Missions 2.0: An Attempt To Have Missions Make Actual Sense

[tedbearr]

I think that mobile defence should be like hijack. When I first started the game and saw a mobile defence mission, I was so excited, thinking that it was like payload from overwatch. But guess what? It's boring af.

Then as I progressed through the game there was a hijack on Ceres, and I'm like "what is this?" Then when I played it I was left speechless.

Hijack should be used way more often, as it is more fun!

[Valthryn]

4 hours ago, lihimsidhe said:

Umm wow... I didn't think anyone cared about this thread outside of the initial posters so imagine my surprise to see a few people continuing the Mission 2.0 discussion!  Now onto the responses.

I hear you loud and clear.  To that point I can't stand Kayla De Thuum's boss experience because we have to do something so utterly arbitrary to get her to come out by shooting those spinning discs while dealing with rollerballs.  So utterly unfun and pointless.  

Under the current model a player can expect to grind a boss about x times before they get the y drops they need.  To get y from x takes about z time.

How would you feel about y and z being about the same but the only difference is x?  As in the player will be spending less time doing x because each boss run is not only more challenging but more rewarding.  Less time will be spent forming parties and recruiting multiple grinds.

In Missions 1.0 let's say the average player grinds a boss 10 times to get all the parts they want.  It takes about 20 minutes to get that done.  They get 10 warframe bp's, and 10 chances at a rare drop.  A lot of this time is spent on the Liset in recruit chat, waiting for people to do last minute arsenal changes... the list goes on and on.

In Misssions 2.0 I'm seeing the boss encounters taking about 10 - 15 minutes per run.  However, defeating the boss gives every player 10 rng'ed warframe bp drops and 10 chances to get a rare drop in one go.

For the players that want to do one quick boss run and get the last part they need if rng is good to them, yes this process would take longer than Missions 1.0.  Also for the players who don't want the bosses to be an actual challenge this doesn't sound good.  To mostly everyone else though?  I feel not only would this give Assassinations more sense to them but less time would be spent overall in the Liset trying to form/keep a party together.  And bosses might actually feel like bosses instead of a random mob with a custom skin and high hp.

Thoughts?

I like the idea of boss battles being more rewarding for more time and difficulty, as currently they just feel like a waste of time and pretty much the only boss I actually do is Alad V on Themisto, Jupiter for Neural Sensors. And I take him and Zanuka out in about 5 seconds while channeling with exalted blade. I would like to see more chances at rare resource drops in the mission if this does get implemented, however, or at least a higher chance for the boss to drop them. The only problem I can see with this is that DE generally designs pretty cheap bosses that are essentially just bullet sponges with high damage and maybe some invul periods. Dragging a fight like that out would just be annoying, although I can think of a few ways to get around that, the first being take the Vindictus route and design oversized bosses with large hitboxes, high damage, and a Comba-esque nullifier effect that cancels and prevents further activation of defensive abilities, so a large part of the mission becomes parkouring around hitboxes to avoid dying. That'd be fun imho.

Edited August 8, 2016 by Daggerpaw1

[oOSinox]

2 hours ago, Daggerpaw1 said:

 take the Vindictus route and design oversized bosses with large hitboxes, high damage, and a Comba-esque nullifier effect that cancels and prevents further activation of defensive abilities, so a large part of the mission becomes parkouring around hitboxes to avoid dying. That'd be fun imho.

The first problem I see with making "oversized" bosses is level design. Most of the current maps in warframe just aren't fit to house gigantic Mecha bosses like in Vindictus. However, going back to what Endless said about boss chambers, it would make perfect sense for bosses to utilize some sort of trap or mechanism built into their ship for the Tenno especially if they are high priority targets like Vor or Sargas Ruk. Each boss should have their own unique defensive mechanism in place for when they get ganked by Tenno. Alad V with Zanuka is the first step in the right direction.

Edited August 8, 2016 by oOSinox

[lihimsidhe]

4 hours ago, Taedber said:

I think that mobile defence should be like hijack. When I first started the game and saw a mobile defence mission, I was so excited, thinking that it was like payload from overwatch. But guess what? It's boring af.

Then as I progressed through the game there was a hijack on Ceres, and I'm like "what is this?" Then when I played it I was left speechless.

Hijack should be used way more often, as it is more fun!

Agreed.  Based on a suggestion by another poster, mobile defense has been absorbed into defense.  

[lihimsidhe]

1 hour ago, Daggerpaw1 said:

I like the idea of boss battles being more rewarding for more time and difficulty, as currently they just feel like a waste of time and pretty much the only boss I actually do is Alad V on Themisto, Jupiter for Neural Sensors. And I take him and Zanuka out in about 5 seconds while channeling with exalted blade. I would like to see more chances at rare resource drops in the mission if this does get implemented, however, or at least a higher chance for the boss to drop them. The only problem I can see with this is that DE generally designs pretty cheap bosses that are essentially just bullet sponges with high damage and maybe some invul periods. Dragging a fight like that out would just be annoying, although I can think of a few ways to get around that, the first being take the Vindictus route and design oversized bosses with large hitboxes, high damage, and a Comba-esque nullifier effect that cancels and prevents further activation of defensive abilities, so a large part of the mission becomes parkouring around hitboxes to avoid dying. That'd be fun imho.

I've updated the OP to reflect what you, Endless_Destruction and a user on /r/warframe suggested.  Tell me what you think!

[oOSinox]

19 minutes ago, lihimsidhe said:

I've updated the OP to reflect what you, Endless_Destruction and a user on /r/warframe suggested.  Tell me what you think!

