Excavation Feedback Megathread

[KuroShiranui]

There's one thing I wondered in this new mode.

 

So we're extracting something mods, and use extractors for that.

We need to power up the extractors using power cells to get it working.

Power cells can be obtained from enemies.

Said enemies actually helps us by bringing those power cells to begin with.

Those enemies' objective is to destroy these extractors and kill us.

 

My question is, why would the enemies bring power cells if they want to destroy the extractors in the first place? What's the use of them bringing said power cells?

 

In Survival it makes sense for enemies to bring their own life support since they're the ones shutting down the main life support in the ship. Also, Lotus helps by bringing capsules at times.

 

 

Other than that this is a really exciting game mode. It encourages teamwork, have new (vertical-ish) tilesets, those minor-but-noticable heat generators and all. And the recent hotfix made it more to defending than running around the map.

[DivisionByZero]

I'm tired of the continuous discrimination against solo players with every update.

Non-comprehensive list of discrimination against solo players in Warframe:

-Nightmare mode with no shields (no squad = no revives)

-Sling-Stone (solo players couldn't hold every corruptor)

-Arid Fear (solo players couldn't get as many points)

-Orokin Derelicts/Corrupted Mods (dragon keys = RNG for solo players)

-Cicero Crisis (you needed a full squad to get the top-tier reward until the 100 point antitoxins were added, and it was a defense mission)

-Tethra's Doom (mission objective is powered from your shields - soloing = a quarter of the available power to move the mission objective)

-Breeding Grounds (need full squad for higher-valued infested tumors to appear)

-Excavation missions

-Defense missions

-Survival missions

-90% of new items being clantech exclusive

Supposedly, soloing is supposed to be viable. But the new Excavation mission type is the most solo-hostile in the history of Warframe, even more so than Defense.

The update notes mention that Excavation is supposed to be a substitute for Survival mode. Seriously? Survival was somewhat solo-hostile, but it would be trivial to fix survival for solo players (Shame on DE and the players for being unable to figure it out). Just scale the life support degeneration with the number of players (life support would decrease at a quarter of the normal rate while soloing). To fix some of the issues with life support drop RNG, double the drop rate and half the amount of life support restored.

tl;dr; Survival was almost fine as it was, but Excavation is a giant slap in the face to solo players

Excavation is more like a pain in the behind Defense where you have to pick up power cells. How is a solo player supposed to fight while picking up power cells (and also dodging/taking cover if you aren't Rhino). This isn't skill based, it's just plain broken.

The other problem with Excavation is that the resource detector stays at the beginning of the map, forcing players to traverse huge distances. Even with a full squad, extractors were often destroyed before I could reach them (that's saying something, considering I was equipped with Rhino Prime, Arcane Vanguard Helmet, Rush, and an Amphis with maxed Fury). I can't see how Excavation could be done solo.

------------

Enough discrimination against solo players. Solo players should just stop supporting Warframe until this bullcrap stops. I've put up with a lot of events that discriminate against solo players, and I have every event-exclusive item so far except Primed Chamber, but I might just miss out on the Latron Wraith if Excavation isn't seriously rebalanced.

And if anyone wants to bring out the overused argument that "Warframe is an online game and isn't designed for solo", they can shut up already. Either make soloing viable or remove it. I'm tired of this anti-solo garbage, and I would guess that the majority of solo players are also tired of it.

[RitaVrataski]

Great mode. There should be a "insert power cell" button however

[Cpl_Facehugger]

Overall I really like the new mode and its concept.

But beyond it being a hassle to run around looking for new extractors across half the map (it was really bad before the hotfix, now it's merely somewhat painful), I think the biggest problem is how low the extractor health is.

 

Early on it's fine. But later on, a single mook enemy can bring it down if you don't have a snowglobe over it. And that's no fun, particularly if you mostly solo like I do.

 

The easy fix to this is to make extractor health and shields scale with enemy level, so the extractor is always the same relative durability vis a vis the enemy.

[Llyssa]

We need to be able to *drop* power cores now. It's pointless to carry a whole stack all the way back one at a time. It takes forever, and respawns mean it's pointlessly dangerous.

 

If we could drop them, it would be easier to relay them towards where they need to go, without having to cross the entire level every time we find one.

