Changing Survival Alerts

[(XBOX)ShapelessHorr0r]

I'm fine with super strong enemies.

I'm fine with OP bosses.

I'm fine with swarms of enemies.

I'm fine with most of the challenges the alerts provide.

Edit: IMO, Lotus life support should only be a deterrent to camping in an impenetrable pigeon hole, and mob drops are to incentivize the killing of mobs so you don't just run around for 20 minutes. Life support shouldn't be the main cause of your failure.

However, survival missions are difficult purely because of how random and rare the life support pods tend to be.

I've almost given up on the alert survival missions simply because I can't get enough air to breathe.

So I want to propose some changes. They don't all have to be implemented as they are all meant to fix the problem by themselves. No combinations or great sweeping updates required.

1. Allow life support to be gathered even after it hits 0%. You already get hit with a very quick drain to your health and energy so I think this would be fine.

2. Make the personal life supports dropped by enemies appear more frequently. In normal survival, killing the enemy is only done as a convenience. They don't help in any long term form.

3. Make they life supports more frequent, but increase the enemy count and/or increase enemy level.

Comments, suggestions, disagreements?

Edited September 14, 2014 by (XB1)ShapelessHorr0r

[Magnar21]

Honestly, I don't have a problem in any survival alerts if the group plays properly. This is even without any Nekros on our team. All that I do is get into the middle of a big room with the rest of the group and have fun killing. If you move between rooms rapidly, the AI tends to glitch out. If you kill too close to a door, the mobs spawn farther away, and sometimes get stuck.

[(XBOX)ShapelessHorr0r]

I literally just soloed one.

2 pods in 2 rooms

1 pod in the last

The last one didn't open up in time.

It's just frustrating because it feels like I have no control over my fate.

[Suzaku4489]

Wait, you can't even last 10 minutes in alert survivals?  I'm pretty sure it's literally impossible to fail that, since you could probably survive on pods alone for 10 minutes.

[RoboDoge]

Activate life support at <60 % and you will be fine. Never had problems reaching 10 minutes doing that.

[(XBOX)ShapelessHorr0r]

Wait, you can't even last 10 minutes in alert survivals?  I'm pretty sure it's literally impossible to fail that, since you could probably survive on pods alone for 10 minutes.

It doesn't like me.

Enemies are beyond easy.

The pods just don't come around enough. I understand how they spawn.

Tips?

I know the pods give 30%. Problem is that after the first two, the rest come at a slow enough pace to where my life support just trickles down.

For the most part, I have to activate them immediately when they become available.

[RoboDoge]

It doesn't like me.

Enemies are beyond easy.

The pods just don't come around enough. I understand how they spawn.

Tips?

I know the pods give 30%. Problem is that after the first two, the rest come at a slow enough pace to where my life support just trickles down.

For the most part, I have to activate them immediately when they become available.

Hmm, just find a nice room where bunch of mobs is coming at once and kill as many as you can. You should get enough air drops to sustain yourself till 10 mins.

[(XBOX)ShapelessHorr0r]

Don't they move spawns?

They always have for me.

[RoboDoge]

Don't they move spawns?

They always have for me.

Mobs spawns are RNG, and one of the best ways to keep good amount of mobs spawing is to not switch rooms too much.

 

 

As for Lotus air drops, they should spawn close one to another, until room spawn points are all taken.

[Teljaxx]

Tileset and enemy type seems to play a big part in how long you can last in survival.

 

On Earth vs. Grineer, I usually get enough life support drops to go almost 10 minutes without needing to activate a pod. But against the Infested on Earth I can barely get to 5 minutes without needing to activate at least two pods. The Orokin Derelict and Corpus Hive ship tilesets are the same. But fighting the Infested on the normal Corpus or Grineer spaceship tilesets goes much better.

 

This is playing solo, and not as Nekros.

 

The Infested seem to drop far less life support than the other factions, and they tend to get stuck on the map more. So combine that with a tileset with bad spawns, and you cannot get nearly enough life support to survive.

