Invasions: Effort Vs Reward

[Drasiel]

I'm going to just say right up front that I am not a huge fan of invasions and have not been since the Gradivus Dilemma. I have never believed that the rewards are equal to the effort required to get them. However I have never received any comments that state an opposing opinion other than "Don't be lazy, they're fine" (I'm paraphrasing).

 

So I'm going to go a bit more in depth in my reasoning in the hopes that those that counter this opinion will do the same :)

 

Grineer and Corpus Invasions

 

Mission Types:

There isn't a lot to say here, to this day the only invasion options for Grineer vs. Corpus is exterminate the missions take between 3 and 8 minutes to run, dependent on tile set spawns and enemy clusters/amount. This makes all the Grineer and Corpus invasions feel like a samey grindy blur, especially considering there are only 4 invasion map; 2 of which are the exact same map reversed. Maybe we could spice it up with some planet based invasions that take place in those new and fresher tile sets you guys have put so much work into? Maybe do a combination where it starts on a ship and you Corpus portal, or Grineer drop pod down to a planet?

 

Grind for your reward *cracks whip*

The Grineer and corpus are thankless taskmasters when it comes to dishing out rewards for effort put in, it is much easier to get nearly all of the rewards other places. The rare cases where it is not easier other places, it generally splits up the kind of mission you must run as well as the tile set you will be running on, making it much easier overall to prevent mental fatigue from bland same mission grinding. Lets break it down by reward:

 

Completed Dojo Tech Components

These are our fieldrons, mutagen masses, and detonite injectors. Normally they cost 30k (15k for blueprint and 15k for crafting, thanks for reminding me Lypiphera ^^), a handful of components most mastery rank 5 players have accrued in comfortable quantities, and 12 hours. So getting one for running 5 missions that take from between 15-40 minutes sounds like a good deal right? Unfortunately no, because we have an easier, generally faster, and with shorter amounts of replays required, option in the infested invasions. Infested invasions only require 3 mission runs to get their reward, and have multiple (and generally smaller tile sets) due to using the normal mission maps.

 

Potatoes

Blue prints for Catalyst and Reactors, 'nuff said. The juicy reason d'etre to unquestionably go and run those invasions right? Well I'm going to question it, and question it hard. These kind of invasion are rare. I would argue that they are as rare as the alerts that offer the exact same kind of reward. When you stand up a 15-40 minute grind of running the same mission 5 times in a row against running a single mission once for the exact same reward, I'm sorry but the argument that the effort you are required to put into the invasion equals the reward ceases to hold water.

 

I can't remember at this time if infested invasions can spawn potato awards, so I'll only say that if infested invasions also can spawn potatoes it only furthers the needless amount of samey grind that is required for the Grineer and Corpus invasions.

 

Forma

Forma runs into the same issue as potatoes. Forma invasions are around the same rarity as forma alerts. We also have a place we can go regularly to specifically hunt for it, accruing prime parts and plentiful credits while we hunt. I'm not saying that having 3 options is bad though, I'm trying to say that 2 of the options we have are remarkable similar (alerts and invasions) in rarity with one of them being clearly superior in effort vs. reward.

 

Rare Resources

These, simply put, are not worth the effort at all. If you are running 5 missions to get a single guaranteed rare resource of any kind you are better off  just spending 10-20 minutes in a survival or defense mission rather than running 5 exterminates for 15-40 minutes. I would recommend matching the amount of rare resources to the amount of runs required. If you were guaranteed 5 cells for 5 runs (or perhaps 3 cells for 3 runs) would make these invasions worth doing, especially for the rng challenged.

 

Credits

These rewards range from 35k-100k credits. Doesn't sound too bad for 5 missions right? Sorry, no for anything less than 100k reward you are better off running Tower 3 Void (capture, defense, mobile defense, sabotage or survival) 5 times for a minimum of 100k credits (+ squad bonus and pickups/caches) or a maximum of 160k (+ squad bonus and pickups/caches). You could even run some tower 4's if you have them (defense, interception, mobile defense) which can all grant greater than 40k (+ squad bonus and pickups/caches) credits a mission. "But dras!" I imagine someone saying for the purposes of including this thought. "What about the time to grind keys?" There has never been a time I have not seen somebody looking for people to go with them to the void. If you can't party up with people due to internet or some sort of eldritch curse then invasions might actually be easier, as they stand now, for you.