[OmegaMilkCow]

Attempting this SOLO is just asking for your time to be wasted. You spend half of the time running 2 minutes to the Extractors and 2 minutes back to the Scanner. With the nerf to how many power cells you can hold, you don't actually get to defend the Extractors because your forced to hunt down the power cells for literally every second until they have enough power. And then after you finish the Extractors, you have to spend more time hunting down power cells for the Scanner, which now, for some reason, can't be added unless it's in the process of scanning. This causes the following to happen: You finish Extractors in one area, the Scanner spawns new Extractors in separate places. The Scanner now has ~5% power, and no more can be added, so you go do the Extractors, and spend the next ~10 minutes hauling Power Cells back to the Scanner, which is most likely 2-3 minutes away from the Extractors. It's incredibly frustrating. 

[Pendragon1951]

My Experience with the new game mode:

 

 I have to admit it is quite hectic at times especially if your solo, but I didn't feel as pressured as when I play mobile defense, it was a more comfy type of fast moving mission. I was a little lost in the beginning but once I figured it out it was quite fun. The tactic I found on the ice planet that really worked for the team I was on was my Rhino Prime and my Kubrow stayed by the scanner armed with my Boltor Prime we defended that area while the other three concentrated on the excavators. Doing that kept up a steady stream of extractor locations while not having to worry about powering the scanner because there were lots of core drops by enemies I killed. Regarding the new tile set, being new I got a bit lost going to the extraction point but it's pretty nice lots of different levels to fight from. All in All I think DE did themselves proud with this update.

[Pendragon1951]

@DivisionbyZero I agree there may have been some events you could not do solo, but in this event I completely disagree with you, maybe your a lower level player and that's why your having a tough time, but I can tell you as a player who likes to play solo I was able to get 500 points on my own. Now as I said I don't know your level, I am level 13 and did it with Rhino Prime and Boltor Prime along with a level 30 Raksa, so maybe that was why I was able to but nevertheless I still did it solo. I think at some point no matter what games you play there is a logical limit of how far you can play solo and you just have to play coop to get the mission done. Even in solo mode I thought the enemies were well balanced, I would say don't give up on it, see why your dying so much and create a solution. Maybe your playing a mode that is higher than your able at this time?

[CaptainEras]

First run on Earth got 800 points. 2nd Phobos with 2 good guys and we got well over 3000 . . all goodies packed away.

3rd on Europa . .another 3000 points . .some new freeze mods given.

 

Now, about the mod section. WHY take something which was as clear as day and make it as clear as mud.

WHY take away a card which gave all the details - including the status of rare, common etc. (no longer on the card) - and waste game space with a muddy looking interface which brings up the card (with less information), when you click on it . . .who the hell is responsible for this crazy clouded thinking ? adding a pointless extra input to get to a worse card than we had before.

 

DE can think what they want but some of their decisions are downright ludicrous and come across as someone fed up with flicking paperclips deciding what they can do to make it look like they aren't just cruising, and we have to suffer some unadulterated crap .

 

I quickly recognize mods by the pic on the card, not so much the name, and the last update before this one was perfect. We could see all the mods and divide them into sub-categories. very quickly and efficiently. All of this has been turned into style over content, inefficiency because of change for the sake of it, when that time could have been better spent in other areas of improving gameplay . . ever heard of the expression, "don't overthink something".

Edited August 28, 2014 by CaptainEras

[Babellon]

Tested after the hotfix. Phobos, 2000 points, most exciting map I've played in a long time, I think it bears saying again, I love it. 

I enjoy that it is endless, so I can go in with a new weapon, and keep killing spawns till I just can't take them any more. 

 

I can add power to the scanner when I want to , which means if I want to just stand there killing mobs, I can, and i can pick up a power core when I'm ready to activate a new node, rinse and repeat till I'm overwhelmed by mobs, this part is important- I actually get overwhelmed by mobs, that can actually kill me after a certain point, with no timer, no limitations other than my own willingness to take the punishment. 

 

DE, I realize some people are going to find this hard, some are even going to suggest that you turn down the mobs, or the difficulty, please do not. It really is perfect. Sure Im dissapointed i can't carry more than one power core at a time now. I how ever like that the drills all spawned in very close proximity to the scanner on this last run, I hope that is going to be a normal element. I like the high intensity spawn rate, I like the mob density. It is simply wonderful. Just wanted to say that again.

 

I'd like to suggest you take this mode, and use it on all the survival maps. The spawn rates, the drop rates of the life support, the scaling of difficulty, all of the mechanics of this new survival mode, and apply to all the other endless maps. sure, this is a unique mode, but the mechanics of how the mobs spawn, the numbers they spawn at, the speed of the spawns, can be used to improve those other modes, and lets face it, they do need some improvement. 

