Moon Spy general feedback

[matto]

Hi there !

So I spent this afternoon playing the new Spy mission on the Moon and I felt like providing a feedback.

So first of all, there's only 3 spy vaults available on the Moon, so the mission will always be the same, only the order of those spy rooms will change.

TL;DR jump directly to the bottom of the thread to read the main points.

I wasn't so interested in the rewards as I already got most of the Acolytes mods from the previous event (only one missing I think). And my first concern is that it is so hard to complete a perfect run, that it will require too much time for this reward. Especially as It seems that you can only get one Acolyte mod per run (RNG basis), but that needs some confirmation. Just to give you an idea, it took me a couple hours to train, and one hour before I could complete both 3 vaults. I am sure more parkour specialized tenno will do it faster, but it is still really hard for the vast majority I presume. I am a controller player, and I have some worries for console tenno as I've always been feeling that controllers were left behind when it comes to parkour. Some people may think of the exact opposite, that a controller makes parkour smoother but anyway...

The one that was the hardest for me is definitely the one Rebecca was playing during the last devstream - The Wall-latch room :

This room is on the past side of the Moon. You actually have to jump from one vertical pad while it's blue-ish, shoot a floating orb from that pad to make the next one appear. You have a few lasers on the way that you must avoid so you don't trigger the alarm. The second part of the parkour is even harder as the pads form a circle with lasers chasing you from its circle. You must slow down (at least twice) the lasers by shooting the button under the laser orb. Then you end up in a room with 4 statues, you must step on the platform in the center, and the statues (one at a time) will come to life and attack you. You must defeat them while (I suppose) staying in the middle of the statues' circle. Then you get to the vault console and get your reward after hacking it.

However, on the middle of the parkour step (before you reach the circle of pads and lasers) you have the possibility to get back to the actual moon by a time collapse portal. Here is what it looks like :

I couldn't find any way to the vault hacking console in the present Moon. Devs said that there would be many ways to complete a spy vault (am I right?) but for me, it just seems that you can do it in the ancient Moon tile.

Another spy room is this one (after you passed the circling triple lasers orb, entered the room behind and pass through the time portal on the lower level) - The lasers room :

This one is actually pretty easy, I completed it on my first try. It's a simple (but more elaborated) kind of parkour room such as you can find in the Void. Just avoid the lasers and jump from one rotating platform to another.

The third one gave me some nightmares - The Simon room :

Parkour is actually pretty easy, with the best part being to go through a moving time portal at the right time so you can spawn after a door. Well, even this is really simple, but this moving portal thing is promising. I can already imagine future and more elaborated parkour where you would have to leap into the void aiming to pass through a portal and land on the other side of the Moon. That would be awesome. Definitely a feature to think about. This portal thingy gives so much possibilities for future parkour rooms !

Anyway, here is the last and horrible part : the musical paltforms.

You can see on the top of the front door that there's a blue button you have to shoot to launch the puzzle. The 6 circles around it will then light up following a pattern your have to reproduce by jumping from one platform to another (the huge vase kind of platform on both sides of my Mag). It sounds easy first, but when you're about to shoot the button on top of the door, just DON'T BLINK, DON'T MOVE the camera at all. I have to say here, DE the circles are showing the musical pattern just too damn fast. It lasts like 2-3 secs, you have to memorize the whole pattern and then start jumping on the platforms. I have a really bad visual memory maybe, but I was failing again and again so I had to actually write down the pattern. And you know, writing it down without looking my paper because it is shown so fast that you can't look elsewhere. And writing things down blindfold sometimes ends up with a really crooked thing lol.

And my advice, step on the platform where my hud is aiming because, as you fail, it won't trigger the alarm (that would be the real nightmare, only having one try lol) but it will make a laser appears below you and running in circle on the floor. And every time you fail, another laser appears, making it harder to jump from one platform to another without touching the floor.

 

So yeah, those are the three vault rooms.