 

Another option to quickly and easily get credits is to go run darksectors. Even with Eris having a tax of 30% you will still get ~12.6k (+ squad bonus and pickups) for a single run. Which gives ~63k (+ squad bonus and pickups) for five runs, knocking the measly 35k reward out of the water for 5 invasion runs.

 

For this entire section my biggest suggestion is to lower the mission requirements for Grineer and Corpus invasions from 5 down to 3 like the infested invasion missions. It still doesn't address the disparity between alert and invasion for potatoes and forma, but with the required runs lowered to 3 it makes them more palatable.

 

Infested Invasions

 

Mission time to complete

A side effect of the varied options available for the mission types of infested defense is an imbalance in the time it takes to get same rewards for different missions. Exterminates, captures, assassinates, and (potentially) rescues are all able to be run fast taking between 4-12 minutes per mission depending on enemy spawn and tile set. Defense and interception takes ~15 minutes per mission (unless using speed nova in the defense)  and survival which takes at least 10 minutes per mission. Which gives us:

 

~24 minutes spent in exterminates, captures, assassinates and rescues on average to attain reward.

~45 minutes in defense and interception on average (assuming no speed nova) to attain reward.

~30 minutes in survival on average to attain reward.

 

Now the difference between exterminates etc. and survival may not seem like that much, but 6 minutes is enough to run an additional exterminate etc. mission. Which means if you are in an infested invasion running frame of mind and plan to complete multiples it is much more time effective to just run exterminates etc.

 

My suggestion for shaving off some time in survivals would be adding making it so the reward tier reached in survivals counts as runs. That way you only need to spend 20 minutes in a single mission to count for 3 runs.

 

 I honestly don't know what can be done for defense and interceptions to streamline them and bring them more in line with exterminates etc. :\

 

Rewards

ignoring the differences in mission time to complete the rewards for invasions are mostly at a good spot for effort vs. reward. The only one that sticks out is the credit rewards, which one could argue is set where it is in order to balance the Grineer and Corpus invasion credit rewards. More simple put, infested invasions are worth less because they take less missions to complete. For low level missions (Saturn and below) the 10k credits you receive for 3 missions is great, but for higher level missions it's chump change. Using Sedna as an example (since you get ~4k just by playing an exterminate mission by yourself) you can make more than the value of the reward for doing the invasions, just by running 3 normal Sedna missions. Now you might say that doesn't sound too bad, but remember this invasion reward is supposed to be something that makes you go "ooh I must run that, it's totally worth it!".  The enemy level on Sedna is 15-20, which is higher than the 10-20 enemy level for Tier 1 Void Towers, which offer 9k-15k credit rewards for a single run. So in this example you can run:

 

3 Sedna exterminate invasions for ~22k

or

3 tower 1 keys for ~27k-45k (unless you run exterminate which is apparently only 5k per mission netting you 15k for 3 runs)

 

and tower 1 keys are fairly easy to accrue over regular play time.

 

Not to mention that the same information about darksectors that I detailed under rewards; credits, for the Grineer and Corpus invasions applies to infested as well.

 

Using Sedna as example again:

 

3 Sedna exterminate invasions for ~22k

or

2 Sedna Darksector missions @ 30% tax for ~22.4k 

 

and generally it's fairly common to see 30% tax rates across a variety of nodes. This reward gap only grows wider as you journey to planets with higher enemy levels. For time based, multi run requirement missions the cash reward simply are not good enough to encourage people to play infested invasions over other options that are available when seeking credits as a reward.

 

TLDR: Sorry, brevity didn't accrue any discussion so read and refute if you would please :)

Edited November 1, 2014 by Drasiel

[Archistopheles]

Currently, in my small opinion, the only invasions "worth" running are the 3x resource ones for Corpus/Grineer, and the Mutie Mass ones for Infested... And that only applies to people who actually need/want those resources.

[Tiqalicious]

I think the completion requirement definitely needs to be lowered. Five runs just isn't worth what we're given, especially when potato alerts still haven't been lengthened, despite people constantly complaining that their over almost as soon as they start.

