Defense Experiments

[Fari]

I hope this goes well. It kinda scares me though, since it sounds like it's gonna be slower? Defense waves are dictated by enemies killed to my knowledge, so having less swarming you seems like it'd make it slower? But I guess if it's all ideal and the less of the slow parts it'd balance out? But... as is, waves are way too slow, so it'd need to do a lot more than balance out.

 

I dunno, maybe this will all be super great, but personally I've never experienced too many enemies at a time before like wave 60, just really slow waves?

[[DE]Glen]

I hope this goes well. It kinda scares me though, since it sounds like it's gonna be slower? Defense waves are dictated by enemies killed to my knowledge, so having less swarming you seems like it'd make it slower? But I guess if it's all ideal and the less of the slow parts it'd balance out? But... as is, waves are way too slow, so it'd need to do a lot more than balance out.

 

I dunno, maybe this will all be super great, but personally I've never experienced too many enemies at a time before like wave 60, just really slow waves?

 

The number active on has actually been increased so the first 5 waves will actually go more quickly; wave 10+ might slow down but given the new pacing of the heavies that probably is a good thing.

[-AVAL0N-]

This is so nice, but we will need more weapons and good augment mods, that can be easily accessible for all the players and, of that way, finish with the excessive and hard farming to acquire something.

[Bouldershoulder]

I don't think that letting out all heavy eximus bombards, or ancient eximus healers (a 'hi' from new loka) at the same time is a good idea.

 

Also, aren't eximii a commander type of units? Will they command each other?

Edited July 27, 2015 by Bouldershoulder

[MrJxt]

The new code generates random enemies (using the same probabilities as before) but shuffles all of the enemies in a wave to shift the heavier enemies to the end of the wave: 

A potential problem with the new code is that spawning nearly all the heavy units near the end may become overwhelming. For example, in T4 defense, the last few dozen of units spawned are all heavy gunners and bombards.

 

Have you tried limiting the number of heavy/support units spawned near the beginning of the round and gradually increasing that limit? For example, within 10% of enemies eliminated only 3 heavy units can spawn. Within 10-25% killed 7 heavies can spawn. Within 25-50% killed 12 heavies can spawn and after 50% of the wave the limit is removed. This still provides some breathing room after the previous wave and a gradual increase in pressure rather than very little action in the beginner and then too much near the end.

 

Other than that, this looks great!

 

I also would like to point out that eximus heavy gunners and bombards in the void do not reward extra affinity compared to their normal counterparts.

Edited July 27, 2015 by MrJxt

[Omnimorph]

of all the mission types defense is the most boring of all and actually will put a player to sleep which it has done to myself and a few others I know and play with.

 

 maybe you can save this  maybe not who knows but as it is its a boring  mission type.

 

Actually, Defence is certainly boring if one plays Defence only with tried-and-tested groups, but if you play T3-T4 Defence with random PUGs it can get quite exciting (e.g. if you don't happen to have a Frost on the team, or some other mitigation, things can get quite hairy).

 

That aside, I like the sound of the proposed changes. 

[climatiseur]

I have a concern, does it mean bringing a Loki and save radial disarm for the last will make the whole change become null? The so-called heavy units will become as less threat as the initial light units.

[Pacheon]

Actually, Defence is certainly boring if one plays Defence only with tried-and-tested groups, but if you play T3-T4 Defence with random PUGs it can get quite exciting (e.g. if you don't happen to have a Frost on the team, or some other mitigation, things can get quite hairy).

 

That aside, I like the sound of the proposed changes.

yea, exactly. No frost boosting up a globe, nor nyx trying to force away the units from the pod.. But 4 excaliburs slicing up everything in every direction... That is fun! xP

T4 Def with 4 maxed excas was just hilarious xD

Vor didn't stand a chance x'D down within the first few seconds x'DDD

[AdunSaveMe]

Are you guys gonna make units like MOAs and ancients with grapple hooks and resist auras spawn less?

 

Kinda hard to prioritize the units that do everything if there's fifty of them at once.

