Improving Survival - Non Endless Variation/replacement

[BlackCoMerc]

Lets get this out of the way first: Survival is not an Endless mission. 

 

For the bulk of players Survival has a definitive end. That end might come at 20 minutes. It might come at 40 or 60 or 80 minutes. Regardless of exactly when a lack of life support and/or the game's ludicrous, painfully unfun armor scaling drives you out of the mission, one fact remains: Survival is not, in fact, Endless. 

 

With that in mind, let us ask ourselves this: Would we rather have a pseudo-endless mission that frankly gets boring and repetitive while also wrecking our immersion in the game's world and lore by suddenly scaling the same enemies we've been fighting to through-the-roof bullet sponges? Or would we prefer a (still lengthy) mission with adequate rewards that has a satisfying conclusion at either 20 or 40 minutes? 

 

(And yes, I know this potentially an "Either Or Fallacy, but again, lets face facts: DE will never grant a truly, no-catches-honest Endless Mission and we know it. No one mission will let us grind literally forever and neither will any amount of RAM in a computer). 

 

Personally, I opt for number Two. I want a lengthy survival mission with a satisfying conclusion. To me, the current version of Survival feels like Defeat. There is nothing fun about lasting 20 or 40 or more minutes and then suddenly turning tail and running like a coward for Extraction because...Armor Scaling. Its simply not an enjoyable conclusion to a mission. 

 

This being said, here are my proposed changes to Survival missions:

 

-Dramatic reduction in armor scaling. Keep it believable.

 

-Scrap Life Support. This mechanic is tolerated at best and actually ENJOYED by literally no one.

 

-Keep rewards at 5 minute rotations

 

-Extraction still available at/after first 5 minutes, with rewards retained

 

-A "Soft" Ending at 20 minutes:

 

  -At 20 minutes normal enemies stop spawning. A full platoon of Elite Eximus soldiers engages you, with mini-boss. 

 

    -Just making it to this fight means you keep rotation rewards earned to this point, even if you die.

 

    -Defeating the Platoon guarantees a Rare reward in addition to rotation awards earned so far

 

    -Once you defeat the Eximus squad, nothing more will spawn for 1 full minute, during which Extraction is available

 

-If you stay beyond the Eximus Platoon, normal enemies, resume, with slight scaling toward more toughness (slight)

 

-At 39 minutes normal enemies stop spawning for good

 

-At 40 minutes, a full fledged Boss and his squad engage you.

 

  -Making it to this fight guarantees you keep ALL rewards earned so far

 

  -Winning this fight concludes the mission (no forced run to extraction needed)

 

  -Winning this fight guarantees a Rare reward, at least 1 tier higher than the Eximus Platoon

 

 

I feel this variation would be much more satisfying than the current "endless" mission type where Elite tenno are essentially run out of town not by difficult, unique engagements but by immersion wrecking armor scaling and a lack of O2. 

 

Please, thoughts and considerations.

 

  

[TheVeiledScion]

I really like this idea. Not sure if I'd want this for "survival", but this is much, much more interesting than what we currently have. A couple of points:

 

1) I absolutely agree on eliminating life support. It is frustrating and annoying, though if I'm with a full squad we usually don't end up having to refill manually. But it should go, and they should definitely bring back planet-based survivals (excavation is worse).

 

2) If I understand what you mean, armor scaling should go. I think more bad guys of different tiers is much better than the same number of bad guys but with ridiculously overpowered stats.

 

3) The key thing I like about Survival is the pseudo-endless spawning of enemies. The way you describe your concept makes it seem more like Defense, with a very finite number of foes each round. What I propose instead is a set of timed intervals in which you have to fight off normal foes, then add heavy foes, then Eximus, and then mini-bosses (it's long past time for some new mini-bosses). That way, you keep the endless spawning, but only in a certain window.

 

4) I'd like a Free-for-all game mode where it is simply a pure, endless spawning for however long the player wants to go. No armor scaling, and it wouldn't even need to have special rewards.

[King_p]

I like your recommendations, but to be fair what people mean when they "endless mission" is that the players can continue indefinitely and continue to get rewards rather than working towards a single objective and then finishing the mission. The Tenno aren't capturing a target or killing a important figure, they're just going for as long as they can. Other than that what you are basically saying is removing the "survival" part of survival. The idea is not a sort of "waved extermination" but a hold-out. I don't think there is currently too much wrong with survival but that is simply my opinion.

Edited August 22, 2015 by King_p

[Drasiel]

One the main reasons I see for the life support is so to diminish the ability to camp and prevent void survival missions from becoming "wait in one of the secret areas the enemies can't get to and all the rewards while I watch tv or something".

 

Your ideas sound like they could be fun for a mission type, but as far as for survival it would need a much more in depth rework to make it actually functional. I'd much rather see a rework of excavation, since I agree it's awful and it's basically just mobile defence with batteries. 

[blazinvire]

Survival always did feel a tad hollow and confused, I kind of wanted a touch of realism thrown into it, and maybe they should split off the endless type to a more 'True Endless', similar to what people have already suggested.

 

When you're on a ship, there aren't going to be an infinite number of soldiers, and they're not going to just keep throwing soldiers at you all day long if it doesn't appear to be working.  And if you're not doing anything other than just trespassing and defending yourself, it doesn't give the enemy much incentive to get rid of you with the level of commitment they display.

 

I think any survival in a closed environment like a ship should be just a very, very long mission where you can leave whenever you like, but eventually you'll kill enough people and blow up enough important things on the ship that'll cause it to go critical and then you can leave with closure.

 

Survival on a planet however, should be more of a true endless; none of this life support crap or drastic enemy scaling, and the enemies would be an all-or-nothing deal.  You'd either have to fight all of them in a massive flood, or have to go out and hunt the buggers down like you're trying to claim territory.

[Dustii-chan]

I love the idea of having a mini-boss. Kinda reminds me of Full Invasion 2 for Mount and Blade: Warband. That'd definitely spice up the survival missions on both starchart and in the Void. And yes, life support has simply become tedious to the point that you fight or flight nowadays.

 

Where do I sign?

Edited August 24, 2015 by DustyPwny

[Valar.Morghulis]

Sadly i disagree with you that the life support mechanic should be removed completely it is there for a valid reason. Witch is to prevent players from hiding in some side room/ledge that  the enemy can't get to and essentially going AFK. Before you say the Anti-AFK system takes care of that scenario how long will it take for people to figure out they set up a macro to Press "W" for 2 seconds Press "S" for 2 seconds to avoid that little bit of still-birthed code.

 

The life support mechanic is necessary to force player interaction but should be changed, instead of the current system of pods you have to collect or trigger. It should be changed so that each time you kill an enemy it should add a very small amount of life support, when you kill a mini-boss/boss it should fill significantly.

 

Otherwise I like the idea for the most part, my concern is that with no spawns for a minute will mean that effective groups will be left playing with them selfs for 45 seconds while they wait for the mini-boss/boss to spawn.