[Brahmastra]

Not a big fan of it either TBH, but the maps are kinda cool.

I only do the ones that give mutagens and fieldrons, has to be exterminate as well. And then there is the time problem..

[DaftMeat]

Currently, in my small opinion, the only invasions "worth" running are the 3x resource ones for Corpus/Grineer, and the Mutie Mass ones for Infested... And that only applies to people who actually need/want those resources.

 

This.

 

Honestly, the credit rewards are skewed poorly. 10k credits for 5 missions = 2k credits per mission. That's about the same amount of credits you get for running a regular mission. Instead of running 5 invasions and getting paid a bonus for each later, you can just run 10 missions usually in quicker time. It's a decent bonus, but not a real incentive as there are much better ways to farm credits.

 

Same goes for resources. Getting ONE Orokin Cell from 5 Invasion missions does not compare to running a Saturn Survival and getting better results immediately instead of waiting for cells to be mailed to you when enough people finally finish the invasion.

 

 

At the very least, Invasions should be handled like event missions: the second you complete the necessary runs, you get the reward.

[BloodSage09]

lol its been months since i played an invasion. the effort required isnt worth it at all. its boring as hell

[Lypiphera]

I would agree that in most cases it is not worth doing the invasions, though I do believe you are wrong about the completed clan tech components and perhaps the potatoes. The components each cost 30k, you forgot to include the 15k cost of the blueprint, and 250 plastids. That's a total of 90k credits and 750 plastids for the five mission invasion. That is quite the savings, especially for newer players that would have to farm the plastids (much like myself when invasions were first introduced). Running three missions for one component is not really worth it though. This is void if you already have all the weapons built and have several in reserve.

Potatoes are still relatively rare enough that with over a year played I cannot put a catalyst in every weapon unless I buy them for platinum., though I do have enough for most that I use frequently. With players that have not been around as long, or not lucky enough to be on for the alerts, these can be invaluable. The problem is that those invasions are over so quickly that it is difficult to finish them unless you were on when they just started, unless both have the same reward.

[Drasiel]

I would agree that in most cases it is not worth doing the invasions, though I do believe you are wrong about the completed clan tech components and perhaps the potatoes. The components each cost 30k, you forgot to include the 15k cost of the blueprint, and 250 plastids. That's a total of 90k credits and 750 plastids for the five mission invasion. That is quite the savings, especially for newer players that would have to farm the plastids (much like myself when invasions were first introduced). Running three missions for one component is not really worth it though. This is void if you already have all the weapons built and have several in reserve.

Potatoes are still relatively rare enough that with over a year played I cannot put a catalyst in every weapon unless I buy them for platinum., though I do have enough for most that I use frequently. With players that have not been around as long, or not lucky enough to be on for the alerts, these can be invaluable. The problem is that those invasions are over so quickly that it is difficult to finish them unless you were on when they just started, unless both have the same reward.

 

I have not noticed the x3 clantech items, which is a vast improvement over a single one for a reward I agree, however I will not agree that 750 plastids is a a substantial enough amount of a required resource to balance the effort it takes to run the 5 missions. I've built every clantech component I've needed and still have managed to accrue almost 42k plastids. Mostly through extractor drones checked twice daily (when I wake up and before bed) If I was actively grinding for plastids I shudder to think how many I could have gathered.

 

As far as the cost of the blueprints and crafting I will correct that, but if you are the level where you can use clan tech weapons (mastery rank 4-8 for all except the serro(?r), prova(3r), buzlock(?r) and mutalist quanta(?r) which require only 1,1,2 and 5 clantech components respectively) It should be fairly easy for you to come up with 90k credits through means other than invasions that are still easier.

 

<snip>

At the very least, Invasions should be handled like event missions: the second you complete the necessary runs, you get the reward.

 

100% agree.

[Phaenur]

Really, Invasions need a lot of fleshing out to feel like they're part of the game instead of just another mechanic.  The tilesets were definitely a good start, and so was the iteration on the old tileset DE put together for the Archwing drop mission, but that's just a small part of it.  The missions are dull, the allied AI is incompetent at best, the scale simultaneously feels too large and too small, and there's nothing actually interesting about the various campaigns.  It's completely, 100% mercenary, whether you're after the mission rewards or the bonus bosses.

