Survival - Upgrade (Remove Life Support)

[Jax_Cavalera]

In all fairness this is a very specific squad makeup to achieve the no movement.

As to the temp caches, this is what the life support capsules already achieve (actually they seem more like the extractors in excavation without needing to defend them). For many players the rewards arent the point its the affinity gain (thats why sechura is popluar dispite extreemly high taxes). Caches can still be ignored by the players where as the life support really cannot be ignored without a very specific group build

The only specific ingredient required is nekros. You can sub trin with oberon, energy pads, hydroid, volt, nova, valkyr etc vauban can be subbed for greedy mag and the general mix is pretty dynamic.

Well regarding life support vs caches.. as you mention, life support is mandatory...caches are not. That does make a big difference in gameplay as the bugs, lack of spawning and neglect to include a specific frame will cause your mission to fail at no fault of your own before you reach a reasonably decent time.

A good way to highlight the issues is in a T4S as this shows what happens in survivals currently after mobs get tough. 40min T4S solo would be a pretty impressive feat with the addition of nullifiers.

Perhaps some people still play Survival for the XP only... I know Sechura is a defense and therefore you are guaranteed all wave rewards. So probably not the best example. Most players I know only do survival when they are after specific Rotation rewards (tower keys or prime parts or R5 cores) pretty rare to find anyone running survival just for the XP when you can do this task much faster in other gamemodes.

I think it would be healthy for the gamemode to reward players who choose to go after the Kill Meter reward caches since the bulk that play survival would fall into that category. By making it optional, teams the become immobalized and unable to move towards cache locations in time due to enemies being too brutal would see decissions being made :

1. Bail for extraction

2. Go without the caches and just try to earn more XP

In current survival, life support fails to see players having to make such impactful decissions.

What you are saying is a valid point though. The caches idea is not going to force players to play a certain way or do a certain thing to win. It is optional so depending on how people feel about this.. it could be good or bad.

Would you prefer the gamemode to force you to do certain things in order to win or would you prefer the freedom of choice even if it meant missing out on some rewards?

There are two major problems I have with this, but they might have been brought up by others already.

One: I kinda like current Survival. There's a little emphasis on team composition and strategy, and there is usually lots of stuff going on. Also, the "need" for Nekros is often a bit exaggerated. When I run solo, I generally don't have any problem hitting 40 minutes, and 60+ is really more about staying alive than LS drops. To be fair, though, more LS does drop in solo, but I still think it's not as bad as people say. If in a team, just stay together in one room. Holding from a single position (I tend to just hide behind Electric Shields as Volt) keeps all enemy spawns close, especially in large rooms. That makes spawns consistent, maintaining high enemy flow.

Two: If Survivals were changed to this, the game type would suffer from the same problem that plagues Interception--Loki, Ash, Limbo, and Valkyr could make it a walk in the park. Loki and Ash can just turn invisible to kill without getting hit, Limbo can kill from the Rift (takes longer, but it works), and Valkyr can just kill in Hysteria. Assuming players are careful, they can go on virtually forever with little to no difficulty.

One final thing, actually. The name of the game is "Survival," not "Exterminate." Your goal is to survive while distracting the enemy, not decimate legions of troops. Granted, that's basically what Survival is at the present, but it's still explained differently.

At best, I'd like for something similar to this to be presented as a new gamemode, but I feel it should not replace Survival.

1. The tips provided do help keep spawns up and yet even this is not enough at times for no particular reason things can go dead quiet or RNG frowns kn you with minimal life support dropping.

Once you come up against a few nullifiers strolling through volts shields with snow globers protecting them..things take a turn for the worst really quickly.

2. Sure the challenge can be reduced for any gamemode with the right frames. However the time it takes to get through the missions is usually extended. There is often a trade-off and no matter the frame.. eventually the difficulty pushes beyond their grasp due to damage output no longer being high enough to kill the mobs.

3. I guess that all comes down to how you describe what you observe. To my perspective you are defending yourself from hordes of mobs trying to survive. Exterminates imply a limited qty of enemies spread out that you must kill. No new enemies are spawning in which is why their population is being exterminated.