 

Basically, against anyone but the Infested, the only reason I ever have to leave is because the enemies are getting too strong. But against them, it is the life support that limits me. The biggest obstacle that has kept me from getting the Burston Prime BP from ODS, is that it only drops at 15 minutes, and yet I can almost never get enough life support to survive that long.

[-Himari-]

Moved to a proper section.

[(XBOX)ShapelessHorr0r]

Mobs spawns are RNG, and one of the best ways to keep good amount of mobs spawing is to not switch rooms too much.

 

 

As for Lotus air drops, they should spawn close one to another, until room spawn points are all taken.

That's my point actually.

I understand the spawn system. I just think the rate at which things happen needs a change (Lotus drops).

IMO, Lotus life support should only be a deterrent to camping in an impenetrable pigeon hole, and mob drops are to incentivize the killing of mobs so you don't just run around for 20 minutes. Life support shouldn't be the main cause of your failure.

And the other guy is right, infestation rarely drop life support.

[(PSN)Zeylon]

I had this come up a few times with the alert survivals.  Sometimes, you get screwed by newer players that do things like run straight to life support and activate it when you're still > 90%.  Then they scatter and you wind up with people at different corners of the map.  Getting new players like this is common on these alerts because they're all on the low level planets (every single alert for this "event" has been Mercury/Venus/Earth, and accessible on a brand new account).

 

When you wind up with people that don't know survival mechanics in random play, you can just exit at 5 minutes even if they've been horrible, you won't be quite out of air at that point.  The alert survivals stick to 10 minutes though, and even with steady killing - I've had a few where we ran out of air.

 

This actually raises another issue too.  The game can be glitchy about what happens when air runs out.  Sometimes, it still shows the timer ticking down, sometimes it does not.  In actual terms though, if you haven't already hit that 10 min mark, the level is then unfinishable.  The game does NOT tell you this in anyway, it just figures you'll die and give up.  So, I've seen new players repeatedly revive on the now unfinishable level.  When a level becomes unfinishable, it should fail you automatically rather than make you burn revives for a theoretical completion that will never come.

[(XBOX)ShapelessHorr0r]

Theoretical of course.

 

The problem isn't new players though. The problem is that system in and of itself.

I can literally solo through most of the alerts' enemies. The only thing that has ended a mission was life support. 

 

Here's a more in depth thread: 

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/309551-should-survival-get-reworked/

[BloodKitten]

Wait, you can't even last 10 minutes in alert survivals?  I'm pretty sure it's literally impossible to fail that, since you could probably survive on pods alone for 10 minutes.

try earth, infested, solo.

 

then get lost trying to find a sewer entrance to get to the next life support room, and terrible tile sets, and kubrows randomly fight infested while you try to figure out where are they........

 

its not that hard to fail depanding on the tile set and layout that you get.

[(XBOX)ShapelessHorr0r]

try earth, infested, solo.

 

then get lost trying to find a sewer entrance to get to the next life support room, and terrible tile sets, and kubrows randomly fight infested while you try to figure out where are they........

 

its not that hard to fail depending on the tile set and layout that you get.

In other words, survival is by far the hardest mission type because of bad mechanics.

*cough* RNG *cough*

Edited September 14, 2014 by (XB1)ShapelessHorr0r

[FrackingBiscuit]

What percentage are you hitting life support at?

 

The faster you use them, the slower they spawn.  Don't start hitting them until you're at <40%.  At that point you should have half a dozen capsules just waiting for you.  You shouldn't be in a position where you activate the first two pods and don't have a third already on the map.

 

The drops aren't random, they're timed.  Your actions change the timing.  There is no RNG for Lotus capsules.

[(XBOX)ShapelessHorr0r]

Cool, thanks. I'll give it a try. 

[Lycrius]

You'll be happy to hear all planet side survivals will be retired after the extraction gametype gets added. That said I hope they change the possible alert spawns as well, because DE really likes to forget stuff...

 

Also this problem shows mostly on earth, because of the kubrow, few terrible rooms, and the fact that low level planets had their survival spawns nerfed a while back. After the 10 minute mark survival enemies tend to start pouring in with greater numbers, which in the case of alerts doesn't really help.