 

There are a lot of ways to spice this up.  First, I'd definitely mix up the mission types.  Every mission offers something that impacts the battle at large, even if it's not as direct as boarding and capturing an individual warship.  The reason that's not around is the competitive element: Exterminate numbers are so close to fixed between missions on the same node that they can be completed in the same amount of time by different teams.  Well, I guess another reason is that it's hard to have the same boarding-parties-everywhere, ship-falling-apart atmosphere, but there are other ways to improve that.

 

Second, hand-in-hand with the mission types, I'd consider giving each node a menu of mission options.  That way, DE can take their time in giving each tileset and objective room the proper Invasion-y flair by just limiting the options until they're ready.  Competitive progress is, again, the problem here, but I'm sure DE has metrics on average time to completion for the finite missions to set some modifiers, and infinite missions can add multipliers based on time endured.  Just off the top of my head, if Exterminate is x1.0, Sabotage might be x1.2, MobDef x1.7, Spy x1.5, and Deception x0.8 (all just guesswork, feel free to ignore the numbers).  Or they could be modified by the number of rooms and enemies that spawn in a mission, with 150 enemies and 20 rooms being the baseline.  Again, all numbers are pulled completely from my arse here, but someone with that kind of information could make an informed decision on how to handle things.

 

Those are the most obvious improvements to mode longevity - if players don't feel stuck running the same mission five times in a row, they're more likely to run five consecutive missions without resenting it.  But that still doesn't really fix the problem of getting them interested in the first place, because like the OP says the rewards really don't even come close to the effort put forward.  Still staying purely mercenary here, I'd just spike the credit and resource drops in Invasion missions and/or add caches on the enemy ship.  When it comes down to it, whether you're storming a frontline Grineer Galleon or reading a Corpus supply ship's mail somewhere on the fringes of the battle, major military operations tend to bring with them a lot of opportunities for looting.

 

I'm not even going to touch the mission rewards, honestly.  I think the way they're thought of is "run five missions, get credits equal to five to ten more" or "run five missions, get the exact resource you're looking for," and honestly if the missions are made less identical and the in-mission rewards are pulled up a few notches I'd be fine with just getting a little bonus on top of rights to my battlefield loot.

 

Lastly, I'd love to see a major, major improvement to the way Invasions are implemented at all.  As it is, there can be three or four going on at once, often with just one or two nodes engaged.  There's no reason to care about what's at best a skirmish or land grab.  I've said this several times in the past: I'd like to see each planet(oid) given a key objective or two.  These can and really should be constants, things like Europa's cryotic deposits, Saturn's space stations and mining operations, and Jupiter's gas extractors.  You get one significant invasion every week or so, progressing on a timescale more like what we had with Gradivus and prefaced by letters from one or both factions explaining what's going on.  "Help us, if we lose this sector we can't guarantee we can stop them again!"  "No, help us, because we can win this war once and for all if we can just gain a little ground here."  In a bit more detail planet-by-planet, of course, but you get the picture.  The little random one-off incursions we have now could certainly stay around for the lull periods, while major operations are launched just frequently enough to keep people legitimately interested from a lore/role-playing angle too.

 

Heck, give the major battles much better pay, like packs of several rare resources or research components, and there you go.  Even more incentive to get interested, and one that works even on people who aren't obsessed with lore and immersion like I am!

[SoulEchelon]

Hey now, the Gradivus Dilemna had some epic rewards. Yeah, there was alot of grinding, but you either got hundreds of thousands of credits or potatoes for most of them.

 

However afterward...yeah, I agree, there really isn't alot of incentive to help either faction unless it's either a potato/forma, or a clan tech resource that you need immediately and can't wait the 12 hours to craft them.

 

However x2, let's also keep in mind the new players. They might not have a ton of credits, void keys, warframes/weapons strong enough to even survive in the void. They might not have fieldron/muta samples and so on. These invasions end up helping them. But Yeah, they'd be better off going to Infested invasions either way.