I think the input you are all bringing to the discussion is awesome and provides room to closely look at what really could bring the upgrade down. Each flaw that we uncover brings us closer to the ultimate upgrade or new gamemode.

Thank you all for contributing so far. Let's keep things moving forwards and hopefully DE will realise this is something the community would like to see added one way or another.

Edited December 24, 2014 by Jax_Cavalera

[MumblesMcphatty]

Before I chimed in - I tried to find a recent post from a dev about all the work they've done lately with survival spawning tweaks - its somewhere around ... anyway ...

 

Do you realise what you're actually asking for here? You want to remove a game-mode based upon the mechanic problems that DE is clearly quite focused on getting the kinks out of - and replace it with a new game mode - that has basically no objective - and will probably come with its own brand new set of problems.

 

Not sure if anyone else has noticed - but so long as the squad sticks together and don't all fight 3/4 tiles away from each other - the spawning is much better these days (except Jupiter - those tilesets are way too convoluted to traverse for enemy AI ). The "need" for Nekros is completely overstated - he just makes a challenging game mode a complete breeze - the guy is basically a playable exploit in regards to survival.

 

And yes - I'm focusing on the spawning problems and nothing else. All other reasons for switching or ditching the survival game mode in this thread are totally subjective and arbitrary. You're all totally entitled to dislike the mode because it doesn't fit what you perceive as "survival" - but all the justifications on this aspect are pretty weak opinions so far. They basically boil down to "I dislike having to do anything other than kill." Which ... you can already do - in defense missions - and have someone else be Nyx or Frost and you can just go pretend the pod doesn't exist.

 

So far this amounts to a very dull game mode which would only appeal to campers, rabid-rep-farmers & 4-spammers. Considering the general mentality of those kinds of gamers - though they may not realise it - they will probably be bored with this kind of mission faster than any other.

 

Just to be clear - and not wholly negative here ... I'm all down for a Last Stand type of mission - but not as a Survival replacement. You also need something better than loot drops to keep people moving - or you might as well just call it a Camping Trip. The timed loot is not enough incentive - especially after folks have exhausted whatever drops are available from that specific loot table or whatever - it will be just a radar nuisance and nothing more.

 

I tossed a few ideas around in my head - one being the mission takes place on a ship that's crumbling apart from bombardment. The squad must destroy a set number of waves & then move to the next tile before the current one collapses. That would be pretty cool - would incorporate mass death and make room for some fun parkour - and would do a way better job of forcing the squad to stick together than the LS pods do in Survival. Although the premise doesn't really support an endless run since eventually there would have to be and end to the ship.

 

But really - anyway to incorporate a fail mechanic - which is essential for a viable game mode - will interfere with the endless killing you all seek.

[Jax_Cavalera]

Hi there Mumbles,

 

Before I get started, I want to say that I really like the idea you suggest for the ships being destroyed, but will get to that at the end.

 

Yes I am aware that DE are looking at Survival and trying to fix the issues with spawns etc, instead of dealing with the reason why spawns are a problem for that gamemode.

 

The gamemode proposed has several objectives, perhaps they were not made clear or were simply overlooked.  It would be helpful to read the OP including the content in the UPDATE section at the end of it before claiming that there are no objectives in the suggested concept.

 

Regarding the usage of Nekros in survival, there is a reason why people determine him to be so crucial and why the majority of players use Nekros to assist with the spawning of extra Life Support.  Majority of players actually enjoy the ability to set up camp somewhere and mindlessly blast mobs into oblivion.  The other reason being that support is still iffy and unreliable, not to mention just one more issue that is completely out of the players' control without a Nekros around to help out.. should the game hic-up and Lotus stops providing regular Life Supports or mobs suddenly stop spawning in for a bit because players broke an unstated/unclear rule such as all spreading out to kill mobs etc.

