Rathuum feedback by D20 : a chore.

[LascarCapable]

I was pretty exited about the event when it was announced, though I didn't really understood it without playing it. A mission looking like a PvP arena ? Well, the idea isn't bad by itself. Fighting those guys in the area was pretty fun... But only for a short time sadly.

As you move up in the event, the difficulty scaling just means that you'll suffer more and more unjustified one-shot death. The worst offenders are probably Harkonar (the sniper) and that one guy with the Drakgoon. Getting one shotted from across the map without being able to do anything or any way to notify the risk of being one-shotted is just not fun at all. It does not mean that finishing the stage three of the event is impossible of course, as most of them will remain somewhat fair to beat up : that guy with the Twin Basolk was actually somewhat smartly designed and fun to fight against despite the fact that he also was probably the easiest executor to fight. However it didn't prevent the event to sound more like a chore than anything else once you got to that stage 3.

After beating up that stage three, I went proudly into Kela De Thaym's court in order to beat her up and claim those new fancy mods. She wasn't especially hard to beat but kinda annoying. Those rollers where just everywhere to prevent me from aiming at those green targets. A thing that could really drive me nuts due to the Roller's extremly fast spawn rate, making the fight really frustrating if you didn't brought Vauban. I think you all know the Grineer Rollers here : if they hit you, they stagger you. And this is why it was so frustrating : it was like fighting against wasps to defend your picnic ! You can't get anything done because those Rollers just stagger you every half a second and spawn as soon as they are down. While those Rollers won't kill you in a single hit, this remains utterly frustrating.

The the worst thing by far however was to discover that once Kela beaten, in order to grasp some more loot from her, I had to do the stage 3 of the event five more time in order to grab the right to enter into Kela's lair one more time. It's actually not a new strategy if you consider operations, and to be fair I've seen worse in Warframe when it's about grinding (The grind to get Mesa for exemple). But unlike the operations, arena fights are more time consuming and not such a fun task to do. Some of you might find operations boring, but arenas can be utterly frustrating, and once you actually finished a couple of them boredom is pretty quick to come back too. Indeed, at stage 3, people will just stop to fight fair. The goal is now to find the cheapest way to win and end the fight as fast as possible. Your skill doesn't matter : what matters is to cheese everything, event if it means exploiting bugs. Those issues are also two of the core issues warframe suffer : enemies with frustrating mechanics and cheesy abilities.

That event had its perks : it was pretty refreshing at first. There's a lot of good ideas and the basic idea was pretty innovative. Rathuum is truly an even that tries to be different from other events, and the mod rewards looks fun too. But sadly the frustrating mechanics of some enemies and the grind just does not make it as fun as it should be. While DE won't be able to make every single enemy in the event much more fair in a very quick way (redesigning an enemy takes times), it's at least possible to soften the grind. Allowing enemies from the arenas at stage 3 to drop their respective mods with a decent percentage (let's say something like 10 - 7.5%) is the best idea I can imagine, so Kela isn't the only way to get your loot.

About the enemies :

• The sniper one should have a laser pointer so you know when she's aiming at you, allowing you to try to find cover and avoid a one shot death. It wouldn't be a bad idea to apply that change to Ballistas as well.
• The Drakgoon wielding one should probably suffer falloff. I can understand that he one shots me at point blank, but being shredded from non charged shots at longer ranges is kinda frustrating. Also, if he charges the shot, make a somewhat loud sound play so you know that something is coming right in your face.
• The Tank one has the same issue Bombards have IMO : those rockets can track your movement way too easly. At least he doesn't seem to have the same insane splash damage, but the fact that he can proc you ice (which will likely mean instant death) makes him way more frustrating. Tuning down the tracking down for him and bombards alike so the rocket can't so such an easy 180 degree turn would be cool.

