Combined Mission Types (For Alerts Or Cinematic Missions)

[Maicael]

There's a good variety of mission types currently in Warframe, and there's some that could be combined perfectly to create a more structured battle than the current single-objective missions without much explanation for purpose.

       Some of my proposed ideas involve missions like Survival or Defense, but wouldn't work well as an endless mission on a normal node. My thought on this is to apply these missions to Alerts where you're given a set amount of time to stay instead of it being endless.

 

First, I'll list some of my proposed combinations with descriptions of how they would apply, and at the end I'll give an example of a battle "story" from the mission combination.

 

 

1. Spy/Deception - During spy portion you're trying to find out what the enemy knows, deception you use what you've learned to implant false but realistic reports/sightings/transmissions

 

2. Spy/Survival - Lotus already mentions in her transmission for survival missions that you are a distraction for a lone tenno operative. Why not have the operative be a player with up to 3 others as the distraction? I already know people would say only Loki/Ash/Limbo would get used, but you could make operative selection random to prevent stacking it against the Spy Vaults(additional explanation: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/557604-combined-mission-types-for-alerts-or-cinematic-missions/#entry6335195). There'd be complaints with that too, but I don't have all the answers. I just think it would be interesting. Also, could make it so that each time the operative gets detected more security/enemies is drawn back in their direction. This would make the vaults and maintaining enemy life-support drops more difficult.

       This could be something just to apply to an alert with just the 10-20min time limit, but could be interesting to apply to endless. I think more Vault variations would be needed before this could be accomplished though.

 

3. Hijack/Defense - This one would require some communication and decisions on whether to do a 2/2 or 3/1 team split depending on individual capabilities. At this one you would arrive at the cryopod and decide how to split. One or more would stay at the cryopod and defend it against enemies while the rest of the squad sprinted to find a Corpus transport vehicle to Hijack. The 2 teams would rejoin with the vechicle and the cryopod would be loaded and transported to the extraction site.

 

 

I'm sure there are others that could be done and that I could post, but I just wanted to get the idea out there as a possibility. I'm going to give an example of a battle "story" here using Hijack/Defense + Exterminate. This would hopefully be integrated with cinematics as the U18 quest is supposed to have to properly show what's going on aside from transmissions.

 

 

Lotus has received a report that a cryopod has been discovered on the icy planet of Europa and that a battle between the Corpus and Grineer has broken out around it. The Tenno are tasked with protecting and retrieving it. Upon landing safely on the outskirts of the battle the Tenno fight there way to the cryopod where the heaviest fighting is taking place. Some Tenno stay with the cryopod while the remainder run off to find a way of transporting it away with them. The leaders of the Grineer and Corpus take notice of this new threat to their prize and begin to focus their efforts on the Tenno instead of each other, but before the fighting becomes too intense the other team returns with a Corpus transport capable of carrying the pod.

      Lotus responds, "Bring the cryopod to the extraction point. I will meet you there."

The Tenno begin loading the pod, but one of the enemy commanders (Grineer or Corpus) desperate to stop them fires off a powerful shot that misses the Tenno, but hits a critical component of the pod. The Tenno then begin their escape towards extraction.

      Upon reaching the designated meeting place with enemies closing the distance behind them, an unmistakable ship (something that would noticeably belong to the Lotus) appears, lands, and extends a boarding ramp. The Lotus herself walks down to meet them. She comes over to check on the crypod's occupant and that's when the rescue party and the Lotus notice that the cryopod has been compromised by a (Grineer/Corpus) weapon and the Tenno within has had his/her life force drained beyond return. The Lotus angrily grips the railing of the cryopod until her knuckles are white.

      She looks up at the enemies rushing down at them and icily says, "Kill them all." (If mama ain't happy ain't nobody happy!)

     The Tenno at her side nod in compliance and sprint out to meet the enemy with their blades glinting in the sunlight and the snow about to be dyed red.

 

 

Are there any mission combinations you can think of that would be interesting? Would some of these work on the Star Chart or do you think this would be better for Alerts/Invasions/Tactical Alerts/Quests?

Edited November 15, 2015 by Maicael

[enJohneering]

Other than the Lotus physically being present for the mission (which in current practices makes no sense), I really like your idea of a multi-component mission to save a tenno in cyro-sleep.

 

In fact, I may just make a new suggestion in fan-concepts of the next raid, but we'll see. Here's my concept for a multiple component mission, which could be implemented separately, or as part of a larger raid. 

 

Part 1 - Intelligence

 

Lore: A particularly knowledgeable tenno has not yet been awakened. It could also be something else, like an Orokin elite, but someone in a cyropod. You have discovered they may be in the ____ system. You enter a standard spy mission to find the exactly location, but when you do you find that the knowledge isn't in the data center, but rather in the memory of a single soldier. So this leads into a capture mission. If you get detected at any point, you will have to kill everyone on the ship to leave no witnesses. 