 

These type of problems with the Life Support based Survival make it flawed and fixing up mob spawn rates won't help since no where did I read any official statement saying that to survive in survival you MUST all stay in a tight group in 1 room and move as a group.  Also if that isn't a limitation on play-style then I don't know what is because sometimes.. having a frame like Loki with the ability to "scout" means you should be able to provide Recon for the rest of the squad and let them know what's coming up ahead but the way spawning works currently, that just breaks Survival and I highly doubt that is easily fixed by "tweaking" how many enemies spawn.

 

So you're saying that we all have been making weak arguments and then in the same paragraph continue by saying we should just play Defense instead and then use 1 or 2 frames to enjoy endless killing instead of Nekros in survival to achieve the same result.  Interesting...

 

I do agree that the suggested upgrade / new gamemode would appeal to those who play Warframe to farm, though you may be surprised to learn that Warframe is a Grind-Driven game where every event, piece of equipment and mod you can complete or get is only achieved by ... farming.  It is no surprise that a gamemode dedicated to farming might be popular among farmers.

 

Perhaps the developers need to look at ways of bringing the focus of the game away from Grind Walls and Farming but it's been this way since the start so I really don't see how they can make it more about the action and fun than farming.  Even Archwings, which attempt to be more about a new action packed gameplay mode result in players forming squads to farm Intercepts for mods and parts to build better archwings or speed running the sabotage missions.  They don't even stop to smell the roses or enjoy the well designed scenes they zip through towards the finish line over and over again.

 

If the dev team can't find a way to stop putting Grind Walls up to slow down player progress so they can buy more time for additional content to be added...then the only other option is to accept that this is what Warframe is focused on and if it isn't something you enjoy then it may not be the game for you.

 

The alternative is you can just buy everything with Platinum and enjoy all the nice scenery and cool stylized gameplay as much as you want but will quickly get bored without any meaningful objectives in front of you to achieve or the satisfaction of knowing you worked hard to earn every piece of gear you display on you frame or use in battle.

 

I see your point about the caches becoming neglected once players have obtained all of the goodies there are to be offered by them.  My question would be, "How many people run a tower survival mission and stay for 40+ minutes when they don't need or want anything from the drop table?"

 

Not many, and of the few that do..most run them either to help someone else in the squad that DOES need a reward from the drop table or for the less advertised rewards like 3pack Orokin Cells and 5 packs of R5 Cores etc.  So the number of players neglecting caches and actually running the survival missions may be less than you think.  Me and a group I run them with do survivals to get doubles of prime gear in prep for the new rare primed mods you can buy from relays.  So just having the reward already isn't enough of a discouragement to stop us wanting to get it again.

 

 

 

I really like the idea of the ships falling apart from bombardment scenario it's a great alternatve to the caches but may require additional artwork and animating etc by the DEVS to introduce so that could be the only thing that stops them from going with it as they tend to try minimal work and effort solutions to fix problems before going to greater lengths.

 

That all being said I think it'd be really cool as well and some proposed tweaks on this would be :

 

-  Stick with the Kill Meter and continuous spawning enemies and rewards given each time the meter is filled (not the wave break wave like we get in defense).

 

-  Part of your reward for filling the Kill Meter is the unlock code for the next section of the ship.  This means your squad can get several sections in front of where the ship is being destroyed if you are able to kill enemies faster.

 

 

Regarding the ship running out of sections to be destroyed, there could be 3 options :

 

1.  Is that once you reach the final section of the ship, you reach the extraction point and can extract any time before the entire ship is destroyed.  

 

2.  Players enter "archwing" mode and fly to the next ship where they continue back on foot through more sections etc... endless looping

 

3.  Ship sections continue to generate dynamically as players move along.

 

As long as a ship section were a few connected rooms at a time, I think that would be pretty cool and a fun option.  Not to rule out caches of cause which would be a less involved "quick-fix" alternative but not as fun that's for sure.

 

Thanks for putting this into the feed of discussion, 

Edited December 27, 2014 by Jax_Cavalera

[00zau]

The issue I see is that it allows you to camp out. The need to hunt air and use lotus airdrops in survival is meant to keep you from sitting still and camping. What I'd like to see is have enemy air drops removed, and the lotus airdrops give you all the time you need (with some extra). For example, there would be a lotus drop every 2 minutes, which gives 3 minutes of air (and you can have up to say 5 minutes of air "in reserve").

