[The Index] General Feedback

[Xekrin]

Best solution I can come up with is to make Index Points bound to whomever caused it to drop for a short period, after which its free for all.  This isn't the most elegant of solutions and I hope DE comes up with something better.

Competing in this manner is rather in the spirit of corpus greed so I have a feeling they will want to keep some aspect of it alive, it just needs to be integrated a little better.

Probably one of the main reasons they are calling this a preview event anyway, so they can iron out little details like this.

[SamuraiPizza]

9 minutes ago, Xekrin said:

Best solution I can come up with is to make Index Points bound to whomever caused it to drop for a short period, after which its free for all.  This isn't the most elegant of solutions and I hope DE comes up with something better.

Competing in this manner is rather in the spirit of corpus greed so I have a feeling they will want to keep some aspect of it alive, it just needs to be integrated a little better.

Probably one of the main reasons they are calling this a preview event anyway, so they can iron out little details like this.

I hope you're right, my friend.

[LHC20]

Idea and general realisation of the gamemode is nice, nonetheless there are some points that are bugging me:

- Enemies 'jumping' through the upper walls (the drawnout corpus map with the glass floors)

- sometimes the sound indicator that you were hit is missing, also sometimes there just isn't anyone near me and I die instantaneously

- Some of the zanuka enemies are immune to EV as mentioned often before. Also enemies under the influence of EV that should be staggered just release AOE Attacks when they're down on the ground (e.g. Pelna Cade, Jad Teran [looking very similar...]), or they just shoot you dead, regardless of the EV Stagger

 

Also at least some starting energy would be nice or a removed energy drain/ health decline.

 

All in all it's 'nice', but right now Rathuum is more to my liking...

 

[LycusStratus]

The 50 points to win seems like an issue when you have to get at least 20 points yourself to earn the reward. what if you're in a team of 3 or more? people would have to fight against each other or hope their allies get downed and steal there orbs to get the reward. Also I'm not going to lie im not the best player and i have far from the best builds but the scaling on the endless mission seems insane.

[VampirePirate]

18 hours ago, Kalimeister said:

Point stealing from my teammates was like having a personal stalker the whole mission, but i didn't care too much because I was scanning the enemies. But I understand how that could be annoying if you liked the mission and wanted to do more runs in the future. I had a Mirage that was following me all the way through the mission until karma instant killed her and I got my index points back. I was lmao until the end of the mission.

I have to say that this event is a little troll friendly in that regard.

Yeah...

In my experience there was someone following me constantly while i racked up a ton of points, and when my health was low, he/she would fire a grenade that would kill me from behind.  Then he/she would just run forward and take the points.  This happened several times in one run.  I know because when i died, i could see the player through the spectator view while my respawn timer scrolled.   It was strange to me at first because i was certain there was no enemy around to kill me, and then he/she would appear right behind me after my death.  It was just like you said, a Stalker effect.

That's why I started playing solo and completed the event that way.

[Soketsu]

I guess mission with low energy (limiting "power spamming") is good for some people but like lvl 100 rathum, even in solo it's stll & will never be a challenge unless you find something with the same intelligence than us " [we] only grow by fighting our strongest ennemy, ourself"

12 k cred is too small when millions, good for non veteran player maybe

 

So I will just say, still waiting for worthy mission for veteran tennos (worth in rewards/time), thx for reading it ;)

 

[Temragon]

So, feedback:

Improvements over Rathuum

• Credit deposit vs grinding points
• Great announcer (Except a handful of inflections?)
• Pretty good filler event
• Slightly more consistent in reducing methods of cheese (SEE BELOW)
• Shield Charger, Ricohet, Thermagnetic Shells, and Pain Threshold are nice additions

Problems

• Again, energy limitations reduce the viability of many Warframes dependent on them
• The limitations in effectiveness are not clearly stated anywhere. They aren't necessarily bad, but need to be made clear.
  • Enemies immune to many status effects
  • Energy degeneration and health/shield reduction based on held points
  • Etc
• Enemy teams vary hugely in difficulty (IMO, primarily due to EHP and defense mechanics)
• The competition among friendly players is sort of interesting? But I think it detracts from the event instead of adding to it.
• Difficulty curve is really bad. Too easy to start with, and as the match progresses it goes very rapidly from too easy to too hard. It's hard to emphasize how much this hurts this event.
  I'm sure it's super hard to get right especially with how Warframe works, but at this point you might want to consider just adopting Conclave mode mod/frame/weapon changes entirely for these "gladiator" events and using them as a secondary way to get conclave mods for people who don't normally play it. Then you could avoid the next point by lowering enemy lethality a bit
• Most of the "Difficulty" is not actually difficulty, it's dying instantly to things that aren't clear or clearly telegraphed or have any understandable counterplay. There's no death log/breakdown we can review while dead, so that's not acceptable. It's not fun, it's not rewarding, it's infuriating.
• Static Discharge is a prova mod, take from that what you will. A channeling one at that.