[Lypiphera]

I have not noticed the x3 clantech items, which is a vast improvement over a single one for a reward I agree, however I will not agree that 750 plastids is a a substantial enough amount of a required resource to balance the effort it takes to run the 5 missions. I've built every clantech component I've needed and still have managed to accrue almost 42k plastids. Mostly through extractor drones checked twice daily (when I wake up and before bed) If I was actively grinding for plastids I shudder to think how many I could have gathered.

 

As far as the cost of the blueprints and crafting I will correct that, but if you are the level where you can use clan tech weapons (mastery rank 4-8 for all except the serro(?r), prova(3r), buzlock(?r) and mutalist quanta(?r) which require only 1,1,2 and 5 clantech components respectively) It should be fairly easy for you to come up with 90k credits through means other than invasions that are still easier.

In the last two weeks there were six triple Fieldrons invasions, the last two being on the 30th and 31st, and there were four for the triple Detonite Injectors. You require 35 Mutagen Masses, 19 Detonite Injectors, and 55 Fieldrons. That is 109 Clan Tech components which would cost 3.27 million credits and 27250 plastids. True, plastids are easier to farm now with extractors (I have over 68k), but when the invasions first came out they were harder to get and over a year ago (that's a lot of farming time). Still, with the other over 15k plastids required for other weapons/frames you can use all the help you can get (assuming you aren't an older player that has everything).

[Drasiel]

In the last two weeks there were six triple Fieldrons invasions, the last two being on the 30th and 31st, and there were four for the triple Detonite Injectors. You require 35 Mutagen Masses, 19 Detonite Injectors, and 55 Fieldrons. That is 109 Clan Tech components which would cost 3.27 million credits and 27250 plastids. True, plastids are easier to farm now with extractors (I have over 68k), but when the invasions first came out they were harder to get and over a year ago (that's a lot of farming time). Still, with the other over 15k plastids required for other weapons/frames you can use all the help you can get (assuming you aren't an older player that has everything).

 

 

ah, I've been paying attention less to invasions in warframe the last few weeks due to hallowe'en events in other games >< and archwing. When you put it like that (because who doesn't love giant numbers one didn't have to personally do the  math for :3) I can see why the 3x rewards make it worth it for for newer or lower level players, but that begs the question why offer the single varient? Is it simply a case of the lesser showing up more commonly and assuming that will make it worth doing?

[Lypiphera]

ah, I've been paying attention less to invasions in warframe the last few weeks due to hallowe'en events in other games >< and archwing. When you put it like that (because who doesn't love giant numbers one didn't have to personally do the  math for :3) I can see why the 3x rewards make it worth it for for newer or lower level players, but that begs the question why offer the single varient? Is it simply a case of the lesser showing up more commonly and assuming that will make it worth doing?

There really isn't much point for you, or even me, to pay attention to these unless a reactor or catalyst comes up and you need/want it (I wouldn't mind getting enough so every weapon has a catalyst). As you said, you have a large stockpile of the resources used to make the clan tech components and it is much easier/faster to farm credits elsewhere such as Dark Sectors, or even Dark Sector Conflicts (300k, 500k and 1 million credit rewards were up today), we don't really need to do them. Even the single rare resource rewards are a joke.

 

The single ones are infestations, which occur much more frequently, 29 infestations compared to 2 offensives since Halloween. While the singles are much better than the 10k rewards (assuming you need them as they save 30k resources and 250 plastids), they are pretty crappy rewards for three missions(45% less rewards per mission compared to the triple reward variants).

Edited November 3, 2014 by Lypiphera

[Drasiel]

Really, Invasions need a lot of fleshing out to feel like they're part of the game instead of just another mechanic.  The tilesets were definitely a good start, and so was the iteration on the old tileset DE put together for the Archwing drop mission, but that's just a small part of it.  The missions are dull, the allied AI is incompetent at best, the scale simultaneously feels too large and too small, and there's nothing actually interesting about the various campaigns.  It's completely, 100% mercenary, whether you're after the mission rewards or the bonus bosses.

 

<Snip of large post that contains interesting ideas for fleshing out the invasion system as a whole>

 

Yes, invasions like many of the newer systems that have joined us in warframe, are fairly bare bones and more or less feels more like the structure being laid for more to come. From what i've noticed DE tends to lay the groundwork, seem to move on to something completely different but still chip away at the core systems. We just don't get see any of that.