It would be convenient of you to post a link to your subreddit in the OP. Thanks. :)

[lihimsidhe]

14 minutes ago, oOSinox said:

It would be convenient of you to post a link to your subreddit in the OP. Thanks. :)

The link to the subreddit is actually the very first line in the OP.  The very first line of the subreddit also links here.  :)

[Endless_Destruction]

On 8/2/2016 at 2:45 PM, Daggerpaw1 said:

 

All of these ideas would be great for a single-player game with linear progression like Dark Souls, but when it comes to MMO's, grinding is always a factor. Having bosses that are intensely powerful and take more than 5 minutes to down when you're geared will just make the grind situation a tedious chore, given that the only real reason to fight bosses in WF is for rare resources and/or blueprints, they don't drop anything special other than a cosmetic sigil, which isn't useful, and it only drops the first time you kill them. The main reason I don't play Vindictus much at all anymore is because all the missions take too long to be rewarded with nothing, and I feel like adding more complex mechanics to boss battles would just turn WF boss battle nodes into the same thing.

I completely agree with what you are saying, but there is an easy solution: make the reward worth it. First, the satisfaction alone should be important. I've played Dark Souls once, and the feeling of killing a boss is euphoric. The reward is also sizeable; nothing you couldn't gain elsewhere for the most part, but large enough to balance out the difficulty, and make the fight feel worth it. As it is in Warframe, bosses pretty much feel like any other enemy, just with two or three extra mechanics, which are more annoying than sensible and engaging. The fight is unfulfilling. A perfect example is Lt. Lech Kril on Mars-the extra mechanic of invulnerability except for the orange backpack is annoying, and doesn't make much sense. "My head is exposed, and yet you do absolutely no damage with that grenade launcher! Whoopee! Also, here's a weak spot in my armor that is conveniently glowing." Instead, I am proposing boss mechanics that make sense, are more engaging than annoying, making it feel like we are fighting an intelligent enemy who puts up a real, fun, challenge instead of cheesy, dull bosses for whom the challenge only lasts the first time around. The result will be a more immersive instance, and with a reward modification, a more satisfactory one.

Also, I'm not suggesting artificially lengthening the fight, that would be truly idiotic in a fast-paced game, just having the assassination target act as if it were an assassination target with abilities and tactics that make sense for one in his/her/its position.

3 hours ago, Daggerpaw1 said:

I like the idea of boss battles being more rewarding for more time and difficulty, as currently they just feel like a waste of time 

-snip-

The only problem I can see with this is that DE generally designs pretty cheap bosses that are essentially just bullet sponges with high damage and maybe some invul periods. Dragging a fight like that out would just be annoying, although I can think of a few ways to get around that, the first being take the Vindictus route and design oversized bosses with large hitboxes, high damage, and a Comba-esque nullifier effect that cancels and prevents further activation of defensive abilities, so a large part of the mission becomes parkouring around hitboxes to avoid dying. That'd be fun imho.

The other way I would suggest is to use fast, mobile targets with high damage, unique abilities and weapons fit to take on Tenno operatives, without obvious weaknesses. The target should move unpredictably and constantly, using an algorithm that is responsive to team composition and positioning, and difficult to hit. The enemy should act like it doesn't want to die/takes the threat seriously.

1 hour ago, oOSinox said:

The first problem I see with making "oversized" bosses is level design. Most of the current maps in warframe just aren't fit to house gigantic Mecha bosses like in Vindictus. However, going back to what Endless said about boss chambers, it would make perfect sense for bosses to utilize some sort of trap or mechanism built into their ship for the Tenno especially if they are high priority targets like Vor or Sargas Ruk. Each boss should have their own unique defensive mechanism in place for when they get ganked by Tenno. Alad V with Zanuka is the first step in the right direction.

Agree with this as is, but then I suggest DE to just give us more assassination targets, with maps better suited to house such bosses :)

On 8/1/2016 at 11:02 AM, lihimsidhe said:

~ Modify Boss Drops. Since targets will take longer to locate and defeat (about 10 - 15 minutes), a boss should drop an equivalent to 5 boss runs under Missions 1.0 (so 5 WF BP drops, 1 - 10 rare planet resources, 0 - 5 rare boss drops, etc).

 

I like the idea of changing boss drops, but not quite what you suggested. It would result in an inflation of warframe parts. The obvious solution is to add more parts, but then that would make prime warframe part farming much more tedious. Instead, the boss should have a wide assortment of exotic, powerful weapons, pets, or other chemical/robotic/biological minions, whose parts and blueprints should drop from the boss. I'd really like to have my own watered-down version of Zanuka, for instance. Another thing: bosses under Missions 2.0 should reliably drop a large amount of credits, enough to make the fight feel worth it, as well as exhilarating on its own. The amount of planet resources they should drop as you suggest is fine.

6 hours ago, lihimsidhe said:

You are aware that camping exists now, correct?  In the most successful survival runs I've done we have went a full 60 minutes without activating a life support tower whatsoever.  So your afk/macro argument is still possible within the current system.  Also every long haul survival I've done involves camping.  The Hallway Heroes reach their limit at about 20 - 30 minutes and it's at that point where camping seems like a practical, viable, successful alternative.  And it is 9/10.

Whether a player camps, aggros, or sets up macros is their choice.  I don't have the statistics handy to back up claims on the percentage of players who use macros or how camping is ruining Warframe.  What I do know is that selective atmosphere and the Lotus teleporting in towers that offer 30 seconds of air makes absolutely no damn sense at all.  Not even one bit.  So even if you are an anti-camper that is worried about macro players, what is a sensible and logical suggestion to the ridiculous oxygen system?