[SleepingSentry]

Find a spot where enemies cannot hit you but you can still hit them (this is quite possible on the void maps), don't move, don't do anything except shoot your ammo efficient gun. Going out when they are all completely CC'd for more ammo or loot if necessary.  Leave your game running for days at a time (is there an auto logout?) if so it still boils down to sitting in a mission for hours upon hours for the best loot.  Doesn't sound fun to me at all.

Edited December 27, 2014 by SleepingSentry

[DarthBane1]

this got the DarthBane Approval

[UltimateSpinDash]

Since the spawn changes, survival isn't that bad though. Did 40 of T4 minutes without Nekros, but I would still not go without one, as it allows you some luxury.

 

I'm not opposed to your idea though.

Edited December 27, 2014 by UltimateSpinDash

[XToxinator]

Yes I agree. Tbh I am quite tired trlling people to stay close, ask for neckros player and also people thta are new just activate Capsule.

[MurderHoboDinosaur]

Yeah that's exactly what this seems like to me.

 

In a defense mission > a wave spawns, you kill it, then that ushers in the next wave.

 

 

 

In this proposed change > enemies spawn, you kill enough of them, then more enemies spawn. 

 

Play would be extremely similar to defense.

 

Also, how do you fail this mission??? I imagine the reason survival was implemented the way  it was, was to prevent the only loss condition being for every single member of the squad to run out of revives. Would be a huge hindrance to replayablility. "Hosting T4S must have all 4 revives". That's not something I can appreciate. Avoiding cases like that is most likely why DE decided to add life support, when I'm sure their original intention was to have an all out arcade style survival mission.

 

 

You can't fail excavation.

Edited December 27, 2014 by MurderHoboDinosaur

[-SLX-J3tAc3]

Pretty cool, OP. Break the mold and do something different - excellent idea!

[FattyKracken]

I think I understand the gist of what you are saying but parts are a little unclear. Are you able to breakdown your idea into dot points that cover each Mechanic and how it affects the gameplay experience/purpose of having it in there please.  I would like to better look over the ideas in a more clear format if you wouldn't mind that'd be awesome.

 

 

pretty much, its like Survival (with LS removed) with kills per min.  but the main difference in this mode is:

 

Enemies level, and spawn rate scale to how many enemies are killed during the time frame set (IE: every 5 mins)

 

If, lets say your team is killing about 80kpm and the goal was, lets say, 60kpm.  this would scale enemies to gain x levels for the rest of the game (meaning, if its set to give 3 levels your first 5 mins, 2 levels for 10 mins, and 5 levels for 15 mins, then enemies would be 10 levels higher then from the start of the mission for your 15-20 min run)  BUT, this would not be the only change!  the amount spawn would also change, the more enemies you kill over the kpm, the more addition to base that is also spawned for each 5 mins.

 

this *could* fix the press 4 to win, as starting this would cause enemies to not only gain high amounts of levels, but also be spawning increasingly high amounts to where IF they are not careful, they will quickly find themselves stuck in a room, with no way to get out safely due to danger of not keeping up with the pace of killing they set for doing press 4 to win.

 

the Benefit?

For that rotation, it can increase the chance of better items as reward when you reach a unknown to player kpm above recommended but not so far gone you the number Isn't relate able (IE 90kpm sweet spot vs 150kpm i press 4 for life) but how would we determined this?