[YourMoms]

I felt sceptic towards the changes, but hey, this is something. We'll see how it goes on U17.

[superbot34]

I know this is about Defense and not survival, but i have noticed that if i start a public match with just myself, and people join the mission, the enemies tend to appear to spawn and act as aggressively as if it was just one person. Vis versa, if someone joins the match in the lobby and we run the mission, enemies seem to be more numerous and aggressive, matching what you see in the graphs. 

 

is this just me? i feel that whoever is the host, the amount of players you start the mission in determines how many enemies spawn for the rest of said mission regardless of how many more players join. 

[taiiat]

Have you tried limiting the number of heavy/support units spawned near the beginning of the round and gradually increasing that limit?

I also would like to point out that eximus heavy gunners and bombards in the void do not reward extra affinity compared to their normal counterparts.

that sounds interesting, may be worth investigating. would give similar results, but earlier parts of the Waves would still have Medium or possibly Heavy Units, but they'd be heavily clamped until the second half or last quarter of the Wave.

and if Corrupted Bombard and Heavy Gunner Eximus Units do infact have the same XP awardment as their normal counterparts, that certainly sounds somewhat important.

i don't remember myself, but i'm usually more busy shooting them i guess.

[InoxMaximus]

An excerpt from the twitch broadcast I was streaming earlier today where I was testing the new spawn scheduling. It might be hard to see through all the molecular prime but the wave starts with Chargers, Crawlers, and Volatile Runners, then you start to get Ancient Healers and Disruptors, then Boilers, Brood Mothers, and finishes off with Toxic Ancients and Eximus units:

 

the problem is, the enemies takes too much time to spawn. Finishing rounds takes too long time. I wish we get faster spawns and more spawns at once.

[Latronico]

It looks good, although I'm wondering about the XP weighting. Wouldn't it be better to have heavy enemies interspersed with groups of light ones, rather than all together?

 

True. Concentrate all heavy units togheter in the final part of the wave isn't a good thing. I can already imagine 10-15 Bombards one near the other. 

[Shimonoki_Ryuji]

A question for DE Glen:

 

How about making waves a bit more "even"?

 

Taking the gradual graph, that you posted and dividing it into, let's say, 4-5 intervals (squads). Squads will be the same: cannon-fodder, couple supports and a heavy. However, they'll be coming at the pod with a delay (like a mini wave inside of a big wave).

 

Players can take advantage of that delay, which allows them to concentrate on 1 squad, kill it, then kill squad-2 and so on in a quick succession.

 

This allows one to avoid having a clusterfuck of heavies, supports and other drag-you-knock-you-down-one-shot-you type of stuff at the pod. As there won't be a lot of enemies at a given time (if players can kill stuff quickly), the performance should be in theory even better.

 

In your concept, what really leaves me wondering, is how the infested waves are gonna be changed. As we all know, infested aren't intelligent and only know how to rush at things. Even now it's pretty hard to deal with all their stacking auras, poison farts, tar, swarms and maggots, cause around wave 20 def. or 20 min surv. it happens all at once. With the new system, it turns out, that crazy stacking would happen even sooner.

 

[rant]

It bothers me, really, cause when the next prime comes out (and Ember Prime will be vaulted), one of the parts is DEFINITELY gonna be there and only there. I can't touch infested in the state they currently are. Utterly unrewarding and overdifficult to deal with. I'm saying it as it is, cause i want infested to be fun, but they're simply not fun at all :(

[/rant]

[S7ORM]

Are you guys gonna make units like MOAs and ancients with grapple hooks and resist auras spawn less?

 

Kinda hard to prioritize the units that do everything if there's fifty of them at once.

This is actually something I'm concerned about.

The fact that Ancient Healers make enemies resistant to knockbacks, etc. is very dangerous when Ancients all spawn together and all spawn with only heavier units. Especially for people like Ash -- whose teleport doesn't cause a finisher prompt on enemies affected by Ancient Healers (and their corrupted counterparts). That's disappointing, because it kind of pushes me towards having to use Bladestorm.

