Balancing Discrepancy - Why Survival Missions Are Easier With 3 Players

[Mazen2013]

So we did some Survival testing today. And our result is amazing:

Doing Survivals with 3 players instead of 4 makes them a lot easier.

 

So first we tested how long we could stay in a T1S with 4 players. Everyone had around rank 20-23 equipment. We had no Necros.

We could barely make it to round 15 before oxygen was running out.

 

Next we did it with 3 players. Again no Necros.

At all times we had 4-6 Life Support on the map and our Oxygen never went under 35%. We had to leave the mission after 45mins though because we lacked the damage to deal with the high health enemies and died all the time.

 

We tried it in T4S as well - same result.

 

Summarized:

We observed less enemies, but still more drops of oxygen. We speculate also on less Oxygen consumption, and faster deploy rate of life support.

Edited September 28, 2014 by Mazen2013

[immolator1001]

It could also be how the rooms are arranged and therefore how enemies spawn.

[ToxicTroublermaker]

Your results are invalid due to several things:

A. RNG based drops which it in itself is an RNG based drop rate

B. Room arrangement in all three tests was random and  therefore different spawn times and spawn rooms

C. You only did this for one in each category: 1 with 4 players, 1 with 3, and 1 in t4

 

This really doesn't prove anything unless you did it many times getting the same results, which even then is sketchy because RNG could swoop in and make it happen several times in a row.

[Kthal]

There was a theory I saw knocking around (in one spot, but the rest of the information in the page was very precise, and accurate) which stated that, in each Survival mission, one player is randomly marked, and has a higher chance of spawning LS with their kills, with the mark moving every five minutes or so (The theory also said that the 'mark' could be moved by the player getting downed then revived).

 

If this theory is true, then you would encounter more LS due to 1/3 kills having a higher drop rate, compared to 1/4.

 

 

That said, I would not consider the study valid with any fewer than 100 of the same mission, due to WF's procedural levels and RNG.

Edited September 28, 2014 by Kthal

[Senketsu_]

Your results are invalid due to several things:

A. RNG based drops which it in itself is an RNG based drop rate

B. Room arrangement in all three tests was random and  therefore different spawn times and spawn rooms

C. You only did this for one in each category: 1 with 4 players, 1 with 3, and 1 in t4

 

This really doesn't prove anything unless you did it many times getting the same results, which even then is sketchy because RNG could swoop in and make it happen several times in a row.

Devs did say that the drop rate for air drops is higher with less players I believe.

[Mazen2013]

Your results are invalid due to several things:

A. RNG based drops which it in itself is an RNG based drop rate

B. Room arrangement in all three tests was random and  therefore different spawn times and spawn rooms

C. You only did this for one in each category: 1 with 4 players, 1 with 3, and 1 in t4

 

This really doesn't prove anything unless you did it many times getting the same results, which even then is sketchy because RNG could swoop in and make it happen several times in a row.

 

I am on my 12th run right now. Still same result. Easy oxygen upkeep without Necros and 3 players. Try it for yourself.

[Kalvorax]

There was a theory I saw knocking around (in one spot, but the rest of the information in the page was very precise, and accurate) which stated that, in each Survival mission, one player is randomly marked, and has a higher chance of spawning LS with their kills, with the mark moving every five minutes or so (The theory also said that the 'mark' could be moved by the player getting downed then revived).

 

If this theory is true, then you would encounter more LS due to 1/3 kills having a higher drop rate, compared to 1/4.

 

 

That said, I would not consider the study valid with any fewer than 100 of the same mission, due to WF's procedural levels and RNG.

A dev already confirmed that that theory is not true...I'll find his post in a bit

 

here it is:

 

 

 

Impressive analysis of the survival level structure and underlying mechanics :)

 

You're partly correct on 'tagging', specific players are targeted by AI periodically.  However, a new random player is targeted around every 10 seconds, so it probably isn't worth throwing yourself into a pit of infested to get temporarily removed from random selection ;)  AI will fight whoever they encouter on the path to their target, whether it's a player or NPC from another faction.  Defense works in a similar way, except enemies always target the cryopod.  The life support drop rate is the same for all enemies and doesn't change for specific players.

 

We made some changes to survival procedural levels to improve enemy spawn consistency for U14.  Sometimes there are too few valid spawn locations for enemies if a team of four spreads out.

 

Here's a summary of the survival changelist for U14:

- Removed the locked door to extraction, as it only limits the available spawn locations within the first 5 minutes.

- Increased the number of small dead end rooms (caps) which can generate in place of red locked doors, providing more spawn locations for enemies.

- Added some new small cap tiles for Asteroid, Settlement, Outpost and Galleon tilesets.

- Restructured the Derelict Survival procedural level so it has more small tiles between the main areas.  There are still three larger main areas which have life support capsule spawnpoints.  The large root room no longer spawns on the main path between the spawn and extraction, only on a side branch.

- The 'stacking' bug was fixed, capsules don't spawn instantly on activating a capsule if the level is full.

- The first room's capsule spawns are no longer switched off after one use.  Since the first room is reused, each level may now have 2-3 more simultaneous capsules active before it reaches capacity.  Originally the level structure was a little different, disabling spawns was intended to keep players closer to extraction after moving on from the first room.

 

Thanks for playing!  I look forward to hearing your thoughts when these changes go live.

 

Edited September 28, 2014 by xcynderx