A Syndicate Assassination Proposal

[Casval_Rouge]

TLDR:  Sorry this have too many essential details to be shorten to a few sentences.  But this is about what Syndicate Assassination could be.

 

This thread is about an idea I have for Syndicate Assassination.  Which indeed is an upcoming feature, so this is not really feedback, just me wanting to share some ideas I have.  Hopefully it is as interesting to you as it is to me. 

Again obviously I have no concrete info on what it really is since it seems DE are still working on it and haven't reveal much.  This is all just base on the impressions it have on me, and subsequently my interpretation of what DE is trying to do with it.  So let's get to it.

Firstly is the structure and goal of Syndicate Assassination.  My interpretation is that it is a procedural mission chain that aims to encourage clan members cooperation and make use of the star map via the syndicate system.  It is likely compose of multiple missions, which all culminates into the climatic assassination mission against procedurally created target(s).  

To make it clear what my idea is, I'm going to split the entire system into multiple phases, from the beginning (clan accepting assassination contract from a syndicate), to the end (assassination complete).

 

Phase 1 -  Once a clan decided on which contract to take up, the clan must first plan out how they would tackle this contract base on the intel they are given upon accepting the contract.  Below is an example of what they could be given, although the amount and degree of verity varies with each contract.

• The Perrin Sequence Contract
• Target: Batoo Thand
• Affiliation: Corpus Corporate Spymaster
• Known locations: Sighted in Venus and Jupiter
• Threat level: ???
• Info: Batoo is believed to be a prolific spymaster who have orchestrated multiple espionage missions against corporations with his spies in order to sell highly classified information to competing companies neglectfully.  His reckless actions have negatively impact trade relations and trust.  Batoo must be removed as soon as possible to prevent further damage.

The above dossier provides the necessary info to begin planning the clan's operation.  The words in bold offers the key information on this contract.  Firstly the name obviously confirms the target.  Affiliation provides the intel on what faction of enemies the clan might face.  In this case is Corpus.  Known location will indicate the system the target will be in.  In this case we have two locations, so in order to pinpoint the target, the clan must acquire a more accurate info.  Threat level determines the levels the enemies will be in.  In this case there are no confirmation and the clan might want to consider confirming.  All these info, available or otherwise will determine the possible options the clan will have in taking on this contract.  Again, the truthfulness and amount of info can vary, which in turn changes what options are available.

Phase 2 -  Now it is time for the clan to acquire the necessary intel to assassination the target.  In this example the clan lacks the location of the target, which is obviously required.  The clan have two options (could be more) in acquiring the intel.  

1.  Hack into known Corpus corporation servers to find possible traces of the target's whereabouts - Spy mission.
2.  Upload false messages to Corpus servers to lure out the target - Deception mission.

Whichever choice you choose, a successful mission will generate the next step of the operation.  However completing the mission does not guarantee you can immediately attempt the assassination.  In fact in most cases this would not be enough to pinpoint the target.  But should provide insight on which system the target is in and a lead to what to do next.  In this case we found out Batoo is definitely in Venus, and we know he have agents in Ishtar.  Now we must find out his exact location.  We have 2 ways (again could be more) to proceed.

1.   Flush Batoo out of hiding by sabotaging his assets and generate chaos - Sabotage.
2.   Hack into Batoo's heavily guarded servers to find intel on his whereabouts, due to the defensive measures he have setup in precaution, we need to cause a distraction to hide our true motives - Survival.

Again whichever choice you choose, a successful mission will generate a possible lead.  In this case, thanks to your efforts, we have finally located Batoo's current hiding spot.  We can finally attempt our assassination.  Meaning this is the final mission of this operation.

Phase 3 - Assassination time.

1.   Infiltrate Batoo's mobile base and assassinate him.

  Once you've defeated Batoo Thand, the contract is completed, the clan gets its just reward.  HOWEVER...

 

Above is the just core structure of the operation, but it is not this simple.  At any point during the operation, the clan can conduct side missions to acquire optional intel on the target.  In this example we didn't know of the threat Batoo processes.  It is ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE that the final mission might be too difficult for the clan to complete, EVEN WHEN PREPARED FOR.  And because failure have consequences (more on this later), a clan might not want to go in a mission without gauging the threat level and properly prepare for what is to come.  They might even want to consider forfeiting the contract to reduce the negative impacts on their Notoriety (more on this later).  The clan can send different teams to complete randomly generated missions to ascertain the threat (Enemy levels, and possible modifiers from Nightmare and Sortie that makes sense).  Each successful mission will increase the accuracy of the intel on the final mission.  Once a basic level of understand of the threat is obtain, the clan can now also perform operations to reduce the threats.  So if the mission ID the enemy levels, you can conduct another mission to reduce it for the final mission.  If you found out the possible modifiers, you can take on a mission to remove one of them from the pool.  The clan can essential keep performing these optional missions until they are absolutely confident they can tackle this final mission.  HOWEVER...

Nothing is this simple.  You cannot just simply keep doing missions to reduce the difficulty down to trivial levels.  Besides a hard cap on minimums base on the contract's base values (determined by clan's Notoriety), there is another aspect to worry about.  