 

I have a different idea concerning survival: make periodic mini-bosses appear which alone drop life support. (Side note, if Lotus can beam in life support, why not ammo? energy pickups? better weapons with 8 forma each?) Perhaps beefed up heavy eximus units with a particularly nasty twist come out to get you, and who drop life support. Balance this out by having the other minions that spawn also lose a little health and shields over time, due to not having life support themselves. I like life support, because it means you can't sit down and hide, you HAVE to fight. It prevents extensive camping, and the relentless, increasingly powerful horde prevents hallway heroing from being viable after a short time. Also, just a side suggestion, make these be 5-man squads, where the fifth Tenno operative is actually the one raiding the place for supplies. Not interacting with the other 4 beyond chatting, but present, and whatever s/he finds, gets to be the rewards. Get minute by minute rewards of planetary resources, and keep the big reward for surviving for 5 minutes.

[oOSinox]

Let me start this off by saying this is one hell of a post to sort through but here we go...

On 8/1/2016 at 10:02 AM, lihimsidhe said:

+ Add Anti-Scaling Objectives.  It makes sense for the enemies to get more serious about killing us the longer we are there killing them.  Every x minutes all the enemies within a survival mission should jump up by y levels where y is something to worry about.  Jump up UNLESS we complete a limited time objective.  An objective that represents us working with the Lotus to disrupt the logistics of would be reinforcements.  It could be hacking to keep doors shut.  It could be defeating a mini boss that would lead the charge.  It can be anything as long as it's not having to do with air.  However, to the players that want the challenge of massively scaling enemies, they don't have to prevent anything.  All they have to do is ready their weapons, brace themselves for what is to come, and *survive*. 

I like the idea you're running with here with objectives in Survival missions but not so much the 'scaling' part. One of the reasons there was an update to the void reward system was to try and combat the ridiculously high level enemy scaling in survival missions. How about instead, as the survival goes on, the enemies become more and more tactical about fighting the tenno. Lets say they might set up ambushes with mini bosses or create various danger zones throughout the tile set (Think of the electric water pools in OD). This would not only make the game much more balanced but also do away with some of the camping in survivals and overall make them more versatile.

On 8/1/2016 at 1:11 PM, BlackCoMerc said:

+ Add More Enemies.  Let's have Exterminates for 500.  1000.  5000.  The sky is the limit.  That's my only suggestion for this mode because sense wise, it does make sense for us to clear out x location of enemies for our own goals.

I suppose before this happens DE should focus on making more enemy types. It gets boring after a while, killing the same enemies over and over again. What is the point of them throwing the same weak &#! enemies at you over and over again if they know the outcome will always be the same? They should at least try to change it up a bit. Back to the comment on the survival: The enemies should get stronger not only in health and damage (with significantly less scaling), but in tactics and strategies as well. There could be more variations of enemies using different weapon types. why should tenno be the only ones getting to use OP weapons like the Tonkor and Jat Kittag? While I'm on the topic, there should also be more Cross-fire Exterminations. It brings so much more atmosphere to the game to see two factions duking it out with each other while simultaneously trying to fight the tenno. It's a shame it should only be limited to invasions.

On 8/1/2016 at 10:02 AM, lihimsidhe said:

+ Add Drills Powered By Our Shields.  Firstly Lotus sends down drills that are fully charged.  Let's pretend she has the technology of wall outlets in the far flung future. On their own they drills will excavate a reward every x seconds.  However, if we charge the drills with our shields, the drills will offer up rewards that much faster. As long as we keep the drill alive, it keeps digging up rewards. When it gets destroyed, Lotus sends down another drill somewhere else. Somewhere random maybe?

I am very partial to the idea of using our shields as a resource. I believe that is something unique which belongs to hijack mission types and should stay there. What if you want to run the mission alone? What about frames with little to no shields like Inaros? He shouldn't have to sacrafice his health. Not to mention the charger will ultimately be immobile while the drill is excavating so that would prevent them from exploring a way point marker for a mod or rare drop. Yet currently I can think of no alternatives to this idea.

On 8/1/2016 at 10:02 AM, lihimsidhe said:

+ Add Recon & Stealth. Targets have to located via hacking or just randomly coming across them. If players can stealth their way to the target, they can stealth capture them instantly. If stealth is broken before target acquisition, target gets a security detail while attempting to flee.(1)

The stealth AI is something I have had qualms with for the longest time.(Not only in Warframe) Why is it that whenever I shoot your friend standing right next to you in the face with a silenced weapon you all of a sudden become oblivious to your surroundings? DE should take some notes from Hitman and MGS. Have enemies that become alerted whenever they come across a dead friend or notice someone in their squadron is missing. Have different alerted phases based on how many of them you kill. While in stealth-alerted mode they should be actively searching for the tenno.

On 8/1/2016 at 10:02 AM, lihimsidhe said:

- Remove Boss Invulnerable States. Bosses no longer have any invulnerable states. At most they would have damage resistant states. Also, all Warframe abilities should work on them to some degree.

Now, Now. We shouldn't go removing invulnerable phases entirely. Alad V is one of the few who it makes sense to have an invulnerable status because he is corpus, therefore shields, therefore invulnerability. Although I do agree with removing it from most of the grineer bosses. (I'm looking at you Lech Kril and Sargas) Since when did you augment your armor with the ability to BECOME INVINCIBLE???

Anyways, that is my 2 cents. Feel free to correct me on anything I may have been mistaken about/forgotten. Thanks. 

 

Edited August 9, 2016 by oOSinox
changed "out" to our / added an ellipses / Added some clarification on alert modes.

