

Everything is pointing toward a solution which the players can easily choose to equip should they wish to do so, might be smart since the upcoming infested may be dropping similar toxin based dmg.  If they don't have Antitoxin, it's not hard to pick up.

All in all, these drones while hard to hit and annoying on certain mission types do not need to see any changes, it's the players themselves that need to evaluate and change, that's what the mods are there for.

I will confess that low ranking players will have a hard time with these should they be placed in low level content, no doubt.

...Rage is a rare mod. If you weren't using health orbs, it's kinda unnecessary to mention Rage, since it doesn't do anything for damage taken.

Damage resistance did just mean anti-toxin.

Uncommon mods, while uncommon, still take a lot of resources to level to max if you're a low-leveled player. If you need it to survive a basic enemy... you can probably see the problem here.

 

And yes, they... kinda do. It's called 'balancing'. Just to test them out myself, I got my Zephyr with maxed out HP (1080) and went on a mission against level 4 infested ospreys. This was with no Anti-Toxin. 1 of them attacked me, and standing in the gas cloud did 107 damage over it's duration (individual ticks hit for between 12 and 17) - when I got procced, I took 200~ extra damage over 6 seconds.

So that's up to 300 direct HP damage from 1 enemy. Excal has that much at rank 30. When I was swarmed by 3 (mind you, level 4), I got dropped to below 100 HP, since the clouds criss-crossed over a very wide area and would refresh the proc.

With the clouds, I don't actually mind the high damage they deal when you stand in them - it's a good 'Get the hell out' mechanic, though it can get a little mental when there's multiple ospreys that carpet-bomb an area (the clouds are more visible now, so you can see where to stand). However, the Proc is just too damn much. 200 damage at low levels, scaling to 400+ at level 20 is just too damn much for something that happens by complete chance. Even if you stand in the cloud for a short time - say, you need to run through it to get somewhere -, if it procs, you're screwed.

They are, unsurprisingly for a freshly-introduced mob, in need of a few changes - size changes (they're smaller than a regular Osprey, which is strange), sound changes (turns out the noise they make is from the crawler they sometimes carry; the sound the Osprey itself makes is really, really quiet) and lastly proc damage changes (make the cloud stronger and the proc weaker, just so you don't get killed by RNG). Think of making these guys like the Grineer Napalms in that effect - high damage, area denial, but you don't need to stack on a resistance mod just to survive them and their proc - while dangerous - isn't the single most lethal thing about them.