 

Honestly you should probably take your post and turn it into a separate thread on how to improve invasions, there is a good chunk of discussion worthy topics in it. :)

 

There really isn't much point for you, or even me, to pay attention to these unless a reactor or catalyst comes up and you need/want it (I wouldn't mind getting enough so every weapon has a catalyst). As you said, you have a large stockpile of the resources used to make the clan tech components and it is much easier/faster to farm credits elsewhere such as Dark Sectors, or even Dark Sector Conflicts (300k, 500k and 1 million credit rewards were up today), we don't really need to do them. Even the single rare resource rewards are a joke.

 

The single ones are infestations, which occur much more frequently, 29 infestations compared to 2 offensives since Halloween. While the singles are much better than the 10k rewards (assuming you need them as they save 30k resources and 250 plastids), they are pretty crappy rewards for three missions(45% less rewards per mission compared to the triple reward variants).

 

Oh yes quite often darksector conflicts are an extremely good way to accrue credits quickly, I just hadn't mentioned them as they are somewhat less reliable than other methods.

 

About the only thing that the single clantech resources save you that have value(unless you are a newer player and don't know the other options available to get credits resources fast) is the time to craft them, and that is really too personal of a thing to measure effectively. I figure for warframe Time/value is based on patience, available free time, and what you want to be doing in the game right now.

[Lareth87]

So, my question is not really about the rewards... but mostly the resources in general. Why are there no grineer invasions like... ever? And when there are grineer invasions, there are never any injectors. I thought they fixed the factions on the planets being the actual faction, yet dozens of times since they released that report I've seen corpus on grineer planets, with no grineer missions or rewards.

 

I thought that was the point of having invasions to not have to wait 5 days to make one clan bp because injectors and their counterparts take a day each and they cost 25p to rush... like seriously, forma and incubation cores don't cost that much.

 

What's going on...?

[Donnell]

More enemies and less runs would suit it better i feel. Perhaps a nightmare version too where it would benefit to be fighting along side the friendly NPC.

[Zarlockk]

I personally dont understand why rewards were nerfed. When just introduced rewards were 3xFieldron/Mutagen/Injector or 50k-100k reds. And that was enough to make you think about doing it. Now the only time I do them is if I run out of 1 of 3 materials and need to stock up/craft smt. 

And as mentioned time spent is not worth. Same rare resources I can farm in much bigger amounts by doing boss runs or survivals/defence/mobile defence with nekros. 

[Drasiel]

Today's update brought with it this change to the infested invasions:

 

• Defense and Survival now have a finite length during Invasions / Outbreaks to match Alerts.
• 
  

This has had the unfortunate side effect of both increasing the effort and decreasing the reward for these missions. Infested invasion survival used to take a total of 15 minutes (5 minutes per each of the 3 required missions) and now takes 30 minutes. Infested invasion defense used to take 15 waves (5 spent per each of the 3 required missions) and now takes 30. We also no longer get wave or 5 minute mark rewards for either defense or survival respectively, which effectively removes any extra motivation for doing these misisons over waiting 10-15 more minutes for the infestation outbreak to spread to a node with an easier and faster mission to complete.

 

What you have done by making survivals and defenses for infestation invasion behave the same as alerts is make these two mission types not worth doing, unless you so desperately need a clantech resource you can't help yourself from running them. The reason that time requirement works for alerts is because you get the reward after one mission. Implementing that kind of time requirement for a mission that requires you to run it three times simply makes it utterly unappealing.

Edited November 28, 2014 by Drasiel

[Ryjeon]

The only thing I can't stand about invasions is how repetitive they are. I don't mind doing the 3x infestation missions so much. But running the same Invasion 5 times in a row is just atrociously dull.

[ENIAK_Prime]

I just wanna say, Invasions only start to feel boring when you have to do the exact same run on the exact same map more than 3 times. Other than that, they're pretty neat.

But yeah, currently there is no incentive to play when I can score way more cash in 1 or 2 5-wave runs of Dark Sector Defense on Ceres.