Also, a fine way to make the event more fun in my opinion would have been to make sure that enemies spawned change after every death. As it is now, in solo at least, you'll always encounter the same two guys from the start to the end. It's a part of why dealing with the event can be boring. Switching executionners everytime one dies would have been a good idea IMO. Oh and about that Kela fight : put a spawn timer on those Rollers of course. They're not one shotting you but they spawn way too quickly and they interfere way too much with your target shooting phases.

If I find aything else about the event, I might edit that first post.

I'll now let you guys discuss about it. Remember though : don't dev bash, and be civil. We don't want to see that thread ending up in a trainwreck.

[BlackCoMerc]

Good points and I agree: the mode isn't bad, per SE. I think it will get old fast, but it's not bad.

But the cheap, one shot deaths; the bullet sponges; invulnerable phases on non bosses; teleporting, invisible enemies, and those drones.

All that utterly ruins it.

[pikaseechu]

It would be fantastic if they also made it clear this was PvP gameplay. I walked in with a 2 forma'd Inaros equipped with QT, Rage, max Vitality, Steel Fiber, and Equilibrium. Still got one-shot. My EV Trin is made of paper and she managed to survive 3 rockets, one Reck ball, and two executioners until a Carabus decided to take her out.

Either they need to make it clear that certain gimmicks wont work or make it so all frames can e used. As of now the only way to play is with Valkyr Ash, and an EV Trin. That is not promoting variety as they often try to do, this is restricting gameplay during some of the most fun times - events.

EDIT: I part of me wants to think it's Steve trolling us for complaining so much on grinds that he made this event insane. If so, I applaud the man.

Edited April 30, 2016 by pikaseechu

[LascarCapable]

4 minutes ago, BlackCoMerc said:

Good points and I agree: the mode isn't bad, per SE. I think it will get old fast, but it's not bad.

But the cheap, one shot deaths; the bullet sponges; invulnerable phases on non bosses; teleporting, invisible enemies, and those drones.

All that utterly ruins it.

To be fair, I didn't found the drones (assuming you are talking about Deth Carabus here) and the teleporting guy that much of an issue. The Drones had a limited range and the teleportation effect was predictable and flashy enough to be countered (the guy will always teleport right behind you). About killing the drones, I was using Strun Wraith against them and didn't had that much issues to hit them, but it's probably because I was using a shotgun.

The sniper one was much more an issue when it comes about cheap one shot death though. The Drakgoon one a bit less because he's not using an hitscan weapon, but still frustrating.

[Kotsender_Quasimir]

5 minutes ago, D20 said:

The sniper one should have a laser pointer so you know when she's aiming at you, allowing you to try to find cover and avoid a one shot death. It wouldn't be a bad idea to apply that change to Ballistas as well.

Yeah, i suggested the same for ALL sniper units only recently. Being one shot from across the map without any warning is not difficulty, just bs. Just a little window to react with a sideroll or similar parcour would be nice and make for active gameplay.

[ariivanasan]

give us normal energy cap on start! or remove judgement points required for boss

its all feedback from me

Edited April 30, 2016 by ariivanasan

[Burnthesteak87]

It's an awesome event, really nice ideas but poor execution on some enemies.
Oneshots are cheap and would need more telegraphing.
Enemies would need another pass of conceptualizing and refinement.
The Challenge and Difficulty ratio still isn't there, since the difficulty relies always on enemy damage and resilience.
I really appreciated enemies running around, dodging and being overall more faster than normal.

 

Kela De Thaim has a wonderful bossfight, one of the best boss in game atm.
Maybe let's reduce the "ticket cost" from 50 to 20. Not a revolutionary change but a step in the direction of "#tokens and rewards".

 

[Stormdragon]

I agree with most of the pointson OP, I'd like to add that Kela requiring 100 points to be fought and removing 50 points in each fight is awful. Add this to random mod rewards dropping only from her (not a set of mods like it used to be on old events even with all the negative feedback from shadow debt using a similar reward system) plus the fact that endless runs don't reward a single point to fight her again, which, imo, should be based on executioners killed to avoid exploiting it and encourage not leaving right after death (currently many hosts are doing it, ending in migration after migration and getting easily killed for not taking control on the frame right after loading but getting damaged during that period of time) and we have an awful chore.

