Breeding Grounds Event Feedback

[Khunvyel]

Normally I write these AFTER the event is over or but time restrictions and the growing signs that I won't be able to finish the event, this made me deliver early.

 

A) What you did good;

 

• Infested specific tileset is amazing, hands down. Hopefully this is the start for other tilesets to become REALLY infested too when playing the appropriate missions
   
• Despite being swarmed like there was no tomorrow, I tried to find as many secret areas as I could. And some nice things I found there! *wink wink Mitch? nudge nudge*

   

• The general idea of making a player repeat the mission in order to progress to harder stages and get better rewards is good, but the execution was questionable. More on that on the "bad"

   

• Different kinds of hives were a good idea to keep the diversity up, however... it is a tad unfitting if you kill the defense turret hive FIRST and hear Lotus tell you "the last hive..., bla blah"

   

• The various pre-set spawn points for the tumor nodes have been well done, this should give you a good foundation for future turret spawns. I have not encountered node places being overly obstructed or posing any other problems.

   

• This event also pretty much succeeds for future mission types by testing varying parameters affecting the entire mission dynamically. I am curious what you will continue to deliver

 

 

B) On with the bad;

 

• You might wonder why I haven't placed new infested sounds as a pro. Of course I was happy hearing new sounds but very soon I  realized, despite being well done, they removed a very important feature of the previous soundset: aural perceiving of enemy diversity. This is gone now. The new soundsets basically blur everything together. There is not enough distinction for each creature other than the "new" ancient screams. The rest is just a massive blob of gushy-gory-voices with no uniqueness at all.
   

• Likewise with the music. I always like more music, but I just heard the same type and theme repeating in quick succession, and it was too bland and generic a horror movie. Don't get me wrong, it was well done, but that kind of music is as exhausted as the zombie theme and it is remarkably tough to pull a new trick in that genre. So as a musician, it almost pains me to say but... whoever made the effort for this music, it is sounding a lot too generic and uncreative. sorry :/ Even when I'm standing somewhere safe and just tune in to the music, there is nothing "Warframe" about it. Good for a horror movie scene, but it feels off when slaughtering enemies by the dozen.
   

• I wanted to see how good the event looks from a single player perspective... and the verdict is not pleasant. Instantly getting 6 points for the first mission, but then I needed how-ever-many more to see a change in the "best" ranking, for no apparent reason. No different hive, no nothing. The visibility for scoring was lackluster. You should have given fixed points per mission run, and give more points per mission for each difficulty tier. I don't see why I should be punished because I'm a solo player, whereas another person just spends a lazy hour or two with a team and gets their Prova Vandal.
  

   

• The respawn was too ridiculous to be of any fun. Okay, I enjoyed the first... 2 missions. Oldschool Alien vs. Predator onslaught, no time to reload, go melee frenzy. 'twas fun but... there were instances where I could literally see the enemies appear across the room, popping in, running onward. And the constant issues with the game's inability to properly handle collision alerts, not to mention the seconds of impotence after reappearing from a blackscreen-of-falling... there are too many instances where you get slaughtered where you stand, without having a possibility to do ANYTHING against it or wedge out.

   

• Always 3 Hives per map was soon getting boring. I would have hoped for an increased amount of hives after certain missions, with the possibility to get ALL the hives and thus all the side effects. Or an increased amount of tumor nodes to kill, or ideally both.
   
• Voice lines have been completely sub-par. The lack of variety and diversity in the transmission was a slap to the face compared to what we got earlier. And then, despite these few lines, even managing to get errors in the subtitles on the Alad V side is... a bit sad, to be reserved. Don't get me wrong, it was well VOICED. The acting was fitting as usual, and sound the same. But the lack of diversity was shocking.

 

 

I don't have a problem with repetitive grind to get something I like. I have more a problem with not seeing results. And doing several missions without knowing why my score improved - or rather, why it didn't - is not helping me to predict in any way how much it will take to get the rewards I aim for. Especially in time-sensitive events, where I want to dip my toe in the water to see how it approximately runs, so I can decide how much time I can allocate to this.

 

I hope we're going to see the non-infested versions of the rooms we saw on this event map on the related Corpus ships, to ensure there is no weird discrepancy going on.

Edited June 23, 2014 by Khunvyel

[SoulDust]

What you did well** rest is tl;dr

[Pendragon1951]

In response to your single player comments, I found as a solo player it was very friendly in the sense that I was able to handle it, but I'm a veteran player with plenty of Warframes to choose from and with the ability to pop a Spectre so as far as a new player, unless they were very good they may not survive, but a veteran solo player can survive. I found it pleasantly overwhelming in the sense it gave you that feeling of danger without making it feel like it was impossible to do. 

[Khunvyel]

On a general level, I agree with you there, but the effort required to go in there solo when going for the rewards in comparison to go with a full group was completely out of proportion. I'm fine if things take 4 times as long on average compared to a full group of 4 people who know what they are doing, but this clearly is not the case here, and in addition to that there was no clear indicator of how the score progresses.

[CaptainJohnson]

It's hard for me to say that it shouldn't be better to go as a group than go solo; while I find myself going on my own quite a bit, the game is specifically tailored for group play. I did run most of the Breeding Grounds missions solo, however, and found it to be pretty easy when playing with Nyx. Pop an Absorb when the enemies are too close for comfort or when there are toxic clouds everywhere, then hit the next tumor/hive/whatever I'm going towards.