 

This:

there would be mechanical rules that would help keeping the system from flat out destroying those who are not doing press 4 to win, with values that would pretty much follow a graph that be able to tell if this would be happening.  so, if the game shows a steady rate of kills a decent amount above kpm, it would react as normal.  but if it find that kpm is very high, almost 2-3 times kpm, it would be able to detect this and then bring the pain.  (something that may also help, is a way for the game to tell if kills are by ability's or weapons or if one person in the group has multiple 10x of time more kills then the rest of the group.  this would also be a great place to include using CC/level to help calculate this value)

 

how would you lose?

well, i have an idea, its not solid at this time and I'm iffy on this, but when you dip below the kpm, the "NPC" (pretty much the guy raiding for supplies for you, aka reward) has a chance to be nothing due to not killing enough enemy's.  this can be show as "tenno, our allies were not able to find supplies due to increase enemy's in his region. you must get there attention or we risk our allies being found"  this could be shown as a percentage of chance to be found and failing to keep kpm up will increase this chance(thus exceeding recommended kpm. would reduce this chance)  if hes found, mission over kids, the ally was killed/ imprisoned"  thus losing all rewards and giving a second chance to fail the mission other then dying.  yes, i know this would include RNG, but the RNG is somewhat controllable by staying on top of kpm.

 

 

Other options to add.

One thing i did just now think about that could be added, is make it to where enemies don't always go to the players, but instead sometimes mass up in numbers in one spot.  they could make it to were this happen 2-3 tiles away from players to force them to move about.  another idea to go along with this, is, if a certain amount of enemies are in a particular room and not being cleared, the game could declare a "tact drop"  this would lock down the room these enemies are in, give X seconds for players to gather up, or risk having a large amount of enemies dropped from the sky or special entrance onto Tenno in an attempt to "eradicate the Tenno" in one move.  now, these enemies could be slightly weaker then what players had been killing to keep it a bit more livable.  if you kill them all, you get a bonus.  the game would also reconfigure the kpm for that segment to not punishing players from killing this Drop, thus nuking would be slightly more accepted and possibly add a bonus such as "kill all enemies with melee" and get a 2nd reward  so that way it would encourage not always nuking it all.

 

of course this is just an idea, i haven't really put it to the grind stone to make it work better or more piratical/keep game from become new press 4 to win, but same time fun and enjoyable.

 

i hope this kind of clears up what i wrote earlier or made it even more of a mess.  if there are certain questions you have, i do better at addressing these then trying to clear up an entire post..

[Jax_Cavalera]

pretty much, its like Survival (with LS removed) with kills per min.  but the main difference in this mode is:

 

Enemies level, and spawn rate scale to how many enemies are killed during the time frame set (IE: every 5 mins)

 

I do like the majority of the mechanics you suggest in here too.  The only part I'm not really into would be the kpm timer causing a fail if you don't meet quota etc to stay in the level as this could cause problems should there be a bunch of mobs that get "stuck" in a room, against a wall, don't spawn in  for some reason etc.. and would leave things with the same number of problems we have with life support.

 

That being said your idea of scaling difficulty based on your KPM is brilliant and it sparked me to consider this possible implementation :

 

-  Below your Kill Meter bar you have a KPM gauge and depending on how quickly you fill the Kill Meter this will determine how aggressive the enemies will scale in difficulty and also spawn density.

 

-  Gauge would have Blue for below average, Green for average and Red for above average so players can get a rough idea of the pace they are killing at and can ease it off or not.

 

-  If your KPM gauge is far too low however the negative effect is that the reward provided for filling your Kill Meter will not be as good and if you have a Red KPM gauge, the reward will be better than what you would usually get.  *taking the gist of weak rewards for being too slow and great ones for being swift terminators*

 

It's kind of taking what I felt were the coolest part of your concept and using that as the support structure for determining how difficulty scales which would as you point out, reduce the abuse of this gamemode since mass killing could end up being to your own demise if you aren't careful.

 

 

 

 

Regarding the 2nd idea you present, this could be something like a brand new game mode.

 

As I am reading your post, I'm picturing the tenno are in a facility and they are being tested by the Lotus to determine who is worth of being fitted with their first personalized Warframe unit (kind of like a right of passage graduation).

 

They kick start off and have a chain of rooms with each room containing a bunch of enemies like you suggest and the players are tasked to clean them up with various techniques progressively getting harder with more difficulties.  Kind of like the Mastery Tests I suppose but as more of a chained together game mode.

