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Player Feedback On U18.4 Excavation Changes [Megathread]


Gigaus
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That's my feedback, I'll just go take the day off now kthxbye!

 

Silliness aside, after running non-bugged Excavation, I've gotta say that it feels much more drawn out than it should. Before, we could kills Carriers whenever they spawned, all because we knew the Power Units would be sitting there if we ran back, which balanced out how bad the spawns were. It was the same with if you had a bunch of Life Support drops in survival when you had 100%; You knew they wouldn't despawn, so you just banked them.

 

Now, because the PUs despawn, we end up leaving them alive and hoping they run along with us to the next Extractor so that the units don't vanish. Further, if we do end up killing them-- or more accurately if our Sentinels or Kubrows kill them-- we have to hope they spawn more. In most cases, even before the change, spawn chances were low, low enough you could go 2 to 5 minutes without a single one spawning-- and remember we need 4 now to complete one Extractor.   

 

I suggest one of the following, or a combination:

 

-Raise spawn levels of the Carriers so that they match Sniper Crewmen or some other Uncommon spawn. Something above Nulls or Engis, but not as common as Elite Crewmen. That should balance out the fact that PUs vanish into thin air now.

 

- Reverse the despawn mechanic for PUs. I know some people will complain, but right now this mechanic is actually hindering the game mode, not helping it.

 

- Or have guaranteed drops/spawns. Either some kind of drop zone where the Lotus spawns in a PU/set of PUs every so often, or periodically a Carrier will spawn similar to Prosecutors. This would put Exc in line with Survival, which has the Life Support Pods as a stopgap in the event enemies don't drop Personal Lifesupport Units. Think of how hard it would be to balance and fine tune Survival if we didn't have those pods: That's where Exc sits right now. 

 

But that's me, so who knows how it'll be viewed. 

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I honestly do not see why they even fiddled with excavation in the first place. It was fine.

 

Now its just tedious and frustrating how A - Not enough carriers spawn STILL. B - Excavators refuse to drop in the same area more than once every 1000 Cryotic.

 

That and I was either consistently unlucky, or they fiddled with the droptables on Hieracon to be arse.

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To be quite honest I think the latest changes to excavation are actually kind of a buff. I do countless triton / hieracon runs and it's damn hard to find a squad that doesn't lose excavators due to either going afk, not paying attention in general or overextending themselves.

I used to say at the beginning, one excavator at a time please, to guarantee the highest chance of getting cores, because sod's law dictates that if we lose excavators they'll likely be the ones that would've given us cores lol. But yeah, people ignore that, people just wanna speed run, get it over and done with asap, so they drop all available excavators while playing poorly for one reason or another at the same time.

If I'm not mistaken about the nature of the new excavation changes, I'd say they almost force people to do one excavator at a time, thus elevating the chances of getting 100% excavator drop rate, also elevating the chances of getting all possible cores on that run. Also, now it means I won't have to get two frosts per run and I can grab another dps frame (because usually if I go for one frost, they get lazy or go afk as is typical with frosts, so I tend to grab another frost as a backup in case one goes AWOL).

So yes, while it may take more time to get what you want, technically speaking you have more of a chance at getting what you want. I'd say the time lost is a worthy sacrifice and we should be thanking DE for this. They just made excavations easier for players with patience.

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To be quite honest I think the latest changes to excavation are actually kind of a buff. I do countless triton / hieracon runs and it's damn hard to find a squad that doesn't lose excavators due to either going afk, not paying attention in general or overextending themselves.

I used to say at the beginning, one excavator at a time please, to guarantee the highest chance of getting cores, because sod's law dictates that if we lose excavators they'll likely be the ones that would've given us cores lol. But yeah, people ignore that, people just wanna speed run, get it over and done with asap, so they drop all available excavators while playing poorly for one reason or another at the same time.

If I'm not mistaken about the nature of the new excavation changes, I'd say they almost force people to do one excavator at a time, thus elevating the chances of getting 100% excavator drop rate, also elevating the chances of getting all possible cores on that run. Also, now it means I won't have to get two frosts per run and I can grab another dps frame (because usually if I go for one frost, they get lazy or go afk as is typical with frosts, so I tend to grab another frost as a backup in case one goes AWOL).

So yes, while it may take more time to get what you want, technically speaking you have more of a chance at getting what you want. I'd say the time lost is a worthy sacrifice and we should be thanking DE for this. They just made excavations easier for players with patience.

 

first I want to say there is already thread about this topic and it has exactly same name and its few threads below yours.

 

and my experiance is completly different I was always part of team that was doing 2-3 excavators  at the same time and we never lost excavator until 1500 if team was average and with good team until 2000.

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As somebody who ran core farms solo or with friends as a Frost, my standard experience did not match yours.

If you're going to contribute to a thread, please contribute something of value. Your point means nothing in relation to this thread.