 

However, I have to agree that the score system was far too confusing and should've been explained better than "the more you do it, the harder it gets and you'll get more points" because I found myself going back one or two points on some missions, while jumping up by seven in the next. I'm not a big fan of using RNG when it comes to rewards like that, which is why I liked the Specters event.

 

I also disagree with the music bit, but I can understand where you're coming from. It was really great when I was solo'ing at 2 HP and a couple points of health, making a mad dash towards extraction- I admit that I didn't always notice the music, but it was great for background stuff and the dynamic music system was really interesting.

 

I also find it hard to agree with the bit about the voices and the lines they delivered. Lotus didn't have especially exciting transmissions, but Alad V's were amazing. He just sounded so wounded and wonderfully pathetic, it was great. That tone of desperation was incredibly satisfying at the end of each run.

[10twenty4]

It was remarkable how many people I saw asking for help understanding how the scoring worked for this event, and I can't tell if it's their fault, DE didn't explain well enough, or the rules are simply unclear.

 

 

I agree the tileset looks nice and has some neat sections, but on the whole it feels like a pain to navigate through.

[Khunvyel]

It's hard for me to say that it shouldn't be better to go as a group than go solo

It should technically always be better in a group. Yet the effort required alone was more than four times required to get the same result in group play, so if we math it up, that really shouldn't be.

 

 

I also disagree with the music bit, but I can understand where you're coming from. It was really great when I was solo'ing at 2 HP and a couple points of health, making a mad dash towards extraction- I admit that I didn't always notice the music, but it was great for background stuff and the dynamic music system was really interesting.

I must say, perhaps I was too spoiled with previous music additions. This one sounded flat out like a generic horror movie soundtrack without anything Warframe-iconic to it. A well done soundtrack nonetheless, but it felt strangely out of place when comparing to the remaining theme of the game. It was too purely orchestral for such a hybrid game. It definitely lacked something. Not only depth.

 

 

I also find it hard to agree with the bit about the voices and the lines they delivered. Lotus didn't have especially exciting transmissions, but Alad V's were amazing. He just sounded so wounded and wonderfully pathetic, it was great. That tone of desperation was incredibly satisfying at the end of each run.

I didn't complain about the quality of the lines delivered, I even noted extra that the voice ACTING was not the issue. I complained about the homogeneous feeling from the script. Compare Alad's lines with the ones from previous events - it was lacking diversity.

 

 

 

It was remarkable how many people I saw asking for help understanding how the scoring worked for this event, and I can't tell if it's their fault, DE didn't explain well enough, or the rules are simply unclear.

In case I'm also included in this statement; I knew that I needed my "best" score for the reward count, and the more I play the more difficult it will become. But I only got to know this if I read up on the news. Yet, even when educating myself as a mindful player about the event, there still was no clear indicator, nor was there a clear measurement by which the best score will start to rise. If you take any "reputation grind" from any game, you make a certain run and then you know exactly how many points you got. You can then use a stopwatch and know how long it will take you to meet the desired quota.

Even if we look at Warframe related events of the past, there was the same thing. It was clear how much HP the Tethra core needed to have in order to get your points after the very first run. It was clear that you needed a total of 100% of Toxins for Cicero. Those have all be values that could easily be measured and looked through. Here? None of it. Arbitrary jumps. Several games played in series without a change of the "best" score, even if you play solo.

[Armaeus]

Shouldn't the Lotus stop giving me the tutorial messages after 20 runs?

 

The scoring system definitely needs a tweak. It feels as though how fast or how well the player/s perform the mission does not matter, which makes the running the mission more boring (For example, I had no reason to want to revive and help finish the mission when my teammates were going to finish it anyway.)  

 

As a melee build Loki, I enjoyed cutting swaths through tons of infested, but after getting up to nearly 800 of the "stank" total, I still had not gotten the Prova Vandal. I attributed this to possibly playing with a group all the time and tried to do it solo. No dice. The enemies hit incredibly hard and I am unable to finish the mission solo anymore. I normally would just continue to run the mission in a group, but after running this a god awful number of times, I simply cant stand to do it anymore. The idea is great, but even with the different effects, it gets older faster than the points accrue. 

Edited June 24, 2014 by Armaeus

[Khunvyel]

I was glad I got the mods yesterday, but I have to mention again how ridiculous the scoring system was, at least as a solo player.

First 6 missions = 6 points each

Mission 7 to 11 = 10 points each

Mission 12 = 18 points.

 

I sadly don't have the time to check out how the scoring system continues solo, but so far it was 6 and 5 missions respectively to get to a new tier of best score, but I cannot get myself curious enough if there are now only 4 or again 5 missions do be done to advance to the next tier. Neither can I be bothered to be interested in how big the next number is. 6 ,10, 18, 22? 24? I don't know and I honestly stopped caring.

 

Sorry DE, the scoring of this event wasn't good :( It would have been a lot better to receive +1 point per mission with smaller increments of enemy levels. So after 12 missions, I would still have my 18 points, but at least I'd seen progress and knew right after the second mission; "okay, I need another 10 missions total to get my mods" With that, I'd be having a total of 138 points instead of 104, so that is also not going to hurt as much.

 

As for group scoring, this would mean one gets their best score resulting from an average from all players involved OR +1, if that score is less than yours. That means you'd be always getting at LEAST your best next score of +1, and if you have some high-score players in your group, you'll be leaping a few points ahead.

Too complicated? Then just make it +1 per player per mission. Not nice for solo players? Then keep it at +1 per mission and the benefit you get for running with a group of people is that it is easier, period.