[lihimsidhe]

56 minutes ago, Endless_Destruction said:

The other way I would suggest is to use fast, mobile targets with high damage, unique abilities and weapons fit to take on Tenno operatives, without obvious weaknesses. The target should move unpredictably and constantly, using an algorithm that is responsive to team composition and positioning, and difficult to hit. The enemy should act like it doesn't want to die/takes the threat seriously.

Can't tell you how much of a joy that was to read.  I actually don't disagree with it ONE bit.  Like not even one bit.  However, I'm approaching this thread more from a mission design angle while what you are talking about is enemy design.  However, there's never a mission w/o enemies and there's never enemies outside a mission.   But like I said, there's not one part of that I disagree with.  I was merely designing the missions around the AI and enemy challenge currently in the game.  If this awesome suggestion was actual reality... my suggestions would be radically different in some respects.

56 minutes ago, Endless_Destruction said:

I like the idea of changing boss drops, but not quite what you suggested. It would result in an inflation of warframe parts. The obvious solution is to add more parts, but then that would make prime warframe part farming much more tedious. Instead, the boss should have a wide assortment of exotic, powerful weapons, pets, or other chemical/robotic/biological minions, whose parts and blueprints should drop from the boss.

We are both meaning the same thing but differ on the details.  Basically the OP should read 'Mission 2.0 bosses drop a ton of stuff to make the 10 minute mission damn worth it'.

56 minutes ago, Endless_Destruction said:

I have a different idea concerning survival: make periodic mini-bosses appear which alone drop life support.

Honestly this is a cool idea.  It remind's me of this guy.  However, the concept of life support just is not appealing or sensible to me.  It involves the creation of an arbitrary resource when we already have one in game that does this job quite well: health.  And by extension revives and shields.  That's your life support.

As for the camping vs non camping point: I always defer to player choice.  Sometimes I like to camp.  Sometimes I like to parkour so intensely I forget to blink and start crying. Everything in between.  What I don't like doing worrying about such a made up arbitrary resource that is just one omission away from keeping me from enjoying the pure visceral heart of the game.  In a game that features some of the best combat and mobility I've ever seen it is an utter tragedy there isn't at least one mode where it is Tenno vs the enemy where the only rule is to kill or be killed: survival.

If players want to camp, then they'll camp.  I don't see what the issue is.  That's what they want to do. Hallway Heroes are annoying most of the time but I wouldn't suggest a mission type be changed to remove their play style from the game.  That's how they want to play.   Warframe is a game where the tagline is 'ninjas play for free'.  Ninjas are known to camp from time to time as much as they move about quickly dispatching their foes  ;)

This game encourages different play styles and approaches.  Mission design should reflect those different approaches.  Players who want to camp, will camp.  Players who do not wish to camp, won't.  The players that will survive the frays of intense combat will be those who found what works best for them.  There needs to be a mode that this is all there is to worry about.  I want this mode.  There have to be at least some other players that do.

Also, if a pure survival mode isn't your thing there are 9 other mission types in the game.  For example, I'm not a big fan of Spy missions so I just avoid them.   I feel the stealth in WF is a bit too loosey goosey and the AI too dumb.  Now of course I have suggestions on how Spy could be improved but asking for mandatory ancillary rules be inserted into a pure survival mode is like saying stealth should be removed from Spy.  The survival mode I'm talking about is 100% pure survival and nothing else.  To add any other lose states isn't pure survival, it's something else.

Edited August 9, 2016 by lihimsidhe

[(XBOX)TeenyRagtag]

12 hours ago, lihimsidhe said:

 

The OP already hinted at this by being able carry and throw capture targets.  However, I like your idea because what if the capture target isn't something that can or should be carried by Warframes?  I'm definitely not for anything gets rid of bullet jumping though because that is the heart of this game for me.  It's just a matter of what target would fit into the category of not being able to be carried?  Maybe enemies that can't be knocked out?  Please let's discuss this further.

I understand that. A capture should be quick like "get in and then get out". So maybe instead of limiting your movement. They are harder to kill and capture while other enemies make hard to capture the target. I also came up with another suggestion while posting in another thread. I was thinking if the target did escape to extraction before you did. There still would be chance for you to get him because essentially he would get into a small ship or escape pod and at this point the mission would turn into an archwing rush mission. Thus providing a little more depth and interest into the mission

Honestly this is a cool idea.  It remind's me of this guy.  However, the concept of life support just is not appealing or sensible to me.  It involves the creation of an arbitrary resource when we already have one in game that does this job quite well: health.  And by extension revives and shields.  That's your life support.

As for the camping vs non camping point: I always defer to player choice.  Sometimes I like to camp.  Sometimes I like to parkour so intensely I forget to blink and start crying. Everything in between.  What I don't like doing worrying about such a made up arbitrary resource that is just one omission away from keeping me from enjoying the pure visceral heart of the game.  In a game that features some of the best combat and mobility I've ever seen it is an utter tragedy there isn't at least one mode where it is Tenno vs the enemy where the only rule is to kill or be killed: survival.

If players want to camp, then they'll camp.  I don't see what the issue is.  That's what they want to do. Hallway Heroes are annoying most of the time but I wouldn't suggest a mission type be changed to remove their play style from the game.  That's how they want to play.   Warframe is a game where the tagline is 'ninjas play for free'.  Ninjas are known to camp from time to time as much as they move about quickly dispatching their foes  ;)

This game encourages different play styles and approaches.  Mission design should reflect those different approaches.  Players who want to camp, will camp.  Players who do not wish to camp, won't.  The players that will survive the frays of intense combat will be those who found what works best for them.  There needs to be a mode that this is all there is to worry about.  I want this mode.  There have to be at least some other players that do.