 

 

...If you lose an excav, you don't lose the reward in the way you seem to think.  It still stays at it's point in the rotation - so if you're at rotation B, the excav gets destroyed, the next excav is still from rotation B.

Ah, I didn't know that, if that's true then thanks man. But still, it's better to not lose excavators in general. And technically speaking you shouldn't lose any, it's not like excavation is hard. If excavators are lost it's because someone's not paying attention.

Edited by JoshuaOuroboros666
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first I want to say there is already thread about this topic and it has exactly same name and its few threads below yours.

 

and my experiance is completly different I was always part of team that was doing 2-3 excavators  at the same time and we never lost excavator until 1500 if team was average and with good team until 2000.

That's fine, I don't care about other threads, I had something to say so I said it.

Yeah a lot of squads I've had have been able to do just that, some have been able to go over 3k and not lose excavators, but I've found that the majority of the time the squads I make get lazy or whatever and lose excavators purely because they're not paying attention, either because they're not able to because they've overextended their mental capacity, i.e. can't pay attention to more than one excavator at a time, or purely because they're not really playing to win, they're basically afk, just standing around without a care in the world, basically leeching.

I'm not sure how your point contributes to this thread, but whatever, thanks for your input anyway even if it was kinda unrelated.

Edited by JoshuaOuroboros666
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That's fine, I don't care about other threads, I had something to say so I said it.

Yeah a lot of squads I've had have been able to do just that, some have been able to go over 3k and not lose excavators, but I've found that the majority of the time the squads I make get lazy or whatever and lose excavators purely because they're not paying attention, either because they're not able to because they've overextended their mental capacity, i.e. can't pay attention to more than one excavator at a time, or purely because they're not really playing to win, they're basically afk, just standing around without a care in the world, basically leeching.

I'm not sure how your point contributes to this thread, but whatever, thanks for your input anyway even if it was kinda unrelated.

 

Sorry to hear that you had such bad luck, if I was team that lost excavator the whole team got their S#&$ together not to lose another one, after that we didnt lose another one.

 

Sadly this change makes situation worse people simply will end mission earlier out of boredom, because now this mission is simply boring and time consuming it actually increase chance someone will go afk.

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Sorry to hear that you had such bad luck, if I was team that lost excavator the whole team got their S#&$ together not to lose another one, after that we didnt lose another one.

 

Sadly this change makes situation worse people simply will end mission earlier out of boredom, because now this mission is simply boring and time consuming it actually increase chance someone will go afk.

Yo man! Thanks for the response. Yeah I've always been one to sort of take the lead and try and encourage the team to work for everyone's benefit and maximise efficiency, especially when we lose excavators. But I nearly always seem to be the only one who thinks that way. 

I neither agree or disagree with your last point, I think both our points apply. I think the change itself is a good change, but I think it'll only really benefit players with patience. I think casuals who just wanna play and kill stuff rather than work hard on the game to get the most out of everything will see it as a bad thing. In my opinion though, like I said, I think the sacrifice of a little extra time is worth the possible benefits it comes with.

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Warframe is known for its fast pace gameplay. Spending more time to get less stuff and waiting for each extractor to finish before going to the next one in the end is not very fast paced. It's not spending only more time but also more effort because enemies scale up with time, not with the number of extractors.

I agree to a certain extent that patience is important: 1 excavator at a time at high levels. But for the first 1000 cryotic, doing 2-3 excavators at a time is more exciting that sitting at 1 at a time. It's also more challenging and fun because you need to multitask (figure out which excavators need power, kill enemies, and power up excavator).

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It's become infuriating and slow to do excavation missions on your own. It's been taking close to twice as long to do the same number of extractors, since they spawn rooms away from each other and I can't do them at the same time, and they stall all the time due to energy carriers not showing up. It's awful.

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If you're going to contribute to a thread, please contribute something of value. Your point means nothing in relation to this thread.

You were speaking as if your experience was everybody's, and you said people should be thanking DE because you said things have improved in terms of being able to get rewards instead of losing them.

 

But, as you've found out, that's not correct.  I and other people had no trouble keeping extractors alive before this, rewards were not lost, and right now extractors are slower to run.

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You were speaking as if your experience was everybody's, and you said people should be thanking DE because you said things have improved in terms of being able to get rewards instead of losing them.

 

But, as you've found out, that's not correct.  I and other people had no trouble keeping extractors alive before this, rewards were not lost, and right now extractors are slower to run.

No, I wasn't.

I was making a point about the new changes, highlighting how they actually make excavation easier, despite being more time consuming.

And I used examples of my experience of playing excavation over the last 1-2 years, specifically speaking, examples of situations where poor gameplay from teammates made my squad lose excavators (which honestly, has happened more often than not in my case), as a frame of reference as to how the changes could actually be benefits.