 

Good points :

• The time portal thing is really promising, and I hope it will be even more developed in future Moon tilesets.
• The vault rooms are finally really challenging, far, really far from the boring secret rooms of the Void. If someday the Void gets a rework, that's the type of challenge I think we need for secret rooms. It's fun and challenging. Yeah I insist, challenge in Warframe can't be about the killing due to the OP state of the game, but challenge doesn't have to be just about the killing part. It can take many forms. This is definitely one.
• Lasers, parkour, mob fights, musical game, the diversity of puzzles is nice.
• It's simply beautiful.

Negative points :

• Such a little reward for so much pain. At least I recommend you increase the mission credits, give a T4 key instead of the T2 I got. It requires too much time, even when you're getting used to it.
• Controller players may find it too difficult. But it is doable, just train guys and don't give up.
• I think there should be different ways to complete a puzzle (at least one in the pre-collapse Moon and one in the present Moon). But it might be already the case, maybe I just didn't find the second way. <-- I found them ! Need a few more runs to understand them all.
• The musical game needs a tweak. The pattern is displayed way too fast !!!

 

Don't hesitate to post your own feedback guys !

Edited March 6, 2016 by matto

[matto]

Adding this here :

In one lasers room of the spy vault with the musical puzzle. Shooting the button on the circle center stops the 3 lasers. But that's all. Does it have any other use? Because I don't need to stop those lasers to go through the portal. So, useless?

Edited March 5, 2016 by matto

[Cray]

Barring the one that Rebecca did first during the stream, these new vaults have a difficulty level I'd expect from a raid trial or a sortie, not an ordinary node.

To be honest, I found this mission to be so frustrating, that I just gave up and haven't gone back since.

Edit: I had difficulty with the Simon Says (musical) room as well. Too damn fast...

Edited March 5, 2016 by DeltaPhantom

[matto]

4 minutes ago, DeltaPhantom said:

Barring the one that Rebecca did first during the stream, these new vaults have a difficulty level I'd expect from a raid trial or a sortie, not an ordinary node.

To be honest, I found this mission to be so frustrating, that I just gave up and haven't gone back since.

Edit: I had difficulty with the Simon Says (musical) room as well. Too damn fast...

Well, considering that you must complete the Second Dream quest to unlock the Moon, this is definitely not an ordinary node per se. The Moon will probably gets its own location on the solar system, starchat 3.0,  so it will get out of the more ordinary planet that is Earth. But I understand what you mean, and making it some type of endgame-ish location, (with higher level mobs), would definitely fit with the level of challenge those vaults presents.

[(PSN)Stealth_Cobra]

Love them, but the simon musical box thing is indeed too fast...

I found the platforming walljump segment too tough, but you can switch to present for a less parkour intensive version, so i don't mind.

[(PSN)Dargondarkfire]

4 minutes ago, (PS4)Stealth_Cobra said:

Love them, but the simon musical box thing is indeed too fast...

I found the platforming walljump segment too tough, but you can switch to present for a less parkour intensive version, so i don't mind.

Switch to present?

[Vox_Preliator]

The problem I have with the Wall Latch one is that half the time my camera is mostly obscured by either my Warframe or the wall itself when I try to aim at the button. 

Other than that, I liked them.  Clever puzzles, and I liked the Simon one, though I admit I tend to have a easier time with those than other people.  I haven't failed it yet, what happens?  Does the alarm sound and still require you to solve it?  Or does it just not give you a second chance and force you to take a longer, more complicated route? 

[PikeOrShield]

I loved the rooms!  It reminded me of Zelda puzzles.  I ran into two different music puzzle rooms, one in a vault and one room that awards you with a rarer (don't know how rare) void container.  The one in the vault was super easy since it just went around in a circle, but I had to get a piece of paper for the other one.

I have to say that DE did a really good job with the overall design.  The massive set pieces are beautiful and I loved the asthetic.