 

Part 2 - split team

 

Lore: Unlike some defense missions, the Grineer/Corpus are tired of you rescuing your brethren while hordes of soldiers die at your feet. So, (insert leader here) decides to set a simple trap. While the first few waves of soldiers keep you occupied but fail to take you down, he will position either a Famorian  or some sort of on-board bomb deployed from another ship to simply destroy the entire base/station/ship, you and your sleeping comrade inside. This is simple to explain, and means that you will have to not only keep the pod safe, but get it OUT.

 

Gameplay: Hijack a transport in order to bring it to the pod while a teammate or 3 defend the pod from a few soldiers. They have to defend the pod however long it takes you to get the transport there, which should be minimum 5-10 waves. 

 

Part 3 - Survive and Escape

 

Lore: The commander did not expect you to realize it was a trap or try to move the pod off the ship before he could get into position. Now to prevent you escaping he will shut down the life support systems while deploying his/her elite troops (stationed on the other ship that was meant to destroy the one you are on) in order to ensure you don't escape before s/he can get into position. 

 

Gameplay: You have to get the transport to safety as in a normal hijack mission, but you also need to maintain your life support percentage as in a normal survival mission. There could be a timer added to show how long until the bomb/famorian is in position and you fail, but it is optional. 

 

Now there are two possible endings that could be done here.

 

1) You find a boss in your way before you can escape that you have to defeat (like a new corpus proxy boss or something) which when you do you rescue the dude and save the day.

 

OR 

 

2) You inevitably fail to save the pod (maybe the bomb goes off as you get to the finish and you only escape with archwing while the pod itself shatters) and Lotus (who seemed very intent on getting this person) tells you to "Kill them all." Now you attack and then land on the other ship and start 

 

Part 4) Extermination

 

Lore: In rage, you land on the other ship and murder everyone you find on board which compared to the normal 60-100 could be maybe 200-400. You fight your way to the commander himself, and kill him.

 

Don't know what you think, but it seems like a nice cohesive, comprehensive mission that really expands on our current gamemodes by weaving them into a story of trying to save a single tenno. Let me know what you think, if it's alright maybe I'll make a fan-concept out of it. 

[Maicael]

Other than the Lotus physically being present for the mission (which in current practices makes no sense), I really like your idea of a multi-component mission to save a tenno in cyro-sleep.

If I recall correctly, I've heard that there's work on a full model of the Lotus if that's what you mean. May be introduced in the cinematic quest of U18 or may just be an online rumor I saw. If you meant that it wouldn't be reason enough for the Lotus to show up in person, then I suppose you might be right about that. I was thinking that the Lotus seeing herself as a mother to the Tenno would be enough reason to have her want to greet a new Tenno as he is "born" from the cryopod. I was envisioning the Lotus showing up like Nick Fury in a Helicarrier, not just a Lotus version Liset or Mantis.

 

For your raid suggestion, if you're on a ship could have some type of hover-gurney type thing for transporting in tight spaces. I went with the outdoor Corpus vehicle suggestion since it's already in place in the game and maybe easier for others to understand what I mean.

[An_Atheist]

The problem I have with these ideas is that, while they are amazing and I would love to see in game, they fixate on having people in full squads being split up. This makes it problematic for those of us who solo everything, an also fails to take into account system limitations, as the synced spy/survival would require a lot of processing power.

These mission chains could be really simple, just Spy (steal the location of xyz (unknown item/enemy etc.)), Deception (replace the data stolen with fake data), Survival/Defense/Hijack (recover xyz), Exterminate (kill everyone who knows we have xyz)

[DSpite]

People will still use Loki/Ash for spy missions. There is the same chance DE would allow a "pick a random Frame" idea as there is of me skating to work in hell.

 

There will be people that only have a single Loki on their account so they won't be effected. There will be people that have a Loki and a bunch of low level Frames that because the Frames are too low level, won't be able to mount Mods and do the mission anyway, so they will go in out of the mission until Loki is picked anyway.

Edited November 15, 2015 by DSpite

[Maicael]

People will still use Loki/Ash for spy missions. There is the same chance DE would allow a "pick a random Frame" idea as there is of me skating to work in hell.

 

There will be people that only have a single Loki on their account so they won't be effected. There will be people that have a Loki and a bunch of low level Frames that because the Frames are too low level, won't be able to mount Mods and do the mission anyway, so they will go in out of the mission until Loki is picked anyway.

When I said "random operative selection" I meant from the squad, not from each individual account. This would require you to enter the alert with a squad(as An_Atheist pointed out), so maybe like a "mini-Raid" type alert. The random operative selection still probably wouldn't be the best since then everyone would have to gear up for the possibility of being the "spy."

 

Letting the squad choose and have Ash/Loki be the automatic squad preference for spy wouldn't be too bad. I'm considering the spy portion being much larger (multiple rooms) than the current spy vaults, perhaps a stealth-based tileset of its own. Also, it would have enemies like the "catbrow" handler (can't remember its name) and some Corpus equivalent for seeing through invis, so going invisible would help, but you couldn't solely rely on it.

Edited November 15, 2015 by Maicael