Not once did I say or imply I believed the experience I've had was the exact same experience everyone else has. I was merely highlighting specific situations in which these changes could benefit players in the situations I highlighted above but how they also give a little extra security to ALL players, even the ones who don't experience the issues I and many others have.

Your points when it comes to others not having the same issues as I are sound, but the way you present them isn't. You come across as very standoffish. Like "look at this guy here, saying something I disagree with because I've not had that experience, I'm gonna correct him!" Which tbh is very dismissive and arrogant. 

I recognise that everyone has somewhat unique experiences in game, but there are general themes in player behaviour and how that behaviour affects gameplay, and a lot of players do disrupt or ruin runs because of the things I've highlighted. You might not've come across the same issues I have, but that doesn't make my points any less valid, nor does it negate what I've said or make it incorrect. My points are sound, my logic is sound, nothing I've said is wrong.

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I honestly do not see why they even fiddled with excavation in the first place. It was fine.

 

Now its just tedious and frustrating how A - Not enough carriers spawn STILL. B - Excavators refuse to drop in the same area more than once every 1000 Cryotic.

 

That and I was either consistently unlucky, or they fiddled with the droptables on Hieracon to be arse.

 

They fiddled with it because it was efficient farming. Basically all of the changes to nearly every map type/gameplay system/frame power have been to stifle farming and increase grind. Ever since DE began talks with Sumpo Food Holdings about selling a majority of their stock the game seems to have become more focused around making money (increased grind with cheaper prices to outright bypass and bundle only cosmetics to name a couple of things). 

 

It's likely only going to get worse now that they've actually completed the deal, before it was probably just to demonstrate how lucrative an investment Warframe/DE could be, or potentially they were trying to payout some dividends before the deal went through. In either case, James Schmalz, Michael Schmalz, and Steve Sinclair, along with Digital Extremes Employee Share Trust are the beneficiaries of the deal, with the majority of the payout going to those first three. Though I imagine that James and Michael got the majority of that compared to Steve, since respectively they are the founder and president of DE and probably had a much bigger portion of stock. I've been unable to ascertain how early Steve got involved in DE, but I still imagine his payout was less, albeit still substantial. Now I'm all for these people getting their due, they should get paid out, but it has the potential to explain why the game has been changing the way it has, they're monetizing harder than they've ever done before, either to pay themselves, or to please the new investors. 

Edited by Ampoth
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They fiddled with it because it was efficient farming. Basically all of the changes to nearly every map type/gameplay system/frame power have been to stifle farming and increase grind. Ever since DE began talks with Sumpo Food Holdings about selling a majority of their stock the game seems to have become more focused around making money (increased grind with cheaper prices to outright bypass and bundle only cosmetics to name a couple of things). 

 

It's likely only going to get worse now that they've actually completed the deal, before it was probably just to demonstrate how lucrative an investment Warframe/DE could be, or potentially they were trying to payout some dividends before the deal went through. In either case, James Schmalz, Michael Schmalz, and Steve Sinclair, along with Digital Extremes Employee Share Trust are the beneficiaries of the deal, with the majority of the payout going to those first three. Though I imagine that James and Michael got the majority of that compared to Steve, since respectively they are the founder and president of DE and probably had a much bigger portion of stock. I've been unable to ascertain how early Steve got involved in DE, but I still imagine his payout was less, albeit still substantial. Now I'm all for these people getting their due, they should get paid out, but it has the potential to explain why the game has been changing the way it has, they're monetizing harder than they've ever done before, either to pay themselves, or to please the new investors. 

 

Well they have been trying to hamper any farming or fast leveing in the game since before the buyout. Heck, even before we got Starchart 3.0, they went out of their way to lower the gains out of levels like Kappa or Endless Towers. That said, considering a Chinese chicken company now holds majority shares of the company-- which gives them 100% control unless by some strange setup the majority of those stocks weren't-- and PWE has any shares, it's not outside the realm of possibility that they're driving some of this problem. 

 

Either way, that's out of our control, so...Best we can do is give feedback, or stop playing when they make bad choices. 

Edited by Gigaus
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Well they have been trying to hamper any farming or fast leveing in the game since before the buyout. Heck, even before we got Starchart 3.0, they went out of their way to lower the gains out of levels like Kappa or Endless Towers. That said, considering a Chinese chicken company now holds majority shares of the company-- which gives them 100% control unless by some strange setup the majority of those stocks weren't-- and PWE has any shares, it's not outside the realm of possibility that they're driving some of this problem. 

 

Either way, that's out of our control, so...Best we can do is give feedback, or stop playing when they make bad choices. 

 

Sumpo has 58%, PWE has 3%. Sumpo may have a controlling stake (though comments from DE claim that they're going to be left to their own devices, I'm not a lawyer so I don't have the expertise to read the agreement and ascertain whether that's true, but I'm pretty sure it is), however the initial investors still own the rest of those shares, those initial investors being the people and employee trust I listed.