Also, if a pure survival mode isn't your thing there are 9 other mission types in the game.  For example, I'm not a big fan of Spy missions so I just avoid them.   I feel the stealth in WF is a bit too loosey goosey and the AI too dumb.  Now of course I have suggestions on how Spy could be improved but asking for mandatory ancillary rules be inserted into a pure survival mode is like saying stealth should be removed from Spy.  The survival mode I'm talking about is 100% pure survival and nothing else.  To add any other lose states isn't pure survival, it's something else.

I agree with your opinion completely, but after thinking about. I think another issue arises. When you starting doing longer runs, your shields get taken easily. This issue has been raised in or two forums prior to this one. Anyway my point shields have become literally useless and in most cases people don't mod for shields anymore ( I might be wrong about the "shields don't use armor" statement. Correct if me if I'm wrong about that) . A common suggestion in threads is for your shields to use armor mods or your armor levels to base their strength off of. Sorry to go on another topic, but I feel that would allow players to have a little more wiggle room when comes to surviving and reducing camping early on in the mission. 

As for as implementing alternatives to life support. I think their was a suggestion about hacking consoles. My idea on this would be to hack consoles to allow for more air to come on in because Lotus says in the mission that the enemies are trying to choke us out. So if they are locking us out then it would be safe to assume that we can hack ourselves back in. Essentially you would hack a console every 5 minutes and that would activate the reward and give your squad more air. On another note, the consoles wouldn't be anywhere near your squad so that would require you to move to go get it and also it might be interesting to put more enemies in the vicinity of the life support consoles so it makes it more of a team effort to get to the console and activate the life support again.   

Edited August 9, 2016 by (XB1)TeenyRagtag

[Mr._Clean]

These are some really cool ideas.

[DSpite]

I'd like to see a mission type where a team actually gets a chance to bring just about any tactic or weapon they wanted, and the only one I could picture would be one where we had to defend for example a fortified location for as long as possible.

DE would not have to even make new enemy units as such, they could just add/reuse current assets to gradually scale up enemy strength to gradually force us out of our comfort zones.

The mission could start like they all do, where we are in one point and units storm in, and as they realize they are having trouble, they call reinforcements, but not simply more troops, but actual things that act as force multipliers.

They could drop down turrets emplacements, long range mortars, tanks, shield generators .. practically all the stuff you can remember from movies would work.

The idea is simply this:

Team starts well dug in, and then they gradually need to take larger and larger risks in order to keep the pressure off whatever objective they are defending. Even Snipers become viable, as they would eliminate threats at range, like the units manning turrets or launchers, or even other snipers. If you wanted to go hell for leather as melee you'd hit the front lines, or play support and stay near defensive objectives ... etc etc. You could even scale this past 4 players to 6 or 8, I'd say, and I'd prefer it over the current Trial missions or what we have now as Survival.

[oOSinox]

17 hours ago, lihimsidhe said:

The link to the subreddit is actually the very first line in the OP.  The very first line of the subreddit also links here.  :)

You should add the rest of these ideas to the OP and if you want you can check out my other thread for some ideas on how to rework the Orokin Tile Set.

Edited August 9, 2016 by oOSinox

[lihimsidhe]

26 minutes ago, oOSinox said:

You should add the rest of these ideas to the OP and if you want you can check out my other thread for some ideas on how to rework the Orokin Tile Set.

I don't mean to sound rude but did you read the OP?  Not only does it have the link to the subreddit but each suggestion added by a poster is cited to the poster's name and which forum they are from.  I'm not sure how you're missing this unless you're not reading it carefully.

[oOSinox]

2 minutes ago, lihimsidhe said:

I don't mean to sound rude but did you read the OP?  Not only does it have the link to the subreddit but each suggestion added by a poster is cited to the poster's name and which forum they are from.  I'm not sure how you're missing this unless you're not reading it carefully.

Yes, I read the entire OP but what I was talking about are the new Ideas from DSpite and I.

I had just assumed you would be continually updating it with the newer replies is all. No worries.

[lihimsidhe]

8 hours ago, DSpite said:

Team starts well dug in, and then they gradually need to take larger and larger risks in order to keep the pressure off whatever objective they are defending. Even Snipers become viable, as they would eliminate threats at range, like the units manning turrets or launchers, or even other snipers. If you wanted to go hell for leather as melee you'd hit the front lines, or play support and stay near defensive objectives ... etc etc. You could even scale this past 4 players to 6 or 8, I'd say, and I'd prefer it over the current Trial missions or what we have now as Survival.

This sounds a lot like defense.  In fact it is defense other than your suggestion of defending a structure instead of a cyropod.  In the Defense rework there is a change for a variety of defense targets.  I don't know if you're agreeing with what's already posted or missed it or something else entirely.  Can you elaborate further?

[lihimsidhe]

4 minutes ago, oOSinox said:

Yes, I read the entire OP but what I was talking about are the new Ideas from DSpite and I.

I had just assumed you would be continually updating it with the newer replies is all. No worries.

Oh okay there seems to be some confusion.  Firstly your suggestions are spot on.  However, they deal more with enemy design than they do mission design and this thread was created to focus on the latter.  As I was explaining to @Endless_Destruction enemies and missions go hand in hand so some bleed through is bound to happen.  However, I am trying to streamline the thread to focus on mission design more times than not.  While I liked your suggestions, they are closer to Enemies 2.0 than Missions 2.0

Secondly, I don't automatically add any and every suggestion.  I provided a base framework and whatever changes that framework for the better I add and cited to the poster that suggested it.  If someone added an entirely new framework that was better I would change the whole thing.  I look for suggestions that marry narrative, game play, and logic the best (in my views anyways).  