2 hours ago, D20 said:

To be fair, I didn't found the drones (assuming you are talking about Deth Carabus here) and the teleporting guy that much of an issue. The Drones had a limited range and the teleportation effect was predictable and flashy enough to be countered (the guy will always teleport right behind you). About killing the drones, I was using Strun Wraith against them and didn't had that much issues to hit them, but it's probably because I was using a shotgun.

The sniper one was much more an issue when it comes about cheap one shot death though. The Drakgoon one a bit less because he's not using an hitscan weapon, but still frustrating.

I guess the issue with deth carabus is that there's no clue of one roaming around close (except for enemy radar mods, which almost nobody uses) and how easy they can stack on some places, which given to their high damage output can fully shred a warframe in less than 2 seconds.

[Otakuwolf]

Imo they should redo the Khela boss fight from scratch as the way it is right now i wouldn't even call it a "boss fight", is rather like trying to hit a bullseye on a spinning record from 10 meters while a douchebag keeps bapping on your hands every second.

That's not fun, that's a patience torture.

[OniDax]

2 hours ago, pikaseechu said:

It would be fantastic if they also made it clear this was PvP gameplay. I walked in with a 2 forma'd Inaros equipped with QT, Rage, max Vitality, Steel Fiber, and Equilibrium. Still got one-shot. My EV Trin is made of paper and she managed to survive 3 rockets, one Reck ball, and two executioners until a Carabus decided to take her out.

Either they need to make it clear that certain gimmicks wont work or make it so all frames can e used. As of now the only way to play is with Valkyr Ash, and an EV Trin. That is not promoting variety as they often try to do, this is restricting gameplay during some of the most fun times - events.

EDIT: I part of me wants to think it's Steve trolling us for complaining so much on grinds that he made this event insane. If so, I applaud the man.

This. I wish they hadn't trumped this up as a fresh new game mode, when it's clearly borrowed from Conclave. It's Team Annihilation. But against NPCs. And it plays like Team Annihilation as well. And the "cheap, one shot deaths" that BlackCoMerc mentioned are pretty much my experience in Conclave. I just wish they'd been upfront about that. I just don't enjoy that kind of gameplay, and I wish they hadn't masked this event as anything other than that. Not only that, but if this is what future Syndicate events/quests are gonna be like (e.g. PvP-lite) then I'm not interested.

[Drufo]

I agree with everything you said (in particular the laser pointer idea, which I was about to suggest). The event has potential, but is a concentration of the major flaws of the game.

I'd like to point out how useless is the endless mission... why not make it start from level 20, with scaling enemies as default modifier (and maybe another one), allowing to gain Judgement Points or having enemies drop their respective mods? After beating the boss, I saw that new mission and I thought "why I should do it?"

[Taranis49]

As said, good odds a lot of people (myself included) run cheesy builds through that tier 3 match precisely to cut down on time because it does get tedious. You have to run the mission five times for each run at Kela, so a bare minimum of nearly 50 times to get all of the mods from the event... and that's assuming the mods have equal drop chances and that she drops no duplicates on each run.

 

And like the OP, I'm not a fan of the reworked boss fight either, 90% of the "fight" involves being annoyed by rollers that block shots against green lights, even if you're not dealing with incessant stagger by running a frame like Uncle Vau or Rhino.

Edited May 2, 2016 by [DE]Danielle
Removed quote

[o.0-]

The main think that stuck with me is wanting one of those Death Ray Sentinels, but I do understand how two of the three enemy examples can be extremely frustrating to deal with.

And I'm wondering was Nok the most consistent in getting kills on us? That Executioner was getting at least one kill a match from my small sample size so far with the event.