Spawn rates and density can also be applied to all the other maps as well, I think all of the maps need to be tweaked up a bit in regards to spawns, density, speed, and level scaling to the player or group. This is just one tenno operatives opinion, I hope you are considering some of these things.

Edited August 28, 2014 by -Malachi-

[Llyssa]

BUG: After host migration, all enemies appeared as if they'd been loki disarmed, and NONE of them were carrying energy cores. Mission became impossible.

[CedarDpg]

Europa event site=really big and extremely bumpy. Somehow, in this game, we are able to get stuck/catch on a lot of what look like smooth corners so you have to back up to get around obstacles (you can't just angle to the right or left and "smear" yourself around the corner) in normal Grineer/Corpus/Infested/Orokin tilesets...and Europa has many such obstacles.

 

(But I did really enjoy the excavation mission type.)

Edited August 28, 2014 by CedarDpg

[GTG3000]

First run on Earth got 800 points. 2nd Phobos with 2 good guys and we got well over 3000 . . all goodies packed away.

3rd on Europa . .another 3000 points . .some new freeze mods given.

 

Now, about the mod section. WHY take something which was as clear as day and make it as clear as mud.

WHY take away a card which gave all the details - including the status of rare, common etc. (no longer on the card) - and waste game space with a muddy looking interface which brings up the card (with less information), when you click on it . . .who the hell is responsible for this crazy clouded thinking ? adding a pointless extra input to get to a worse card than we had before.

 

DE can think what they want but some of their decisions are downright ludicrous and come across as someone fed up with flicking paperclips deciding what they can do to make it look like they aren't just cruising, and we have to suffer some unadulterated crap .

 

I quickly recognize mods by the pic on the card, not so much the name, and the last update before this one was perfect. We could see all the mods and divide them into sub-categories. very quickly and efficiently. All of this has been turned into style over content, inefficiency because of change for the sake of it, when that time could have been better spent in other areas of improving gameplay . . ever heard of the expression, "don't overthink something".

 

Good point. I could see those getting used on Europa to power the heat generators (would be a good idea to let tenno re-power them, and maybe replace health with shield, so it "turns down" if shield is depleted), but on other maps, there should be more reason. New tiles for tenno to snag the powercells from? 

[Krion112]

My Experience:

 

PROS

-This mode is, at this time, the most involving of the mission types. It takes almost everything fun from the stand-your-ground type game modes of Defense, Mobile Defense, Interception, and Survival and merges them together in a very fun mode. (IE, Holding multiple locations, collecting mission-critical pickups, Escalation of enemy difficulty)

 

-It's an endless mode, allowing players to collect a large amount of materials and mods for however long they can last.

 

-It's encouraging of player cooperation and coordination; it's fun to plan out what one must do within the cell in a mission to ensure success.

 

 

CONS

-It doesn't seem very solo friendly. I haven't tried it Solo yet, but just what I get out of the coop, it seems it would be nigh impossible to get very far as the average player while trying to play alone. However, until I test it, this Con may be negligible 

 

-There's often a large excess of power cores, and they usually despawn before we need to come back them. The number really isn't bad, it's just their only use is to the Scanner and Extractors.

 

 

RECOMMENDATIONS

-Create more uses for Power Cores in these types of missions; my cell would often be sitting on large piles of power cores that despawn before we can use them, due to all of our extractors being on maximum power. I wish I had something to do with the spare ones (maybe turrets to power up to help with defense that drain while active or when damaged, generators that can be powered to project walls of magnetic procs and drain power when enemies pass through, or something similar?)

 

-In my honest opinion, more game modes need to be more involving like this one. 

 

 

If something comes to mind I'll add it or change something listed above, but so far, this is my feedback.

Edited August 29, 2014 by Krion112

[JimmyJamison]

Wait wait wait im confused ok so theres a gamemode called evcavation what happened to survival ???

[Krion112]

Wait wait wait im confused ok so theres a gamemode called evcavation what happened to survival ???

Excavation is replacing all Survivals on planet surface tilesets. All Survivals on ship or station tilesets are staying the same.

[mrhat.lf]

So, is there an ETA to when the Tile Set will be permanently moved to Europa?

[aoguro]

i dont like the new music and will turn it off now in general

 

i would vote YES if we would be able to vote for the old background-music in battles/missions/etc., it has had more athmosphere, this right now is ununderstandable for me and why you did it, DE ...