[(PSN)Lord_Gremlin]

How much can you skip with loki, nova, nezha, zephyr and other frames that specialise in getting into tricky places?

I personally don't find this kind of gameplay enjoyable at all.

[Cray]

In my experience, of the two vaults that are actually hard, only one has a 'bypass via power' route, but it's for loki and maybe nova, and I expect it'll get patched. The other hard vault can be made a little easier with loki or nova, but not really cheese-level.

[matto]

9 hours ago, Vox_Preliator said:

and I liked the Simon one, though I admit I tend to have a easier time with those than other people.  I haven't failed it yet, what happens?  Does the alarm sound and still require you to solve it?  Or does it just not give you a second chance and force you to take a longer, more complicated route? 

If you fail the SImon puzzle, you'll just get another chance to do it, but one laser will appear spinning on the floor from the center platform. Each time you fail, a new laser appear, making it impossible at some point to get back to the floor. So you have to go from one musical platform to another without touching the floor. Alarm is triggered if you touch a laser.

[BlackCoMerc]

Too hard to be fun. The precision and timing required for each jump is so particular that with a controller, you can simply forget it. No way to get oriented. You're fighting the camera much of the time.

Honestly, these are in my opinion awful experiences. I tried them twice and will never, ever go back to them.

[blasron]

they are hard and somewhat too complicate to understand how to open certain door. + Their reward are not really interesting when you already have all of them

[NeoRetro10K]

These are just frustrating. I have too much pride to look at a Youtube video, but I can't for the life of me figure these out on my own.

 

Once, I opened a door and instantly received a spinning laser to the face, failing the vault. Fun times.

[HalfDarkShadow]

Hmm, interesting feedback! I haven't read any of the replies here yet, but I so far I've been really enjoying them. I've had no issues so far and how open-end-ish puzzle solving is definitely welcomed! I think what I like most about it is how it's designed around taking your time and really assessing everything and not just jumping in and going with your gut (intuition). Though one was a bit straight forward (the one where you hop on the floating squares, shooting the orb), which honestly I would rather have it harder. Though I loved the quick reflexes on the latter half, but I was definitely expecting more thinking. Oh well, next time I suppose lol.

The other two though I really enjoyed more. Especially the one where you're constantly going back and forth between the gates and really needing to plan ahead, see whats up ahead, and plan accordingly. It's not supposed to be something handed to you, nor is it supposed to be linear, and I really appreciate it. Especially since the closest thing we have to it is the second Trials one (And the first to some degree), so it's nice to actually be able to have something like this, without it being in an 8-player setting.

I guess the only other critique I have, is that for those who expects instant gratification like the majority of missions are, where after enough times, you can just run right through it, purposely turning the alarm on so you can just go hack the console and get it over with (which really defeats the purpose of Spy honestly lol), they're definitely not going to find that here, and it's pretty obvious that it was designed around thinking, reflexes, planning ahead every move you do and not mindlessly run into it. Regardless if you've done it so many times, you're still going to have to time your jumps, get rid of any destroy-able lasers/drones, and generally just be aware of what you're doing.

So in that respect, this will definitely leave a few frustrated due to that lack of instant gratification and not having the patience to learn, practice, and come back another time once you start learning the new skills you're going to need. Especially since the quite vocal ones you see from time to time (as an example) trying to farm for something very specific, and just playing dozens of the same mission in one night, just to burn themselves out, get irritated, then the inevitable (though rarely) long rant they post on the forums. So with those few, I'd advise not to get frustrated if you fail more than once, and if you've been playing the same Moon Spy mission consistently in an hour, learn to take a step back, take a break, and come back to it when you're in a better mindset. Since we all know we all start perform much more poorly when we are agitated haha.
(this is especially true when I'm playing BlazBlue for a few hours and it's just one of those nights where I'm consistently loosing matches lol xD)

So in essence (TLDR;)

+ Adore the aesthetics.
+ Love the majority of the puzzles.
+ Actually having an emphasis on using our reflexes more thoroughly, than blindly.
+ Designed around not being able to just trip the alarm and rush in for the sake of rushing in.