I'll respond to your post shortly though as there are some great ideas in there even if they are closer to Enemies 2.0.  :)

[oOSinox]

1 minute ago, lihimsidhe said:

Oh okay there seems to be some confusion.  Firstly your suggestions are spot on.  However, they deal more with enemy design than they do mission design and this thread was created to focus on the latter.  As I was explaining to @Endless_Destruction enemies and missions go hand in hand so some bleed through is bound to happen.  However, I am trying to streamline the thread to focus on mission design more times than not.  While I liked your suggestions, they are closer to Enemies 2.0 than Missions 2.0

Secondly, I don't automatically add any and every suggestion.  I provided a base framework and whatever changes that framework for the better I add and cited to the poster that suggested it.  If someone added an entirely new framework that was better I would change the whole thing.  I look for suggestions that marry narrative, game play, and logic the best (in my views anyways).  

I'll respond to your post shortly though as there are some great ideas in there even if they are closer to Enemies 2.0.  :)

Alright, that is understandable given the fact that it is a really large post. Thanks for clearing that up.

I have some ideas for the a rework of the Orokin Tile-set but of course you could argue that they are more from a Lore based perspective and probably belong in another Void Update. 

Nonetheless if you wish to see for yourself you may do so here.

[lihimsidhe]

16 hours ago, oOSinox said:

I like the idea you're running with here with objectives in Survival missions but not so much the 'scaling' part. One of the reasons there was an update to the void reward system was to try and combat the ridiculously high level enemy scaling in survival missions. How about instead, as the survival goes on, the enemies become more and more tactical about fighting the tenno. Lets say they might set up ambushes with mini bosses or create various danger zones throughout the tile set (Think of the electric water pools in OD). This would not only make the game much more balanced but also do away with some of the camping in survivals and overall make them more versatile.

More tactical enemies?  Yes.  Hell yes.  The reason that the WF community as a whole seems to have an issue with scaling is because DE chooses to represent enemy challenge only through enemy health, shields, damage, and accuracy.  A level 700 Heavy Gunner is as tactical as a level 1 Heavy Gunner.  It's sad.  As a military veteran myself it hurts to not see any tactics in place whatsoever.  

As for the camping... if people want to camp then they should feel free to do so.  Just to be clear... if the enemies sometimes provide a tactical challenge that isn't best solved by camping then I'm fine with that.  The challenges presented in Missions 2.0 should inform the decisions and play style of other Tenno.  Not everyone wants to 'run and gun'.  Not everyone wants to camp.  What we do know for certain, however, is that some people will want to run and gun, some people will want to camp, and some people will choose options 3 through infinity.  

So anytime I see 'this should prevent x, legitimate, play style' I'm cautious at best.

17 hours ago, oOSinox said:

I suppose before this happens DE should focus on making more enemy types. It gets boring after a while, killing the same enemies over and over again. What is the point of them throwing the same weak &#! enemies at you over and over again if they know the outcome will always be the same? They should at least try to change it up a bit. Back to the comment on the survival: The enemies should get stronger not only in health and damage (with significantly less scaling), but in tactics and strategies as well. There could be more variations of enemies using different weapon types. why should tenno be the only ones getting to use OP weapons like the Tonkor and Jat Kittag? While I'm on the topic, there should also be more Cross-fire Exterminations. It brings so much more atmosphere to the game to see two factions duking it out with each other while simultaneously trying to fight the tenno. It's a shame it should only be limited to invasions.

With the amount of assets DE already has in game they can do a lot with palette swaps and implementing actual enemy tactics discussed about above.  So again I totally agree there.  As to why enemies don't use their own powerful weapons?  It's because of the butt hurt factor.  A lot of players will be butt hurt if their entire squad is taken out by some random grunt with a Tonkor.  "Man this game is bullS#&$."  "This isn't fair."  etc.  If I had to guess us wanting more challenging enemies are in the minority.  I get from public matches the players want less challenging enemies and for DE just to release more damaging weapons  so their eyes can gloss over at higher and higher numbers.   That's their right though.  If they are the majority then it reasons they might be the majority provider of DE's income and existence.

17 hours ago, oOSinox said:

I am very partial to the idea of using our shields as a resource. I believe that is something unique which belongs to hijack mission types and should stay there. What if you want to run the mission alone? What about frames with little to no shields like Inaros? He shouldn't have to sacrafice his health. Not to mention the charger will ultimately be immobile while the drill is excavating so that would prevent them from exploring a way point marker for a mod or rare drop. Yet currently I can think of no alternatives to this idea.

Under Missions 2.0, excavators dig just as fast as they do now.  Shields only help them go faster.  So if you want to run the missions alone, you can.  You can run any mission alone if you're prepared.  Frames with no shields like Inaros would be limited to the default speed of the excavator unless they bring a shield osprey.  

Not sure why the charger would be immobile while charging.  That doesn't happen in hijack so I'm not following you here.

17 hours ago, oOSinox said:

The stealth AI is something I have had qualms with for the longest time.(Not only in Warframe) Why is it that whenever I shoot your friend standing right next to you in the face with a silenced weapon you all of a sudden become oblivious to your surroundings? DE should take some notes from Hitman and MGS. Have enemies that become alerted whenever they come across a dead friend or notice someone in their squadron is missing. Have different alerted phases based on how many of them you kill. While in stealth-alerted mode they should be actively searching for the tenno.