Overall I liked it, but it shines a harsh spotlight directly on the difficulty [and/with] scaling problem in Warframe. 

Suggestions:

• Consider adopting full conclave rules for gladiator events to greatly reduce difficulty in balancing the enemies. This would have friction, but could introduce more players to conclave and give you more ways to disseminate conclave mods
• Either way, reduce the maximum of or really elongate/smooth the scaling curve of enemies in gladiator events
• Include more sound efforts in the new enemy design, giving us cues and warnings of incoming gibbing would be nice. And really, combat seems eerily silent for the most part right now. 

Edited October 22, 2016 by Temragon

[Amythist]

so played my 10 matches and so far it's not bad but, at least to me, has some issues main ones being the balancing of the enemy teams and the point/reward system

Enemy Team balance, right now the 2 potential teams you can face seem heavily lopsided, the mostly humanoid team in the red uniforms, even with their gimmicks like turning invisible, teleporting, or disguising as a team mate, feel so much weaker than the other team mostly due to the 2nd team consisting almost entirely of much more durable enemies nearly all of which have massive AOE attacks, making them feel much much more powerful so shuffling up their rosters a bit may help it feel more balanced

The Point/reward system, this one right now is kind of a sticking point for me, since in order to maximize your reward you would think to go for the high risk wager, but that's a trap since the 20 points you need to achieve are almost half the points your team needs to score a win, leading to some team mates playing greedy and just hording/stealing drops from other people to try and get their 20, and even in a coordinated team you can really only have 2 people score 20, with a low chance of getting a 3rd by having them horde points after the first 2 turn in and then turn their 20 points in all at once. Suggestions here would be either boosting the points to win to 60 which still leaves you with the problem of in an ideal setup, only 3 members of the team getting their 20 points. Option 2 lower the high risk point requirement to 15, this even with a 50 point win limit, would allow for an organized team of 4 to all manage to win their wager, with the first 3 turning in their 15 and the 4th hoarding points until they can get their 15 in 1 turn in which would also give the team the win.

As the event stands right now it's an interesting/fun distraction the problem it has though is that it practically works counter to team work as it forces players to play selfish/greedy in order to get their rewards, as opposed to nearly every other aspect of the game that is based around working together as a team

[TheSteelRat]

Never before in this game have I had to compete and race against squadmates to get a drop. I have never liked it before, and it punishes players with lag and lower end computers.

in my one game I ran to pick up a drop and was "beaten" by a player going twice as fast as me.  Ended up only getting one index point the whole match even with my 12 kills because the host migrated.

[Firetempest]

Why bother even adding energy nodes to these maps? There is always a enemy somewhere thats close enough to leech it. Cant event collect 50 before someone a couple rooms away walked or flew close enough to bring me down to 40~ in a tick. I blink, and its back at zero.

Then say whatever and kill everything with a hek because the AI is dumb anyway. I've only died due to unlucky energy gate timing.

At least the specter AI energy cant be leeched. I see them popping abilities all the time which keeps these paper soldiers up for a little bit on gold difficulty.

Rathuum and Index could just have 3 specific power kits just for these arenas depending on if the warframe is damage,healing or support. And balance those and stop nulling powers, the thing that make warframes, warframes.

That or make these arenas use the conclave setups and balance around that because there is too much mod power creep to make these close to "fair but difficult." to older players. It usually ends in cheese 1 shot kills on either side when you try and make it challenging.

Edited October 22, 2016 by Firetempest

[Ozais]

the index endurance levels STINK! 

[Redgard]

How to put a bad mood in the community

take a big bowl of d*ck heads, put a spoon of selfish goals with a small amount of the index, and you get a lovely cake of selfish gameplay*, ninja-loot and bad mood.
*yeah that's right, warframe is not a coop game </ironic>

 

you could avoid this problem, putting a team goal, where people received their reward according the option which was selected at the beginning of the game. so when the team reach the 25 index, the players which have selected the first option receive their reward, etc.
You could multiply the goal because it is a common goal (first level: 100 index ; 2nd level: 200  ind.; 3th level: 400 ind.)