- One of the particular vaults was a bit too linear and more simpler than the other two.
- Would have definitely preferred more than the few we got (not necessarily a negative).
- Those who get agitated more easily should be aware it's not as straight forward and requires more thinking than "going with your gut".

Alrighty, time to read some of the replies, since I'm curious if anyone left some informative feedback/suggestions, since I personally don't have experience with level-design lol. Didn't really see any lengthy ones when I was scrolling down to type this out, so hell, I'll follow this thread since I do enjoy these kind of topics xD

Edited March 7, 2016 by HalfDarkShadow

[UltimateGrr]

21 minutes ago, HalfDarkShadow said:

Would have definitely preferred more than the few we got (not necessarily a negative).

Given the sheer size of the rooms, I can't imagine these are at all easy to make.  We're looking at hours of time just to compile the lighting alone,  The fact we have 3 of these monsters is utterly amazing.

[HalfDarkShadow]

Just now, UltimateGrr said:

Given the sheer size of the rooms, I can't imagine these are at all easy to make.  We're looking at hours of time just to compile the lighting alone,  The fact we have 3 of these monsters is utterly amazing.

Oh yes of course! I should have been more specific with that statement. With how much time they really put into this, I doubt they would have any more time to squeeze in regardless lol. This is also coupling in everything else this Update had to offer.

I suppose for me, is like a young kid when you receive something (something tangible and/or temporary for example) in which you really enjoy but you just want more of it, despite what you were given was more than enough to be content with xD

[UltimateGrr]

Just now, HalfDarkShadow said:

Oh yes of course! I should have been more specific with that statement. With how much time they really put into this, I doubt they would have any more time to squeeze in regardless lol. This is also coupling in everything else this Update had to offer.

I suppose for me, is like a young kid when you receive something (something tangible and/or temporary for example) in which you really enjoy but you just want more of it, despite what you were given was more than enough to be content with xD

I can agree with that.  Still, I failed the Simon Says room, mostly because I didn't know it had an optional path.  And let me tell you, there is ALLTHELASERS in the long way around.  Ended up triggering the alarm because a door closed on me, and when it reset me, I was between the door and a laser grid.

[laysonbaal]

The vaults are pretty versatile in the ways you can solve them. If you take the shortest path using all shortcuts, you can solve two of them under 1 minute each and the longest one takes about 2 minutes. Not using any special warframe ability.

Edited March 7, 2016 by laysonbaal

[NeoRetro10K]

33 minutes ago, laysonbaal said:

The vaults are pretty versatile in the ways you can solve them. If you take the shortest path using all shortcuts, you can solve two of them under 1 minute each and the longest one takes about 2 minutes. Not using any special warframe ability.

Under a minute for one of these monsters of mazes? Video or it didn't happen.

[matto]

As I was expected not everyone enjoys those harder spy vaults. Especially controller players, it's a pain for us, but with practice and once you got how it works it's pretty easy actually for two of them. The only one I can't complete everytime is the damn simon says game.

But I've finally found the second way to complete it. And it's damn hard. I haven't figured out yet how to get to the hacking console, there's a freeking parkour with a lot of lasers, a moving button that makes a portal appears. But the final door stayed red as I triggered the alarm and failed. So still working on it. It's a parkour with doors closing if you don't get through them in time.

Edited March 7, 2016 by matto

[RolandDischein]

Just put it right here...