 

Bonuses are awarded based on how well the task was performed and also based on how quickly it was achieved etc.  That pretty much is exactly what you were saying, just being placed more into the context of an individual game mode.  I'd enjoy playing it especially if the rewards were pretty good for over-achieving it would really push players to improve their skills.

 

 

I won't really go on too much further with the 2nd concept that you mention as it is a bit off topic from the main discussion but I think it has potential regardless of how you flesh it out and you should really make a topic about it as a new gamemode idea.  The scenario etc I put in is just some thoughts I had on ways to possibly structure it but I am pretty sure you could figure out a much better structure for it to work well.

 

 

So back on topic, to the original concept you propose and then the ideas for implementation into the upgraded gamemode, what are your thoughts, would that be cool or would it have its' own issues?

[Spoof310]

WHY DIDNT I GET THIS IDEA

HELL YES

PLS DE
PLS

[DrewEcho]

Yes to removal of life-support. Kill meter sounds interesting. You have my vote.

[FattyKracken]

I do like the majority of the mechanics you suggest in here too.  The only part I'm not really into would be the kpm timer causing a fail if you don't meet quota etc to stay in the level as this could cause problems should there be a bunch of mobs that get "stuck" in a room, against a wall, don't spawn in  for some reason etc.. and would leave things with the same number of problems we have with life support.

 

That being said your idea of scaling difficulty based on your KPM is brilliant and it sparked me to consider this possible implementation :

 

-  Below your Kill Meter bar you have a KPM gauge and depending on how quickly you fill the Kill Meter this will determine how aggressive the enemies will scale in difficulty and also spawn density.

 

-  Gauge would have Blue for below average, Green for average and Red for above average so players can get a rough idea of the pace they are killing at and can ease it off or not.

 

-  If your KPM gauge is far too low however the negative effect is that the reward provided for filling your Kill Meter will not be as good and if you have a Red KPM gauge, the reward will be better than what you would usually get.  *taking the gist of weak rewards for being too slow and great ones for being swift terminators*

 

It's kind of taking what I felt were the coolest part of your concept and using that as the support structure for determining how difficulty scales which would as you point out, reduce the abuse of this gamemode since mass killing could end up being to your own demise if you aren't careful.

 

 

 

 

Regarding the 2nd idea you present, this could be something like a brand new game mode.

 

As I am reading your post, I'm picturing the tenno are in a facility and they are being tested by the Lotus to determine who is worth of being fitted with their first personalized Warframe unit (kind of like a right of passage graduation).

 

They kick start off and have a chain of rooms with each room containing a bunch of enemies like you suggest and the players are tasked to clean them up with various techniques progressively getting harder with more difficulties.  Kind of like the Mastery Tests I suppose but as more of a chained together game mode.

 

Bonuses are awarded based on how well the task was performed and also based on how quickly it was achieved etc.  That pretty much is exactly what you were saying, just being placed more into the context of an individual game mode.  I'd enjoy playing it especially if the rewards were pretty good for over-achieving it would really push players to improve their skills.

 

 

I won't really go on too much further with the 2nd concept that you mention as it is a bit off topic from the main discussion but I think it has potential regardless of how you flesh it out and you should really make a topic about it as a new gamemode idea.  The scenario etc I put in is just some thoughts I had on ways to possibly structure it but I am pretty sure you could figure out a much better structure for it to work well.

 

 

So back on topic, to the original concept you propose and then the ideas for implementation into the upgraded gamemode, what are your thoughts, would that be cool or would it have its' own issues?

 

to clarify(just to make sure it was understood the way i ment it to be as sometimes i suck at explaining things in detail), being under kpm wouldnt fail you outright, but instead leaving you rewardless for that reward time and give you a percentage IE 15% to fail on (as it seem just about every missions has 2 ways to fail the mission, usually being die which exterm only has this condition or fail caputer, pod destroyed, etc).  