[carnaga]

I did the stage 3 mission with health reduction modifier and I ran it in Solo. The health reduction takes away 100 health per tick. And I was with slow nova who needs 100 energy to spam the mp. For enemies I had Harkonar (sniper) and Reth (magnetic proc traps and rollers). The whole thing was time consuming. I know people speedrun these with cheesy builds and full squad under 5 minutes. But I've been soloing them.

That sniper lady -- Executioner Harkonar is pretty annoying while she hides herself with invisibility cloud. With your health going down with 100 per tick it's like hide and seek gameplay where you fight against time. On the arena you have three spots that spawn energy (50 each) and two spots for health (150 each). They do not spawn constantly (And I'm petty new with Arena maps).

Executioner Reth deploys these Reth Rollers and Traps witch deal magnetic proc. Usually he puts these traps on the choke points of the tileset (behind a door/corner) and their range is pretty high. When you go further with the mission you get plenty of these traps on every here and there.  You pretty much hear them but can't locate exact spot until it's too late because of the tileset design and dead angles and stuff obstructing the line of sight.

It was tactical balancing with looting health and energy orbs, trying to avoid and shooting the magnetic proc mines, trying to dodge sniper shots and trying to replenish the health via kills. The whole thing would be pretty easy if the mines would replenish your health. Thought the spawn rate for enemies is pretty low for the health drain and I had several occasions I just couldn't find the two enemies neither rollers even the map was pretty small. Sometimes I just wished I had more enemies there than these two.

I had sancti tigris with 27k corrosive and 9k slash damage. Enemies were pretty easy to kill once you found them. I died 11 times (got oneshotted with low health due the health drain) before I managed to kill them 25 times and complete the mission. Maybe it would have been easier with another frame and build.

What I think is that I don't want too predictable sniper enemies. You pretty much have to be careful with the laser sight that the mechanics wouldn't turn to "Sniper Skulls in Metal Gear Solid Phantom Pain" -- when you run the mission with highest difficulty (extreme). On the other hand these enemies we encounter in Warframe Arena will become available later in normal nodes (horde gameplay) and considering this I would definitely support the idea of clear visible laser sight that reveals their position. But when fighting 1 vs 2 she can be bit more difficult -- an indicator would be nice to have when Executioner Harkonar is about to shoot, but not that obvious that it would reveal her position.

Spoiler

This is what I don't want that Harkonar would turn out: Me running MGSVPP in daylight and predicting the sniper skulls in Extreme Code Talker - without a tank vehicle or any other cheesy stuff like smoke grenades and running the mission in night.
https://youtu.be/zvootd-fbvY

Edited April 30, 2016 by carnaga

[tocorro]

Good points D20.

Also I understand the grind in the event. But when it ends, the required number of visits in arena should be like 2 (5 is way too much).

[EinheriarJudith]

this is where there is a problem. if you cant run the event with any frame choice its broken. this event acts much like some of the previous events showing a glaring problem with needing invincibility wether it be ash or wukong or valkyr take any caster and the deth drones one shot you take any frame with low armor and the deth drones or the sniper or drakgoon guy one shots you. its high armor/invicibility or die alot. that is not a choice. oh and please try not to validate bullet sponges they are a terrible way to define challenge in all video games.

Edited May 2, 2016 by [DE]Danielle
Removed quote

[EinheriarJudith]

1 hour ago, tocorro said:

Good points D20.

Also I understand the grind in the event. But when it ends, the required number of visits in arena should be like 2 (5 is way too much).

the best thing that can be said about grind is if it is going to be there atleast make it fun. the grind in this case is imho not fun at all.

[Zoracraft]

The event would be fun, if they fixed the stupid instagibs. Until then, it's just a worse version of conclave.

[BlackCoMerc]

23 minutes ago, DeadlyPeanutt said:

if you don't like certain weapons and frames, run your own squad and don't play with them.

if other players like certain weapons/frames, respect that.