 

 

 

Oh, yes, this one too. It  was a first try

 

Edited March 7, 2016 by RolandDischein

[RX-3DR]

Playing Simon Says isn't exactly Dance Dance Revolution here. Make use of the chatbox or something if you need to. It's just 2 vertical columns so you could just use the left and right column of the number pad and type out the numbers in the sequence they come out in. If you don't like your combination, you can just shoot the button again to get a new combination. Failing the Simon Says just activates a laser from the middle that will move sweep around the room extremely slowly. You can fail it a lot of times and it'll just keep adding 1 more laser that moves so slow, that if you got hit by it, it would be entirely your fault. The laser will just slowly circle the room with a downwards slanted angle that it will never hit the edges of the room and will just get blocked by the pillars the button are sitting on too. I've gotten up to 5 lasers and it still doesn't trigger an alarm.

To be exact though, 2 of them can be done in under a minute, the last one with the Simon Says can be done under 2.

 

If you go immediately towards the 2nd segment right after you finish the first, you can complete the loop without waiting for the lasers to make a full circle saving about 4 seconds. Also, a good weapon can immediately kill off the Eximus the moment they spawn. Estimating, you could finish this is right under a minute.

For the first part, you can make a dash up the stairs and into the portal if you're fast enough after the door opens. The lasers will usually cross the area right as you reach the stairs. During the second part, if you don't get caught in the rubble and begin climbing upwards while forward after the 3rd platform, you can cut it down to under a minute. Helps if you have a frame with mobility skills like Zephyr to make climbing up even faster.

I am taking quite a bit of time for this because it's meant to be presentable and understandable so if you were really rushing them, you will only take 1:20 on average for each room for a combined time of under 4 minutes spent inside Spy rooms.

 

I should probably mention some feedback as well.

Personally, I enjoy them a lot more since there's more involved. The problem I had with a lot about the old Spy rooms was that you could easily Bullet Jump through to bypass almost everything and punch through can be used to cheat a lot of rooms by killing enemies through windows. The only problem I would say is that they're not dynamic at all in that the same doors are always open and a single solution/route can be used repeatedly. In the Grineer/Corpus ones, certain rooms will have the doors locked, vents blocked with indestructible grates and lasers/sensors in different locations each time which then makes you re-evaluate your go-to route in favor for one that has less risk/faster. Only half of the rooms only had this though, but at least it was something that changed each round.

With the current rooms available, blocking off doorways is probably not a great idea. The lasers however, can easily be changed around to make people think twice about running the exact same route. Swapping out the lasers to make it random rather than 1 route being easier than the other all the time would at least give people incentive to learn all the different options available. I'd love to run through more of the areas with timed doors but the alternate route will almost always provide significantly less risk and would be just as fast. Normally, I enjoy a good challenge, especially with the parkour mechanics, but really, I cannot mentally justify running through those when there's a sure-fire shortcut constantly available.

Edited March 7, 2016 by Flandyrll

[UnderFiend]

@RolandDeschain and @Flandyrll thanks for the videos but I wonder if the last patch changed any of your methods.

I know there were a couple of "cheats" for the vaults (I haven't checked your videos) but one of you mentioned rushing the door. I wonder if things like that were unintentional. I solved one vault last night because I went in to the void rift after another player which triggered the door on the other side to open, allowing me to basically skip the laser wall and sentry puzzle and go directly to the vault room. I'm guessing that was fixed, but like many of the players in the thread, I'm not exactly excited to go back there yet.

I agree, I like the new puzzles but the level of effort for all of them is a bit much. I think the experience could be improved immensely if there was some direction. I learned yesterday that I failed a vault mere feet away from the console because I just didn't know where to go after tripping one of the final lasers, which I didn't see coming. I get they want us to be observant, but as mentioned, those music puzzles are way too fast. If they were slower or at least repeated twice, I think I'd enjoy them a lot more. 

I'll eventually go back but as they make changes, I hope they improve "hints" on what to possibly do next and slow down or double up on the tonal pattern.

[laysonbaal]

On 07/03/2016 at 1:36 AM, NeoRetro10K said:

Under a minute for one of these monsters of mazes? Video or it didn't happen.

All three in 3 minutes:

 

 

Edited March 8, 2016 by laysonbaal