Again, I have no qualms against this.  It sounds @(*()$ awesome.  With the enemies being so dumb it discourages me to actually be stealthy in this game other than just use Loki and Ivara and slaughter them invisibly.  And in reality there should be cameras EVERYWHERE.  

17 hours ago, oOSinox said:

Now, Now. We shouldn't go removing invulnerable phases entirely. Alad V is one of the few who it makes sense to have an invulnerable status because he is corpus, therefore shields, therefore invulnerability. Although I do agree with removing it from most of the grineer bosses. (I'm looking at you Lech Kril and Sargas) Since when did you augment your armor with the ability to BECOME INVINCIBLE???

This is an instance where I really felt enemy design needed to come into mission design.  Invulnerable states are not fun to battle against.  Also logically (which is a huge part of this thread) they make little sense.  If a boss as a true invulnerable state, just don't show their only weak spots.  If the enemies had the slightest bit of common sense, their invulnerability would displace Tenno as the ancient ultimate weapons they are supposed to be.  Lech Kril and Sargas armed with common sense would have wiped the Tenno to near extinction by now.

Of course their in game states don't 100% transfer over to how they would actually be as much as Tenno don't really spend platinum to get weapon slots when they can just store their weapons anywhere there is space on the Liset.  So what it really comes down to is that invulnerable states aren't fun.  I came to this conclusion while polling a fair amount of players during certain boss missions.  The most recent being this morning.  

[Redthirst]

On 8/1/2016 at 6:02 PM, lihimsidhe said:

Survival

- Remove Life Support.  This is where Mission 2.0 started because this makes not even a bit of sense.  Enemies carrying around containers with only a few seconds of air?  They somehow make the atmosphere on their ships selective?  "I'd love to enter your lungs bro but I've got orders."  Even assuming that nonsnese was true 'in universe' I'm pretty sure oxygen tank technology has come a long way by then. If our Warframes can carry around spheres that give rise to sentient life (spectres), hundreds of energy and health restores, then I'm positive they can carry around breathing tanks.  Or they could hijack the air tanks the enemies are using (because they sure as Hell would be more than a few seconds).  No matter which way you cut this, it has never and will never make sense.  It doesn't border on ridiculous... it was born past the realms of ridiculousness and is the Mayor of WTFville.

+ Add Anti-Scaling Objectives.  It makes sense for the enemies to get more serious about killing us the longer we are there killing them.  Every x minutes all the enemies within a survival mission should jump up by y levels where y is something to worry about.  Jump up UNLESS we complete a limited time objective.  An objective that represents us working with the Lotus to disrupt the logistics of would be reinforcements.  It could be hacking to keep doors shut.  It could be defeating a mini boss that would lead the charge.  It can be anything as long as it's not having to do with air.  However, to the players that want the challenge of massively scaling enemies, they don't have to prevent anything.  All they have to do is ready their weapons, brace themselves for what is to come, and *survive*. 

The main issue here is that it lets you camp in a corner. Or you can take Limbo and sit in the Rift. Doesn't matter if the enemies become too strong, they can't touch you in the Rift. The idea of doing an objective to prevent enemies from scaling is nice, but there needs to be something that prevents people from cheesing it too much.

 

On 8/1/2016 at 6:02 PM, lihimsidhe said:

Excavation

- Remove Power Cells.  "Sir!  Four Warframes have been spotten in the northern quadrant of Triton!  The Lotus is sending down barely charged drills!  They intend to excavate our resources for their own gain!"  "You know the drill crewman... arm some of our soldiers with the ONLY thing that can keep their drills going and get their boots on ground asap!"  "But sir?!"  "YOU HEARD ME!"  No.  Let's stop the madness.

+ Add Drills Powered By Our Shields.  Firstly Lotus sends down drills that are fully charged.  Let's pretend she has the technology of wall outlets in the far flung future. On their own they drills will excavate a reward every x seconds.  However, if we charge the drills with our shields, the drills will offer up rewards that much faster. As long as we keep the drill alive, it keeps digging up rewards. When it gets destroyed, Lotus sends down another drill somewhere else. Somewhere random maybe?

+ Add Chance of Planet Resource Per Drill Reward. Every time an excavator actually excavates a cache, we have a small chance to also get a cache of that planet's resources. So that means excavations on Jupiter will very, very, rarely offer up Nerual Sensors but not so super rarely offer up salvage, fieldron samples, and alloy plates.(1)

I was thinking of a similar approach, only instead of our shields, we use excavator's shields and HP. The way it works is that you press a button on the excavator, and it starts working faster, but takes damage, so if you can protect it well, then you can make it work faster.

 

On 8/1/2016 at 6:02 PM, lihimsidhe said:

Exterminate

+ Add More Enemies. Let's have Exterminates for 500. 1000. 5000. The sky is the limit. Either every x minutes into an Exterminate and/or after x enemies are killed, there will be a chance for a mini boss to spawn.(1)

(1) Suggested by (XB1)TeenyRagtag on WF official forums

That will be way too tedious.

[oOSinox]

1 hour ago, lihimsidhe said:

Not sure why the charger would be immobile while charging.  That doesn't happen in hijack so I'm not following you here.

Ah. For some reason I thought that the sheilds would act as a slow and tedious replacement for the power cores in excavations instead of a speed buff. That was bad on my part, I misinterpreted it.

Edited August 9, 2016 by oOSinox

[lihimsidhe]

1 hour ago, Redthirst said:

The main issue here is that it lets you camp in a corner. Or you can take Limbo and sit in the Rift. Doesn't matter if the enemies become too strong, they can't touch you in the Rift. The idea of doing an objective to prevent enemies from scaling is nice, but there needs to be something that prevents people from cheesing it too much.