 

i dont like the new music

[ThePredicament]

Four things for this update

 

Bugs:

-Extraction countdown text field is underneath/over scanner text field.

-Chat window does not automatically minimize anymore.

 

Suggestions:

-Darken mods that haven't been acquired in the codex. Really hard to differentiate between acquired and not acquired since that dot needs to be inspected for, rather than glanced at.

-Add more of a shadow/embossed effect on new mod text titles. Some like the orange one are harder to read at first glance.

Edited August 28, 2014 by TheLocalHentai

[Zuijin]

New survival mod, now lore wise: no more orbital vacuum cleaner to drain our precious air.

I admit I've a mixed review on those and I'll try to argument them step by step:

 

 

1) THIS IS AMAZING!

Seriously: it's quite epic. The spaces, the landscape, the new palette of color and lights, new sounds... it is really amazing to move in maps large as cities. And it's not even dispersive, because you always know where you've to go. The only problem, if it is one, are the bottlenecks to move from an area to another of the map: the minimap is often not clear on the path to follow, but it's hardly a fault: I mean,,, it's so big that it's normal to lose yourself the first times.

It remembered me my first experience in warframe, with maps that seemed endless... quite a nice memory.

And I really loved the corpus maps on Europa: the ice bridge, the tunnels and the surface... really, the trip is worth just for the landscape and for multilayered maps

 

2) ...This is frustrating.

Being nice and all, it is not without problems.

My biggest source of frustration lies only in the grineer tileset of this mod: bombards are fully able to one shot excavators. While on chart a minor problem, it becomes aggravating on higher level. To the point of forcing you to the corpus version, or to have a frost in team. I'm not sure forcing a frame as a choice for a survival event is the way to go...

I would propose something different for the excavator: make excavators invulnerable. They run on energy dropped from those special troops like the current situation BUT as in the interception missions, they have a keyboard: if an enemy reach the keyboard and interact with it, the excavators self destruct (instead of swapping property as in the interception missions). A minor change, but something that promote a more smart play style and an attentive team work, instead of fearing every bombard in range.

 

3) Interface.

While rarely I've seen more than one extractor on at any given time, I think the hud information about them should be moved on the right side of the window (or the upper side). The new survival mode promote communication, but when chat space and hud information overlaps, it become confusing. For this reason, I think the extractors stats should be moved, or being polished a little so to avoid datas overlapping.

Edited August 28, 2014 by Zuijin

[Rorkyr]

The excavation mode is really nice, but don't delete the survival mission please TwT

[Tiqalicious]

I can't speak for anyone else here but I have to say the most enjoyable thing about the new excavation mode is having mobs and mobs of enemies on screen again. I've terribly missed that massive volume of enemies waiting to take me on in endless modes ever since DE toned them down some a while back and I really, really, REALLY hope that you guys keep them in here because honestly, this is the most fun I've had in quite some time. It's so much fun being bombarded with baddies again.

[Curaidh]

Alright, the hotfix completely killed the new mode for me. Let's get some constructive criticism out there:

 

The big maps for me where not an issue, quite the opposite, it was really really nice.

 

Being only able to carry 20% energy is. The walking has INCREASED since the upgrade since now we have to run back and forth, back and forth to power excavators. This made the mode incredibly boring.

 

Next issue: The Scanner can no longer be charged when it isn't scanning. This again is absolutely terrible if you are trying to run this mode efficient.

 

Before the hotfix: A really fun mode that was imho fine as it was. We had fun while it lasted.

After the hotfix: This mode will not be touched at all out of the necessary to farm the new ressource. This is more boring now than any of the other modes.

 

 

How to fix this:

1. Give back the ability to carry more than one power cell. What's the problem with someone dropping an excavator and instantly powering it up fully? It still needs defending. To me it has not gotten harder to defend it, just more grindy and boring.

 

2. Give back the ability to charge the scanner while the timer is on hold. It enables to wait for 3 artefact scans, pump it to 100% and off you go for 6 excavators of fun and slaughter before having to return to the scanner for recharges. Way more dynamic and fun. Running back and forth hoping for some power cell to be dropped is not fun.

 

 

At least that is my opinion.

[Phaenur]

Loving this.  Probably my favorite mode so far.  While the map size can be disorienting, on the Grineer tilesets at least it lends itself well to very, very large-scale battles as all of the spawns from all of the excavation nodes catch up with each other.  Some HUD beacons showing the scanner, located dig sites, and active excavators would probably go a long way towards helping with the disorientation, though frankly I think that's more likely to backfire and add to the confusion.  I don't usually say Learn To Play, but the minimap really is crucial to figuring things out.  And unlike old Survival, there's not really any time pressure besides your own, so you can afford to be disoriented for a while.