Now we have a lot of people preventing the other players to reach their goal, stealing the index and making them lose their credits.

Edited October 22, 2016 by Redgard

[Arkhenbarn]

General

Instead of encouraging the cooperation, the way to get Index Points, which are an individual goal, only turns Tennos against each other in a squad. Rather than an individual goal, you should make it a common goal everyone contributes to. Even if people don't actively steal  the Index Points, there is no form of collaboration, no team vs another ; it's a team (Anyo Corp) against multiple individuals with personal goals (aka the greedy mercenaries we are). Isn't this a bit sad for a cooperative PvE-based game ? As it is now, unless I'm with close friends, I'd rather run solo than going public.

Index Points also make use more vulnerable and often deprive us of our Abilities. Index mission 1 and 2 : not really a problem, it's manageable. But in Endurance... Holy sh... Balance you say ? I wonder if this is the most unbalanced thing I've ever seen in Warframe. Read below.

Endurance

Endgame. This is endgame. And it's nice... in theory. Main problem : scaling (a big issue of Warframe in itself) versus us being constantly weakened by the Index Points. 100 points to achieve to get the reward. Honestly, did you try it before releasing it ? I understand very well you don't especially have the time to test every tiny aspect, but the goal is clearly impossible. Alone : bitter laugh, matchmaking : bitter realization. The simple fact of being in a team virtually pushes the level of enemies to fight even higher as it requires 400 points in total instead of 100 to allow everyone to reach the goal of 100 points. And I don't even take into account the absence of collaboration and "race to Points".  Playing alone is not even a bit more satisfying, because you quickly reach the point where enemies oneshoots you and you can't even try to make things fair because you're constantly deprived of your powers because of the Index Points you need to carry. This is going around and nowhere ; a vicious circle.

[(PSN)Stealth_Cobra]

I'll be honest, the event defintively needs some work.. Some of the mechanics are badly designed and clash with the overall goal of a team based game like Warframe.

 

1 - Individual goals that reward point stealing and selfishness -

If you're a good Index player, you're actually being a liability to the rest of your team, as you'll make the game end before they have the chance to bank their points. It sucks for less skilled players to see that one guy score like 45 points in a single drop and end the game immediately, screwing it for all other players.

Consider attributing the points to the person that deals the kill (to avoid players ninja looting unearned points), and perhaps make the mode timer-based instead of ending it whenever a player reaches 60 points. Heck, perhaps make it so that there's a max score for each player that they can reach, then afterwards, they stop gathering points and they stay on the ground for other players to grab or something... Or maybe make it a team objective instead of an individual objective, although that would probably remove some of the mode's flavor and make it feel like Rathuum.

2 - Imbalanced enemies - Maybe it's dependant on damage type, but there's a huge difference between the tankyness of human enemies versus things like the bursas and other mechanised units. Basically, humanoid enemies I oneshot for easy points whereas some of the mechanised units can take numerous shots and represent a much higher risk. in Rathuum, I feel like most of the executionners are balanced, with  few standing out as being more deadly, but this mode need more balanced troops. as right now, it's actually more strategic to run away from mechanised units and hunt weaker enemies for easyer kills... Plus it makes matches uneven, some are a cakewalk due to humaniods being the majority and others are really hard because they only feature mechs.

3 - Challenge is off in most modes - Index 1 is way too easy, it enemies can be oneshot by most weapons and it provides low credit, low reward, low challenge. It probably needs a buff. Index 2 is also probably way too easy, although you start to feel the imbalance between humanoid and machines, rewards are better.

The endless Index isn't actually endless, which kinda sucks imho... I feel enemies scale too high too fast, plus the point objectives are too high ... I mean, 100 points , really ? Also , it kinda sucks that you get auto-matched into already started missions, meaning you start with already scaled up enemies and an already half expired timer, making it even harder to get your objectives done... Overall, I think this mode doesn't really work... Make it shared points at least... And perhaps try to make it truly endless.

----------------------------------------------

Another suggestion - Bring back true endless rathuum. That one life survival mode was awesome, it really pushed your builds. People complain that there's no endgame left, give us back endless rathuum and many people will be satisfied.