 

Because armor scaling wasn't bad enough, now all the Corrupted Bombards and Heavy Gunners are going to spawn with a few Corrupted Ancients (yes, I know they don't stack auras).

It's fine being able to prioritize an ancient out of a group, but when that group is 3 Ancient Healers and 3 Bombards, you're not getting in there.

[AdunSaveMe]

It's fine being able to prioritize an ancient out of a group, but when that group is 3 Ancient Healers and 3 Bombards, you're not getting in there.

It's one of the biggest problems among enemies right now.

 

Half of them are fodder, and the other half are priority units that spawn almost as much as the fodder.

[Sannidor]

As much as I like the idea of making enemy waves more random I also imagine how easily this can be botched.

 

Now we don't have bombards or nullies in T1-T2 Void defense at all. In T3-T4 they can come in groups and seeing four nullifiers with intersecting shields coming close is a common thing.

 

Groups of enemies never act as a team, with infested being justified all other soldiers never use basic "I'll cover you" strategy.

 

All the promised changes mean little without some improvements to enemies AI.

[[DE]Glen]

Raw and uncut: 25 waves of one of the easiest Defense missions using the experimental wave planner. I made some notes to tweak a few things but otherwise this went surprisingly well for the first test:

 

[Neah]

Raw and uncut: 25 waves of one of the easiest Defense missions using the experimental wave planner. I made some notes to tweak a few things but otherwise this went surprisingly well for the first test:

 

Mob density seems a tad bit low for the early waves, how does this scale with more team mates? Can you give us an estimate?

Also, can the flow rate of mobs be slightly increased? I've been noticing Defense missions taking longer and longer to complete recently. 

For newer players / low end machines this might be great, but I'd like to have a slider of sorts to control these stuff if possible.

[[DE]Glen]

Mob density seems a tad bit low for the early waves, how does this scale with more team mates? Can you give us an estimate?

Also, can the flow rate of mobs be slightly increased? I've been noticing Defense missions taking longer and longer to complete recently. 

For newer players / low end machines this might be great, but I'd like to have a slider of sorts to control these stuff if possible.

 

Given that it's the easiest defense mission in the game I think the low-density is probably fine.

 

I think for T3D it currently maxes out for 4 players at 29 simultaneous enemies but this hasn't been tested yet.

[Caernarvon]

Raw and uncut: 25 waves of one of the easiest Defense missions using the experimental wave planner. I made some notes to tweak a few things but otherwise this went surprisingly well for the first test:

 

Not enough enemies in the first waves, feels like a slow trickle which will put people to SLEEP.

 

 

I think for T3D it currently maxes out for 4 players at 29 simultaneous enemies but this hasn't been tested yet.

 

29 for a 4 man party seems like a really low number, unless they're all heavy units.

Edited July 27, 2015 by Caernarvon

[CirnouliK]

God, the new parkour system looks beautiful...

Oh, sorry, this is about defense. But yeah, the waves in the early game seem a taaad small, at least while solo. But that's just my opinion.

[Neah]

Given that it's the easiest defense mission in the game I think the low-density is probably fine.

 

I think for T3D it currently maxes out for 4 players at 29 simultaneous enemies but this hasn't been tested yet.

 

Just another thought, instead of having a constant flow of low-density mobs, could there also be "spikes" in spawning where there will be much higher numbers appearing for a short period ? It would surely make things more interesting. Timing should be random, and happens during each wave / random waves.

 

Dealing with constant trickle of mobs feels more of a chore than "defending" an objective since you have to hunt down stragglers here and there. Having alternating high and low tension situations is much better than a constant amount of mobs in which you get used to dealing with, and subsequently, bored of.

Edited July 27, 2015 by Neah

[Dualstar]

I think for T3D it currently maxes out for 4 players at 29 simultaneous enemies but this hasn't been tested yet.

Is the total number of enemies changed at all?

 

Defence missions already take rather long, and if youre cutting the maximum of living mobs at once, but not changing the total required killcount, then thats going to cause the mission to drag on much longer than it is already.