 

On a related note, the game really is a nice hybrid of...pretty much everything else.  I feel like Excavation would make for a good "Dark Sector Endgame" mission type, or at least an end-of-planet/bonus node option, just because of how many other mechanics it synergizes.  You've got somewhat more dangerous enemies that you need to kill (Exterminate), defense targets (er, Defense), nodes to return to and crucial drops from enemies (Survival), pickups that force you off of your primary (Spy/Deception), and multiple defense targets that can theoretically be held by an individual player while teammates get the rest (Interception).  Sort of a Final Exam Level in that sense, I suppose.

 

Enemy spawning and diversity supports that last point.  While I think the enemies could stand to scale a little higher, the pacing of the spawns and the increased variety as the waves go on can be quite the challenge by the fourth or fifth dig.  Even though the enemies usually aren't too nasty on their own, the spawn rate is deliberately high enough that they'll start to overwhelm isolated players fairly soon.  They can still be dealt with solo - I've already completed the 3K-in-a-run needed for the event - but it was touch-and-go more than once and I ran out of revives at one point (<redacted> Detron crewmen and railguns spawning behind me...).  By the time you hit round six or seven you're up against every enemy that faction can throw at you - a fitting Final Exam Level there, too.

 

I also love the general idea of actually digging up our own artifacts instead of stealing things the other factions have found for us.  Whenever the Hek Regulators broadcast that bit about "stealing what we're too weak to build for ourselves," I have to take a minute to chuckle before I blow them away.  Just as a matter of personal preference and roleplaying, this has slightly edged out Rescue as my favorite mission type.  That said, other people will certainly have different opinions on this part.

 

It could use some help in certain areas, though.  Requiring, say, a quick Press X to Activate prompt in order to start each dig would be very nice, preventing accidental dig triggers when you're running to help a teammate.  The trigger radius seems to be more of a suggestion, too; I'm sure I've triggered an excavator drop from outside the circle about a quarter of the time, and it doesn't take vertical distance into account either.  Similarly, while the auto-energize feature is extremely handy, it might also be nice to make that a triggered effect too, so people don't end up overstacking energy cores or feeding the sensor when they're trying to get back to a dig site instead.

 

And as a suggestion for something to do with the mode once everyone's built their freeze ray, I feel like it might be a good time to revisit Extractor blueprints.  Add another couple, perhaps, ones that can retrieve research materials in greater concentrations or that can dig up Oxium/Cryonic/other "industrial" resources.  These can be deployed as usual or taken along in Excavation missions to change what resource rewards we get from each digsite, with similar but smaller drops each dig to what the extractor would retrieve traditionally.  Losing a digsite would cost a very large chunk of extractor health, though, and simply using them at all would drain their reserves too.  Not sure how to reconcile this with multiplayer, though, or if it would be properly "balanced" with what I've suggested, but I still like the idea.

 

EDIT:  I'm having the time of my life solo on Europa, no matter what everyone else says.  Getting happy flashbacks to the Phendrana Drifts pirate bases in Metroid Prime (can anyone think of a good Samus loadout...?), with the backtracking, slightly hidden paths, blend of huge battles and running skirmishes every room, and even just the aesthetic design of the map and the Excavator-specific assets.  Sure, I'm struggling to break 3K each time even now (lost my Frost revives to an opportunistic Detron crewman who kept spinning in circles and dodging all of my attacks), but then I've never been that interested in setting records.

 

And while I can see how the long walks back and forth could be tedious I find the sheer size of the maps and the diversity of defense points to be really invigorating, myself.  I'd hate to see that changed too much - probably better to put the map indicators in fixed points on the map once you've found them instead of chasing them through the terrain, so you can plan what to do and not accidentally trigger three at once in the middle of a firefight.  This mode is already one of the more "strategic" considering the numerous objectives and the need to gather power cores, but without being able to really deliberately plan during downtime it's easy to screw yourself out of an excavator or two you didn't realize were there.

Edited August 29, 2014 by Phaenur

[scythewing]

There are only 2 problems I can see in the excavation missions.

 

1) Power cell drops should have waypoints so we don't just keep running around trying to find them while a drill is being attacked.

 

2) In the Grinneer faction missions, there are way too many napalms and bombers.

Edited August 30, 2014 by scythewing