Edited October 22, 2016 by (PS4)Stealth_Cobra

[blackheartstar_pc]

As I posted in another thread:

A good change in my opinion would be to make it so that upon a kill you (as the killer) would be the only Tenno that can pick up the Index point dropped. Only upon your death could other Tenno steal your Index points. This would fix all of the issues I have with the Index in it's current state while maintaining the ability for others to rob their teammates.

As it stands this mode is only enjoyable to run solo as playing in groups is nothing more than a theft simulator.

Edited October 22, 2016 by blackheartstar_pc

[brokentool]

10 hours ago, plexus_brachialis said:

i don't know if this has been said but the announcer thing/person/whatever sounds like claptrap x_x 

the cephalon announcer. I actually made a search in the forum to see if someone already pointed this out.

[Racter]

After playing it more, I think this game type would be much more fun without the "friendly" specters, though to be fair at this point the only thing that actually kills me is the random aoe aimed at them. While I understand why this might be desired, dying to random aoe aimed at someone else is supremely unfun. Additionally, (at least in endurance mode) they are basically only there to feed the Corpus points. I also still think the game should just end when you hit your point target solo (Endurance variant), as sitting there hoping no one scores for 5+ minutes is not enjoyable.

Edited October 22, 2016 by Racter

[herflik]

The whole mechanic is useless with exception of new unique mods (will be using only the pet one anyway).

The problem with it is the time invested compared to the outcome. In the same time I can get 30k+ credits and other drops without even taking risk and pain of runing with limited energy/hp/shield etc.

First of all, you need to clearly inform the player about the downsides before the match start, so what debuffs you will have on you. I couldnt find the info except for looking at my stats with is handicaping the player. Though the gameplay there is super easy anyway, but it shouldnt on the long run, so the information should be vital.

Second problem is with the outcome. There should be 3 tiers of index:

- first one - up to 25 000 credits to invest - to be comparable with normal mission reward ("up to" means that player can decide by just writing the amount he want to invest or have a slider for that), common index mods can drop

-second one - up to 50 000 credits to invest - one negative modifier - stronger enemies - you take the risk you get more than in mission, uncommon index mods can drop

-third tier - up to 100 000 credits to invest - two negative modifiers - even stronger enemies - again risk versus reward scenario, rare index mods can drop

Also I would change the energy policy in there, removing what make each warframe unique from gameplay section is imo stupid as hell. Energy should be there as hard to get as in normal mission - so basicaly you should even regen 2 per sec or so. Turning the mode just to normal shotter is just asking the question "why I just dont go play FPS game?".

About the mods - stop making unique mods for specific gear - it make them useless.

[Domaik]

My feedback on the event, which is also my feedback on a very important aspect of the game:

Being one-shot is NOT FUN

I can't imagine for new people how hard it must be...I am a veteran player with decent min-maxed builds and frames. lots of formas. lots of maxed mods and primed mods. I have what takes to fight in end-game content comfortably. But the event is just unfair and unfun because I find myself barely able to walk before I get one-shot no matter how tanky I build my frames.

Anyways this is an on-going issue with the game where high-end content translates into being one-shot and having no chance to avoid or defend yourself, if you do take damage you are doomed. you must avoid all damage. I would rather have the possibility of being able to tank damage and have to avoid at critical times to avoid a big chunk being taken from me.

And that is avoiding the massive issue of playing this event with a team and losing all your money because people steal and turn in the points. even the specters do that but you can sort of manage better in solo with only specters than with other players. 

My girlfriend and I tried to do it duo with specters but we found the specters stealing all the points from our kills so we decided it was best to solo it and suffer through it alone.

Edited October 22, 2016 by Domaik

[Luditte]

afer host migration missions does not end, enemies does not spawn.  

well done digital extremes.

[Alenn_Tax]

I'm surprised no one mentioned this yet, but ...

As far as I understand, the enemies groups are premade; and I feel like they aren't balanced at all !

Namely, I feel like the Bursa and the Raptor -at least- shouldn't be in the same premade group. Each one of them is one step above the humanoid enemies in term of both threat and sturdiness, and keeping the both of them in the same premade group make said group harder than the others.

Edited October 22, 2016 by Alenn_Tax
grammar :-(

[SenariousNex]

I played an entire event and completed every stage solo and with group. I have to say that a few things bother me.

