Uranus spy needs a serious rework

[Countess_Hapmuhr]

I'm on my forth try of spy missions for Uranus now. After I finish this topic, I'm going to cheat and look up the wiki and that's a serious fail on your part DE.

There's zero shinies, there's zero indications of where to go than A B or C. Really DE, I might be a Tenno since the goddamn Gradvius wars, but I need more than this to finish your pointlessly convoluted spy puzzles. I've done the previous ones with alot of joy, but these underwater ones are just pure "find the pixel that glows and shoot it" punishment, and that's not really spy. That's a dumb puzzle that you made just to stall for time. I'm sorry DE level designers for being this blunt, but right now there's one reactor in the balance and you got caught in the crossfire here.

 

This plain sucks, please fix it by making it MORE obvious. i'm sorry,but I'm less than 20/20 here. MAKE IT BLINK WITH NEON LETTERS!

 

 

[LycanPT]

Git Gud, One a more serious note: problem is you need to invest time into it, after you figure it out it is easier than the other conventional vaults and almost impossible to fail

[(PSN)jFresh215]

I agree that there should be a little more to go off of. But like all other spy vaults, these are easily mastered with a little time. 

[Countess_Hapmuhr]

 

LycanPT

Please supply tactical advice on how to "git gud". No really, seriously, if your answer is other than "spend X amount of hours memorizing the pointless underwater vortex system" , I deem your advice pointless. The normal vaults at least have cameras that are visible. This has no indicators whatsoever. So really, I take your "git gud" and substitute it with a wiki link. Because tha'ts all it amounts to.

Edited February 18, 2017 by Hap-muhr

[Epicagemo]

Can't wait to hear you complain about the moon Spy.

Uranus spy sucks, but it's doable, and I found my solution within 2-3 tries exploring the tileset. It sure as hell isn't as complicated as the moon.

[GRox_98]

If you are a noob on Uranus spy missions doesn't mean they need to rework it, just try much times and than you will do it with closed eyes.

[xXDeadsinxX]

Get gud, it's actually pretty easy my friend. Just practice.

[Countess_Hapmuhr]

Predictable. So far I've gotten a bunch of "try and spent more time on it" and "git gud" I should have posted this on Reddit instead. And I don't mean that as an insult to you players, but rather as a very pointed insult towards the level devs. This is lazy.

 

Edit: Also, to you who gave me "advice" ask yourselves this. If your advice doesn't actually contain tactics, is it advice, or just your admonishment that I need to beat this through trial and error? Because trial and error is basically a fail as far as level design goes.

Edited February 18, 2017 by Hap-muhr

[ArchPhaeton]

What vortexes? I just blow up the whole room with a Warhead. No vortexes, just drive the tunnels to the rather easy wallrun final part.

There's one that has a short way with lasers, a way below (aquatic) and a way above. With a bit of practice you can get the timing right for the direct path.

The tall tower one is a bit weird but you dont even have to shoot the pipe seals, there is a way up with only a couple timed laser sensors.

Edit: Agreed, they aren't as intuitive as other spy vaults.

Edited February 18, 2017 by ArchPhaeton

[KIREEK]

Mechanical difficulty was something DE has been adding into missions, they delivered.

[PoisonHD]

Water levels - Follow the yellow pipelines/wires/tubes (On one of the vaults, remember that, and to wait for the fan timing and you're basically good)

Room with a "tower" in the center - There are valves along the wall that you break, letting water in. You can swim up to the console afterward.

Last vault, there is an underwater route, and a on-land route.

- The underwater route has a series of breakable fans that you follow

- The on-land route is just some lasers with quick timing.

 

Horribly explained, but w/e

Edited February 18, 2017 by PoisonHD

[Snib]

Just like other spy vaults: Bring Limbo, take a relaxing stroll and you're done.

The only thing you need to know is that you can shoot out the fans in the underwater stage, easiest to bring a Fluctus and just AOE the tunnels and you're done.

The only thing that actually sucks about Uranus spy is the long travel times, bring Itzal to blink through the underwater portions faster.

[Nazrethim]

7 hours ago, Hap-muhr said:

Predictable. So far I've gotten a bunch of "try and spent more time on it" and "git gud" I should have posted this on Reddit instead. And I don't mean that as an insult to you players, but rather as a very pointed insult towards the level devs. This is lazy.

 

Edit: Also, to you who gave me "advice" ask yourselves this. If your advice doesn't actually contain tactics, is it advice, or just your admonishment that I need to beat this through trial and error? Because trial and error is basically a fail as far as level design goes.