 

That Chinese chicken company hasn't been doing well since the bird flu scare, so they're diversifying into the game market, and having DE owned by them means that they can operate in China, which gives them access to a larger player base that's relatively closed off to most of the western developers. Which is only good for DE in terms of making money. But my biggest worry is that the way in which you monetize a free-to-play game is about making your players miserable enough to spend money. Or by catering to whales, the players who spend inordinate amounts of money on the game. I would rather DE tried to cater to roughly everyone, making free-to-play players enjoy the game with a relatively nice amount of grind (which has historically be true for most of Warframes existence), while selling reasonably priced cosmetics and over-priced whale packages (I.E. Prime Access).

 

But this seems to be less and less the case, with a push to convert most players into roughly paying players to bypass grind. The grind on things has become much steeper and the prices for new things has become cheaper, roughly nudging players to pay instead of grind. That's my biggest worry, aside from the mess DE makes implementing new systems. If it continues to get worse, I can only imagine that they will eventually turn into basically every other F2P game, with a core set of players, and a large amount of player turn over. I'm sure if things get bad they'll "release" the game, effectively giving them a burst of press, and front page on Steam.

Edited by Ampoth
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No, I wasn't.

If you weren't actually speaking globally then you should go back and edit your first post, where you make global statements like the below.

 

I'd say the time lost is a worthy sacrifice and we should be thanking DE for this.

 

You are grouping other people in with yourself, and your first post makes incorrect assumptions.

 

EDIT: And of course I'll edit my posts too, otherwise people might be confused.

Edited by Rydian
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I have had the problem, where I am running to the the next excavation spot , someone has activated just after excavating at a spot. Even while I am in the air jumping to catch up, reached the excavator the game decides to load another excavator ... It is annoying, sometimes I ignore the second excavator that just just decided to load, hen I am already at the marked excavator. Its annoying when trying to pan to do the mission with loading only one excavator at a time.

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excavation was probably my favorite mission type before this patch. it was very hectic if you tagged multiple sites at once, and it was a lot of fun trying to juggle multiple extractors. now 80% of the mission is spent running or sitting around doing nothing, shooting the occasional enemy that wanders over. as far as I can tell, the damage to this mode is done primarily because of one small, specific alteration: we have to hit sites in order.

 

this change seems to have nothing to do with anything. as far as I can tell, it's just an arbitrary restriction (might as well make warframes which aren't painted red run at half speed while you guys are at it). it doesn't make sense in-universe. it doesn't make the game more fun. it doesn't improve anything. why is this necessary? now, instead of running in a natural path to the nearest site, I have to cross the entire map. oh, the next site is back where I already was? great. more running. whoever thought this was a good idea should probably rethink his or her life choices, because something, somewhere, has gone horribly wrong. because of this one change, the entire mission type is a waste of time now.

 

that said, I do think some of the changes are good, if we can fix this worthless required order thing. starting with 20 energy is great, because I always felt like it was silly to start with such a high energy and only need 2 or 3 energy cells, especially when most excavations would end up with numerous cells scattered around the area. also, I am assuming the somewhat sparse spawning of energy carriers is not intended (as the patch notes suggest the opposite) so I'm not even considering that in this assessment.

Edited by Wyrmsilver
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But.... crossing the entire map was already a thing.

right, but when you get there, there was at least a cluster of sites waiting for you and you could do them all at once. the only way you would have to cross the map is if all the sites happened to spawn near each other AND across the map.

 

one of the changes in the new patch is that sites don't spawn near each other, so if we didn't have to hit the sites in order, there would always be some nearer to you, so you could work your way gradually to the farther ones

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- you can edit Thread Titles by opening the Advanced Editor on a thread leading post.

 

 

 

- you have more to do in Excavation now, Enemies pound every Excavator harder than they did before. now instead of the difficulty only coming if you activated 3 at once, you have some difficulty on just one, and can opt into MUCH MORE Difficulty if you decide to call more than one at a time.

 

- Excavator sites are in order like that to enforce a minimum distance for them to appear and to have Players traversing the generated map, rather than getting even faster basically free Rewards by them having a tendency to spawn next to your feet or just in the next tile or two all day.

the distance separation also makes it actually a challenge to have more than one deployed at a time.

and it's not something you weren't already doing anyways.

 

- Excavation is still atleast 2x the speed of any other Gamemode for Rewards. 

 

 

again, you have more to do in Excavation now, rather than the Objective being trivial and something you ignore after a few seconds each time you start a new Objective.

 

 

 

now, if you can show Digital Extremes examples of having to run from corner to corner on the map (or so) to get from last Excavator to next, that would be a different story.

especially pending Tileset, some are less ideal at this very moment for how it works, but almost all comply very well.

Edited by taiiat
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