If players want to go camp in the corner, they should feel free too.  If they want to run and gun, they are free too.  If they want to do anything in between, they are free too.  If you don't want to camp, then don't.  What you shouldn't try to do is deny a true survival for players that want it based on your projections for what other players might and have every right too.  You're making the assumption that camping is an inferior or less substantive play style than not camping.  That's not your call or my call to make.  I always defer to designs that allow player choice where reasonable, logical, and suits the game in question.  

Everyone in this game deserves a pure survival mode where they only have to worry about is survival.  It's really that simple.

If you or another Limbo player wanted to just go hide in the Rift for hours that's awesome.  You deserve to.  Let's say you don't engage the enemies at all.  You are just Rift Walking constantly with max duration.  Reviving allies and that's about it.  Okay?  So if someone just wants to focus on Limbo Medic mode go for it.   If you wanted to be more offensive and start rifting in mobs for hours then kudos to you... you also deserve to rift for hours.  A player who ignores the anti scaling objectives I put forth will be quickly be facing enemies where one mistake means death under the current damage system.  So good for them for surviving that type of 1 mistake = death decision making for hours and hours.

As far as cheesing... you're talking about a game where a squad of Warframes can crowd control mobs into oblivion correct?  You can see recruit chat full of cheese squad requests constantly.  You're acting like cheesing isn't already such a huge part of the game when it already is.  You may know cheese by another name: tactics.  If players discover a tactic that works effectively and keep using it, then good for them.  It's their game as much as it is yours.  

Either way, having a pure survival does not prevent anyone from playing the way they want.  Including you.

[(XBOX)TeenyRagtag]

 

18 hours ago, lihimsidhe said:

Can't tell you how much of a joy that was to read.  I actually don't disagree with it ONE bit.  Like not even one bit.  However, I'm approaching this thread more from a mission design angle while what you are talking about is enemy design.  However, there's never a mission w/o enemies and there's never enemies outside a mission.   But like I said, there's not one part of that I disagree with.  I was merely designing the missions around the AI and enemy challenge currently in the game.  If this awesome suggestion was actual reality... my suggestions would be radically different in some respects.

We are both meaning the same thing but differ on the details.  Basically the OP should read 'Mission 2.0 bosses drop a ton of stuff to make the 10 minute mission damn worth it'.

Honestly this is a cool idea.  It remind's me of this guy.  However, the concept of life support just is not appealing or sensible to me.  It involves the creation of an arbitrary resource when we already have one in game that does this job quite well: health.  And by extension revives and shields.  That's your life support.

As for the camping vs non camping point: I always defer to player choice.  Sometimes I like to camp.  Sometimes I like to parkour so intensely I forget to blink and start crying. Everything in between.  What I don't like doing worrying about such a made up arbitrary resource that is just one omission away from keeping me from enjoying the pure visceral heart of the game.  In a game that features some of the best combat and mobility I've ever seen it is an utter tragedy there isn't at least one mode where it is Tenno vs the enemy where the only rule is to kill or be killed: survival.

If players want to camp, then they'll camp.  I don't see what the issue is.  That's what they want to do. Hallway Heroes are annoying most of the time but I wouldn't suggest a mission type be changed to remove their play style from the game.  That's how they want to play.   Warframe is a game where the tagline is 'ninjas play for free'.  Ninjas are known to camp from time to time as much as they move about quickly dispatching their foes  ;)

This game encourages different play styles and approaches.  Mission design should reflect those different approaches.  Players who want to camp, will camp.  Players who do not wish to camp, won't.  The players that will survive the frays of intense combat will be those who found what works best for them.  There needs to be a mode that this is all there is to worry about.  I want this mode.  There have to be at least some other players that do.

Also, if a pure survival mode isn't your thing there are 9 other mission types in the game.  For example, I'm not a big fan of Spy missions so I just avoid them.   I feel the stealth in WF is a bit too loosey goosey and the AI too dumb.  Now of course I have suggestions on how Spy could be improved but asking for mandatory ancillary rules be inserted into a pure survival mode is like saying stealth should be removed from Spy.  The survival mode I'm talking about is 100% pure survival and nothing else.  To add any other lose states isn't pure survival, it's something else.

Your Limbo example is proof why DE would never allow that to happen. They wouldn't want people to do that in the game and that's why they prevent that. Letting people abuse the game like that wouldn't make it interesting. Even if it's your choice to use Rift walk like that, a good portion of the community will do that and abuse the system

Edited August 9, 2016 by (XB1)TeenyRagtag

[Redthirst]

8 minutes ago, lihimsidhe said:

If you or another Limbo player wanted to just go hide in the Rift for hours that's awesome.  You deserve to.  Let's say you don't engage the enemies at all.  You are just Rift Walking constantly with max duration.  Reviving allies and that's about it.  Okay?  So if someone just wants to focus on Limbo Medic mode go for it.   If you wanted to be more offensive and start rifting in mobs for hours then kudos to you... you also deserve to rift for hours.  A player who ignores the anti scaling objectives I put forth will be quickly be facing enemies where one mistake means death under the current damage system.  So good for them for surviving that type of 1 mistake = death decision making for hours and hours.

Not really, at least if you leave the current reward mechanics. Currently, you get a reward every 5 minutes, and I don't think it's a good idea to let players just get rewards for doing nothing. So you need to think about a different reward system. One easy idea is that every 5 minutes you need to do one of those objectives that you were talking about, so players still have to engage enemies at least once in 5 minutes, and you can't just AFK for hours and get a bunch of free stuff.