Except we can't. Once again, enemies hit so hard and soak up so much, that Cheesing with certain frames is a virtual requirement.

Welcome to Warframe end game, where every enemy is a one shot death bullet sponge and Lore and story are contradicted daily.

[ysmer]

signed you are right bro

[DeadlyPeanutt]

4 minutes ago, BlackCoMerc said:

Except we can't. Once again, enemies hit so hard and soak up so much, that Cheesing with certain frames is a virtual requirement.

Welcome to Warframe end game, where every enemy is a one shot death bullet sponge and Lore and story are contradicted daily.

lol, points taken 

[Zoracraft]

2 hours ago, AntoineFlemming said:

This. I wish they hadn't trumped this up as a fresh new game mode, when it's clearly borrowed from Conclave. It's Team Annihilation. But against NPCs. And it plays like Team Annihilation as well. And the "cheap, one shot deaths" that BlackCoMerc mentioned are pretty much my experience in Conclave. I just wish they'd been upfront about that. I just don't enjoy that kind of gameplay, and I wish they hadn't masked this event as anything other than that. Not only that, but if this is what future Syndicate events/quests are gonna be like (e.g. PvP-lite) then I'm not interested.

The "I wish they had been upfront" part is what bothers me. They hyped this event up so much, and in the end it's basically pvp trash. There is so little difference that the f-ing conclave symbol is on the end of mission screen. This event was dishonest and, quite frankly, disheartening.

[BlackCoMerc]

On 4/30/2016 at 3:13 PM, Zoracraft said:

The "I wish they had been upfront" part is what bothers me. They hyped this event up so much, and in the end it's basically pvp trash. There is so little difference that the f-ing conclave symbol is on the end of mission screen. This event was dishonest and, quite frankly, disheartening.

Agreed.

I was thinking it was another mission facing off against the Nightwatch Grineer. I loved those dudes; they hit hard, but we're not bullet sponges themselves. Made for a nice Event.

Then we get...this event instead.

Edited May 2, 2016 by [DE]Danielle
Removed bashing

[matto]

Thank you for your feedback, really appreciate it.

Here is my reaction every time I enter this event :

And I swear this is the first time ever in my Warframe history that I feel this way.

I am baffled, truly, and disconcerted by some choices.

I am one of those guys who were asking for more challenge forms, thus approved the recent Moon puzzles, the Razorback and Acolytes fight.

But while the concept this time is good, the ways it takes are not.

First real pain is the matchmaking. I spend more time trying to find a team than playing the game.

Then the hosting problem. Fighting the endless stage solo makes the Grineers' champions spawn two by two. I gave up after defeating 35 as it took too long. So the best way is to have a squad of 4. More champions to fight. But who the hell had this idea of "one life only"? All the host migrations, people leaving when they die, it's impossible. Most of the time I die after an host migration. And I understand people. Most of them die fast, so they have to watch me playing solo in a spectator view. So much fun.

My build is Ash with Rage + Quick Thinking. So everytime I let them injure myself on purpose for energy, I take a big risk. And once my energy is full BAM host migration, you get back to the arena with 0 energy and champions having one step ahead so they can one shoot you before you even realize you're back in.

Once again, frame diversity is ignored. Sure you can do good with the frame you like with a lot of skills and the right mods/focus abilities. But once again it's a big win for Valkyr or Ash. So matchmaking = most people leaving when they see a squad mate with something else. One reason why matchmaking takes ages.

Like grinding for mods wasn't taking long enough, they split the leaderboard (clan oriented competition) and the individual stage (getting mods from Kela). Clans are left behind. People complete the endless run to get the reactor (sometimes they don't even care) and grind Kela like hell, thus ignoring the leaderboard phase. You can't get standing points with the endless runs and that's preposterous. Instead of introducing a cap in obtaining the standing (10 by 10 in stage 3) they should have based it on kills so the endless run have a purpose too. For example : if in endless run team manage to have 10 kills you get 10 standing points or something.