1) Risk vs reward is not properly calculated for the endurance run, for example it is significantly quicker to run 45k bronze run 4 times and receive 180k credits than it is to run gold 75k run once.  The # of index point requires doubles then quadruples and difficulty of enemies grows exponentially while the credit gain is increased by barely ~30-40% and , so there is no real reason for you to run the gold one unless only for exponential challenge.

possible solution: Calculate rewards with difficulty in mind 

                 using 45k as base for bronze (25 index, 1800 credits per index) 

                 have 95k reward for silver (50 index, 1900 credits per index)

                  and  200k reward for gold (100 index 2000 credits per index)  

                               naturally increase investment to match the reward.

2) Playing with a group is counter-productive. The easiest kills can be done in the beginning of  the mission, so you can quickly knock out your own 100 but if you want each of your team mates to complete 100 points. you would have to deal with enemies lvl 1000+  And since you can't give index to your team mates points, the whole thing becomes more arduous. It is currently more productive to quickly score your personal goal then donate points to enemy to quickly finish the mission and sink your team. In the time spent getting your entire team to get 100 points each, you can run EASILY 45k mission solo sixteen times and get 720k credits, since its only 25 points and those first 15 kills are super easy.

possible solution: Incentivize helping your team achieve their goal by multiplying the reward.

             if only you, yourself complete the personal goal on gold get 200k and for every one of your team mates completing it, earn additional 1.2 times reward multiplier. Since having each additional person complete it is exponentially more difficult, it should be rewarded as such.

            200k if you solo gold

            (200+200*1.2) = 440k if two people complete the goal

            (200+200*1.2+200*2.4) = 920k if three people complete the goal

            (200+200*1.2+200*2.4+200*3.6) = 1640k if your entire team completes it, Now if you think that's a lot, actually try having all 4 people get 100 points, it's not possible in a pug group.

           for silver the calculations would be 95k/209k/437k/779k  and bronze 45k/99k/207k/369k

             

3) Combat is ok. More variety of maps and enemies would be nice, such as silver grove specters, stalkers, or mechanic-less grineer bosses (why can't grineer participate). Maybe remove or limit raptors and bursas, no one likes them, they are tedious to fight.

 

 

Edited October 22, 2016 by SenariousNex

[Cloverdew]

I like Index after the last hotfix. Really fast source of credits for me  

I have played about 40 index mission, gain 10 points and help to kill mobs for others to collect points. Pretty fun!

Edited October 22, 2016 by Cloverdew
new

[Doc-Orange]

24 minutes ago, SenariousNex said:

2) Playing with a group is counter-productive.

You're right and this is a very sad fact.

[MobyTheDuck]

After playing more, I noticed that I'm not having fun. I'm doing almost the same as playing the normal game with several nerfs and cripples and not getting any rewards for it.

All the limitations to energy, health, modifiers, and the enemies massive eHP makes this a really annoying event unless you are playing with a cheese loadout. And I find this really funny to be honest, all these measures to stop cheesing, and it only made the cheesing strats effective.

If you get the robot only team on the endurance, its better to just abort the mission, the INSANE enemy scaling plus their already massive armor/shield/health values makes them basically invincible after you grab a few points.

The mod drop chance is using the regular drop chance from common mobs, 2%, plus 3 of them are rare mods, so getting these is a really small chance, unlike Kela or the Acolytes that have 100% drop chance. I can spend the entire match killing them and only end with one common mod. Either increase the drop chance to something like 10%-25%, or also add them as end of mission rewards, OR make them all uncommon mods and add them to a boss drop table (The Sergeant could get a rework hint hint)

The rewards are also terrible, spend credits to get credits, anyone that does sorties and raids now and then have no need for credits, even if I fully level all my R10/P10 mods, I still will have more than 20 million.

The Badge/Sigil look great, but the other reward being an exilus adapter, a feature pretty much forgotten.

Mods are pretty meh, the best one being the Detron one, but it does lower damage than the Sobek/Kittag ones and deals Magnetic damage, pretty much the worse damage type in the game.
The Tetra one barely gives it any benefit, being such a weak weapon and the bounces only work if they hit the level.
The Shield Charger boosts only BASE shields, makes the sentinel not do anything else for several seconds, has a long cooldown and currently modding for shields is a waste of mod space.
The pet regen mod is ok, but pets already have the melee life steal one, sentinels would benefit way more from it.
The Prova mod, is a charge attack mod, that deals fixed damage before reductions, maybe if the prova was a better weapon and if charge attacks would benefit from attack speed, that could be useful/fun to use.
The stagger mod doesnt works with the Quick Thinking stagger, straight into the trash, unless its a glitch.

Still, will look foward to the actual Index.