1.  Suspicion
2.  Preparation

The more missions you conduct against the target, the more time you take within (not between) each mission, AND the more time you remain detected in each mission raises Suspicion and Preparation levels.  These two hidden values will modifier the final mission's values.  Time to complete each mission will raise Preparation, which will increases the amount of enemies, even high tier ones like Eximus in the final mission. Suspicion will be raised by time remain detected.  That is the time in total the alarm is set off in a mission.  Higher Suspicion will increase the levels of any missions of any phases, including any optional ones and final mission.  Amount of missions will increase both, including failed missions. Therefore the longer you take, the more overt your actions are, the less effective your actions are, the more suspicious the target becomes and he will reinforce his assets with better security.  Meaning there is a point where further missions will just negate your effort and therefore wasting your own time, unless of course you are still missing essential info and ergo must continue to conduct essential missions.  Concerning mission types and how they affect Preparation/Suspicion will be later down below.

All of this essential and optional missions will shape how your entire operation will be like.  The clan will be free to decide how to take on their contracts, how many teams to deploy on various missions simultaneously (only one essential mission at a time) or one after another to properly gauge the situation, who to take on the tough ones, who to take on the easier, optional ones.  It is even possible to complete all of this solo.   And all of this will be reflected at the end of the contract, the rewards.  The rewards will be given out to the clan at a fixed rate.  The more failure AND downs will reduce the final payout.  Including the difficulty increase from failures, you definitely don't want to botch any mission during the entire operation, and should practice good preparation and planning to maximize reward.  Lastly the clan will be given a raise in their Reputation and Notoriety. 

Depending on the final Suspicion and Preparation levels, this will change the clan's Reputation and Notoriety.  Notoriety is a linear progression where the higher the clan rank is, the higher the range of difficulty is offered in the pool of contracts posted.  Meaning even the highest tier of clans can still find low level contracts for newbie clan members to perform.  But higher their rank is, the more difficult and rewarding contract will be available.  Poorly conducted Operations could potentially negate or even lower your Notoriety, rather than raising it.  Bigger contracts will have a bigger impact.  Reputation on the other hand is more like a see-saw.  The lower the final Suspicion value is, the more your Reputation will shift towards a stealth appropriate title.  Vice versa if your Suspicion level is high, your Reputation will shift towards one more appropriate for brute force and carnage nature.  As you rank up in each side of the spectrum by completing more contracts while staying in one side or the middle of the see-saw, your clan will earn titles for your clan, sigils, glyph and more. 

As for the logistic and planning for clans.  Each clan will need to construction a room design for Operation planning.  This room will contain multiple terminals for members to access to check on each contract's (maybe you can take on multiple at once) dossier.  The dossier will be updated every time a mission in relationship to it is completed or failed.  There will be a log containing all the mission history, important stats like total time, time under alarm, who took part in which mission etc.  So that the clan can better approximate the effects it had on the operation and can better prepare for future missions. 

 

Finally (phew...) I want to elaborate on the design side of things.  Primarily about how missions will be generated.  Because of the nature of most missions, many of them can be given context in line with intel gather, and destruction.  Therefore the possibility of mission types is very large.  IE.  To locate the target, the available missions in the pool can range from Spy to Defense.  "Defend and acquire this artifact so we can pretend to sell this to the target, therefore luring him out of hiding", etc.  For lower difficulty, it could be Sabotage, Interception, elimination, etc.  Again finding context for each mission is not difficult.  And also because of the nature of each mission, their impact on Suspicion and Preparation varies, thereby giving weight and importance to each decision.  Which mission to take will always lead to the final mission, but the importance is how you got there, and how you did it.  This also means Archwing incorporation is a very high possibility.  If DE wants to include more incentive to play Archwing content, this is perfect for it.  They can be always optional missions, and they are always one of the possible choices.  Furthermore missions can take place in any systems, with any levels, types, enemies, modifiers, etc.  Meaning any tile sets, mission types can be given more usage without trying to "fix" the Star map with set in stone missions.  You can even expand this further by adding random optional intel that leads to optional rewards.  "In the intel we stole, we've located a hidden cache containing powerful artifacts", then you can choose to conduct this optional mission to acquire said reward (Lens, Endo, Riven Mods, whatever).  With all that, while in the example given I've only given 2 options per phase, the amount of phases, the amount of essential missions can be tweaked and randomized, provided that the Suspicion and Preparation values are scaled to it properly.  But a min-max cap to each contract should fix that.  So an Operation can last many phases (8 or more for very high tier contracts?).  And can take even days or beyond to complete.

Now about mission types and how they affect Preparation and Suspicion.  Missions with fixed time (Mobile Defense, Survival) will have a fixed impact on the values.  They will all raise both values a bit.  Meaning they are perfect choice for players who prefer not to speedrun the game as much as others.  Missions without any fixed timer (Eliminations, Spy, Sabotage, Capture, Rescue, Excavation, Defense, Interception) will have a varying degree of impact.  So Capture or Rescue's impact will be affected by your time much more than Excavation or Interception which does have a fixed required completion target, although in their cases the total time can vary if you can't even protect the excavator, or hold the points.  So again we have the extreme speedrunning missions for some group of players, the completely fixed and consistent for the opposite side, and missions right in the middle of those who prefer a happy median.  No forcing of Speedrunning here.  The same can be said about Suspicion.  If the missions aren't possible with stealth, then the values are fixed.  But if the mission allows stealth, a perfect stealth run will completely negate Suspicion from rising, but you might risk Preparation rising if you take too long, offering a risk and reward in those choices.  So while whatever mission type completed will always give you the intended progression in the Operation, the choices will always impact it.     

 

Anyway, I'm done.  This is probably already too long of a post.  But I hope some of you would like to see this in Warframe, I think it is pretty cool and fits with DE's aim for providing challenging, long term systems for the game.  Or maybe DE already have something better in the works.  In which case, even better for everyone.                                

 

 

Edited January 21, 2017 by Casval_Rouge