This boring fight in stage 3 makes people leech. I even had to fight solo in a squad of 4 once. I understand, grind is dirty better play dirty. Having to repeat stage3 five times to fight Kela is absurd. But according to Rebecca's notes it will change soon enough.

Note to myself and people : wait a couple of days before entering an event. It's always the same -> grind is hell, community gets mad, hotfix eases it next day or day after.

The Kela fight is boring. I understand the puzzle thing to enter the stage (but well if you don't have invicibility like Iron Skin or invisibility you're screwed with those rollers, another great forced choice of frame). I don't understand it for the orbital strike. I mean, c'mon it's nice to add those things but at least give it some sense. A puzzle to enter a room is like a secret password so it's fine. But a puzzle that is designed for your foes so they can prevent you from killing them is stupid. Also Kela is, in herself, harmless and ridiculous. Mobility is great though but she is just jumping from one wall to the center platform to another wall. I don't even remember getting injured by her.

(EDIT : should I even mention the lack of instructions? Most people don't understand what to do. I swear in 10 or 20 years, when people will make retro gaming videos about MMO games, they'll talk about Warframe as we talk about Dragon's Lair. JK but close).

Anyway, I don't even know what to say. Seriously, just look at my gif and you'll understand how I feel. And I hate seeing so much waste.

I was thinking about making my own thread, I don't even feel like doing it. I am so disappointed that I need a break. I'll play the game, but providing feedback at this point feels like a waste of time. Sorry guys, but I just don't understand what you had in mind this time. Again, base concept is great, but everything goes wrong. Peace.

Edited April 30, 2016 by matto

[DeadlyPeanutt]

i've just played the first two stages of the event, so this is not a complete view of the event.  also, i should note that i had NO interest in the thin rewards, the bad weapon or the very rare mod drop weightings, so this review is just based on the game play, NOT on rewards or the lack of them.  Also, i have not interest in massive grinds, so I'm ignoring the grind in this event.  I'm in the event as long as it's FUN for me. 

Game Play:

I thought the game play was quite fun.  A small arena shooter type map with a tongue in cheek attitude from the announcer (which was cute), somewhat like unreal tournament.  These are good sized maps and reasonable bot difficulty. 

I jumped into pub teams with my standard rhino p build, V Hek and sonicor (with galantine).  I had no problems with energy, although i was just keeping iron skin up, so i didn't use much energy.  I found the energy powerups and kept slipping by them now and then.  My teams had no difficulty with the first 2 stages.  It was fun and somewhat challenging. i died a few times, but not many.   I should also point out that this event was VERY different than the usual 'Mob Shooter' mode of WF PvE.  A few powerful bots instead of a HUGE mob of bots was welcome. 

This event was VERY different from my experiences with WF PvP, during which i was cannon fodder for the vastly more experienced players who were using me for XP points.  PvP in WF was NOT fun.  This event was. 

i think this game mode could help give depth to the game and a long term appeal, IF players have a choice of bots/bot level or PvP. I would recommend that this game mode be available after the event is over, giving players the choice of bots/bot level or PvP.   adding area maps over time would be a natural progression.  Player made maps and match constraints would add to the fun (powers, starting energy, weapon/frame restrictions, bot/level respawn, etc).

IMHO, PvP is THE long term game mode of WF.  It's too bad that so few players use it, and the matchmaking system sucks so badly.   Adding a choice to all PvP maps for players to play bots/bot levels would be very welcome. 

As far as this event, I know there is a lot of discussion about the types of frames/weapons that are necessary to complete the maps, the grind, the rewards, etc.  But when all that is over, what's left is the game play, and that was very fun (in the first two stages, at any rate). 

Edited April 30, 2016 by DeadlyPeanutt