 

Now, depending on DE wants to go about this, (stay with what i mentioned above this line of text 

1)  it can either Roll chance (so 15% chance to fail on gaining the percent, only 1 time for that failure)

Ex:

                                                           kpm under/over? amount? (under 15kpm)

                                                                                         v

                                                                              no reward given

                                                                                         v

                                                                        gain failure percent(15%)

                                                                                         v

                                  roll failure (8 out of 100 rolled;failed/ 95 out of 100 rolled; nothing happens)

                                                                                         v

                                                          FAILURE screen/ "Tenno, our allies blah blah blah"

 

OR

 

2) gain the percentage, but chance to fail isnt till next time around, and set up in a way that benefits the players themselves.

 

                                                          kpm under/over? amount? (under 15kpm)

                                                                                         v

                                                                              no reward given

                                                                                         v

                                                                        gain failure percent(15%)

                                                                                         v

                                                                               *next 5 min part*

                                      kpm under/over? amount? (over 16kpm/over 10 kpm/ under 4 kpm)

                                                                                         v

                               pervious failure chance cleared? (yes, no roll/ no 5% chance/no 19% chance)

                                                                                         v

                                                roll failure (no roll/ 5% chance to fail/ 19% chance to fail)

                                                                                         v

                                             failed missions? (no/ maybe but slim/ maybe slight chance)

                                                                                         v

                                           if over kpm AND no failure chance give item base on [over kpm]

 

hopefully this kinda clears up what i had in mind for that part.

[Jax_Cavalera]

Thank you very much for taking the time to clarify the KPM concept further, it's great to see there are so many players just as eager as I am to see survival improved.

Sorry it took me a while to get back to you I have been really flat out. Well I like the principle you cover for the KPM altering the rewards offered and believe this could enhance things definitely.

The adding of chance to fail or direct failure based on your KPM would be a problem as it brings the same issue that life support has. I think in theory it would be amazing and more contextually relevant to survival than life support.

Sadly mob path finding and spawn rates/spawn conditions are not 0erfect and frequently glitch out from any number of causes so having a fail condition that is based on unreliable game mechanics would not work.

There are several reasons mobs fail to spawn/pathfind correctly and I am just not sure how many are possible to fix without an overhaul of level design by DE..in which case, perhaps they could acknowledge that their current appaoach to Survival is far from what the players want and current game mechanics can support.

- Players not on the floor..small ledges, hidden areas and treasure rooms, in the air, up high with no connecting ground, down low on a ledge, basically anywhere you could consider 'cover'. Mobs will not continue to spawn, track you down, be alerted or attempt to navigate to a vantage point where they may also attack you.

- Players running between rooms stop mobs from spawning randomly and yet I have also seen mobs 'appear' behind me in some rooms when there was barely enough room for my squad to fit. This is too unreliable and random..mobs shouldnt be able to just 'appear' on top of players they should be entering from spawn doors like we see in ODS currently.

- Mobs often rund around in circles or simply become broken when disarmed or otherwise ragdolled by a player ability. And no this should not be fixed by boosting the bubble on nullifiers to cover the entire map...as tempting as this slap on fix would be.

- Mobs frequently take cover in the next room instead of trying to enter the room your squad is in and attacking.

Also similar but likely a unique cause - Mobs try to find cover instead of trying to find positions that let them get a visual on the target.

- Mobs do not split up when your squad does, they all seem to go for 1 player.

That is the main issues I can think of off the top of my head and some do overlap in certain aspects but produce different results vise-versa.

When functions as critical as failing do not rely on the above bugs and issues to work as intended, we are left with a more enjoyable and rewarding experience. When we fail we know it was due to us being overwhealmed by enemies and not some random glitch.

So yeah in theory your concept would be awesome and synergise with the OP nicely yet with the current state of the game mechanics would not resolve the issues introduced with life support.

Edited January 7, 2015 by Jax_Cavalera

[DSpite]

No offense, but this concept should be maybe fleshed out and made into something else. You will basically mangle current Survival into oblivion. There is zero point other then DE doing so because <reasons> that is better then just letting new players coming in experience an old incarnation of Survival and then also a new variation on it.

 

Personally, Survival should be exactly that, "survival", if you go into bleed-out, and no one fixed you, you activate a device that does that thing we do to Capture targets and out you go, and the rest of the team stays behind. When all go down, mission ends, and the "operative" on the ship we were acting as a distraction for gets out as well, basically a "last man standing" scenario.

 

Your idea turns it into a shooting gallery with players just camping a spot and slaughtering everything ... like they do already, but this actively encourages it even more.

Edited January 8, 2015 by DSpite

[Jax_Cavalera]

Hey Dspite,

I believe the intent of this concept is to either produce a new gamemode that functions as a superior option to current survival or to simply improve current survival which would result in the existing survival as you do point out becoming less popular.

 

Perhaps you may be part of the 10% of current voters that feel this way about the proposed concept and believe current survival should not be touched, however it would only be fair to note that 90% of players that have had their say via the survey feel that this should be changed and ASAP into either a new gamemode or replacing the current gamemode.

 

I can understand the nostalgia of liking old things that are broken there are lots of professions that bank on people who think this way and run antique stores etc..  Though it is reassuring to see the bulk of players appear to be very much wanting things to move forwards, improve and upgrade.

[Xikiri]

[friendly bump]

[MumblesMcphatty]

Perhaps you may be part of the 10% of current voters that feel this way about the proposed concept and believe current survival should not be touched, however it would only be fair to note that 90% of players that have had their say via the survey feel that this should be changed and ASAP into either a new gamemode or replacing the current gamemode.

 

Lets not get carried away here ... your 90% of people who want a "definite change ASAP" ... is 90% of a whopping 57 votes.

 

Out of the much larger number of people who play the game - I'd say you've got a ways to go before this is in any way an overwhelming issue.

[Jax_Cavalera]

Probably, I would have to agree that the percentages in the poll are only a representation of a small slice of the community which simply means that as more of the community come across the topic and consider opportunities and potential we will get a more fleshed out poll and even more great feedback to refine and improve upon the concept.

It could just be early days and the poll will take a rapid turn in a new direction or it could be a pre-cursor to how the community feel. Currently it is showing the majority who have taken the time to have their say are wanting to see an improvement.

Wanting a real improvement is all that motivated me to produce this topic because just like all those other players I meet in game or on here, most tend to feel as frustrated about the same issues as me and that is an indication of an area that can be upgraded.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Jax_Cavalera

[Trancestep]

I like this idea as a new game mode. You have my vote.

 

However I am rather fond of the timer based survival. Regarding the life support, I would like to see it removed if it was replaced with, say, the inability to revive? Then it truly becomes it's name sake and we don't have to worry about getting a Nekros in the squad. I'd happily welcome that increased challenge.

[BrazilianJoe]

You have My YES, BUT:

 

Why not BOTH? 

 

No need to remove Survival from the game as-is, it's fun. 

 

Just call your mechanics "Last Stand" or "Diversion" something.  I like your proposed game mode. 

Edited January 19, 2015 by BrazilianJoe

[FileName]

same as the other have said. sounds fun as a different game mode but not survival. horde mode as the other said?

 

 

But Survival surely need some changes, right now it's the most boring game mode. Though I suppose a significant increase of enemy spawnrate would be enough.

amen to that. survival surely need some changes. but not entirely boring though (personal opinion since i don't deal that much damage there nor i have the need to)

also, something fun you can do is bring a speed nova on the squad and watch all hell break loose. tried that in a t4d and it went "wtf the pod is dead?"

[Metalbawkses]

I really like this idea of survival. It's kinda funny how the current survival is actually a rng game but we're not here to fire bomb survival. If the idea of reaching enough kill is not as appealing to some people then why not just the way we get o2? Instead of relying on your best friend to play only nekros or praying to rngesus, make it a resident evil style survival. You're guaranteed a fixed amount of time for every kill you and your party makes. Let's say : 1% o2 for standard lancer / crewmen / drones. 2% for special enemies such as powerfist / sniper crewmen and 4% for heavy units like gunners, bombards, corpus tech.