Let me ask you a question.

Did you..

A)...try to force your way trough the Vaults guns ablazing?

B) ...try to force your way with invisibility?

C)...try to go slowly, observing the layout and seeking alternate paths, as a ninja?

 

One of these is the correct way of doing a Spy vault you are not familiar with. Take a wild guess. Not everything is RUSH RUSH RUSH.

[TheLexiConArtist]

Sealab Spy vaults are actually on the better-designed end in my opinion. No extra forced hacking or harshly-timed hacking unless you set off alarms if you follow the right paths, of which there are multiple.

The only thing I'd identify as a problem point is that jump up out of the water with sensors tracking along its surface. It can be a little difficult to tell precisely where you are, or when and where the uncancelable and dramatic water-exiting animation will throw you upwards, which has led to a couple alarm triggers that I didn't feel were entirely within my control to avoid.

 

11 hours ago, Hap-muhr said:

Predictable. So far I've gotten a bunch of "try and spent more time on it" and "git gud" I should have posted this on Reddit instead. And I don't mean that as an insult to you players, but rather as a very pointed insult towards the level devs. This is lazy.

This simply reads as stating "I shouldn't need to improve, the game should be designed such that I cannot fail". I'm sure that cannot be your intention.

My advice, there's a reason that Starchart Spy missions don't demand that you succeed on all three vaults. As long as you can succeed at one of them, even if it's through brute force with alarms blaring, you can fail the others and navigate paths through the vault to your heart's content. After all, there's always a way in, even in those that alter or black paths once alarms are triggered. Maybe you won't find all the paths, or the 'perfect' paths that way, but you can't argue that you won't know where you can go.

 

Is that still 'trial and error'? Maybe, but not even an outright failed mission... and failure conditions exist so that mistakes can be made and learned from.

[GnarlsDarkley]

13 hours ago, PoisonHD said:

Water levels - Follow the yellow pipelines/wires/tubes (On one of the vaults, remember that, and to wait for the fan timing and you're basically good)

Room with a "tower" in the center - There are valves along the wall that you break, letting water in. You can swim up to the console afterward.

Last vault, there is an underwater route, and a on-land route.

- The underwater route has a series of breakable fans that you follow

- The on-land route is just some lasers with quick timing.

mostly exactly that.

If you still struggle with Uranus (and maybe moon spy later) pm me and I'll try to explain it for you in detail (teamspeak/in mission routing)

[RICK_BO]

Only your Fourth try? Ha! Maybe they're not Glowing in neon colours but with even a bit of gaming sense they're obvious. I'm assuming you're talking about the Underwater vortex vault (Hey, this is my least liked vault too) but when you start the vault and the two little vents open up It's time for a little caution because you don't know what's coming. 

When you swim up to one of the vortexes, hold on a moment and you'll see it turns off in intervals. A curious glance at the fan causing the vortex shows shiney boxes in the corners, HMMM. Other sections have a clear alcove on the other side for you to swim into between blasts. Then the section after that is still active for a second after the current one to show you that there is a vortex in the next hall so you need to be aware. You can even see the next alcove you need to duck into before even moving from the first one. So you know where you need to go before even taking action. The next two vortex section dumps you out into open sea if you muck it up; which respawns you at the last checkpoint; Being right before you attempted the last section. Each of these vortexes can be shut down by observing them a bit. 

Which just dumps you cinematically at the final door to the vault. of course there are alternate routes to take, And with a bit of practice you can get through this maze without shutting any of the turbines down.

They might have a bit more going on than previous vaults, but hey; the games supposed to be getting more challenging. You're 3/4 the way through the star-chart by now. (just wait till you get to the disorienting Lua vaults and the oppressing Fortress vaults.)

[(XBOX)CannyJack]

Sealabs are the hardest for me still. Once I got Lua spy (using Limbo), it became a 10 minute mission, no risk of failure. Sealab still screws me over from time to time. 

Never done Kuva Fortress or Sortie spy, so I can't speak to any increased difficulty there. 

Edited February 20, 2017 by (XB1)CannyJack

[Snib]

59 minutes ago, (Xbox One)CannyJack said:

Never done Kuva Fortress or Sortie spy, so I can't speak to any increased difficulty there. 

There is zero difficulty with Kuva spy. All I heard is some people getting disoriented because it's multi-level, otherwise they're among the easiest spy vaults in the game.

Edited February 20, 2017 by Snib

[Omnipower]

8 minutes ago, Snib said:

There is zero difficulty with Kuva spy. All I heard is some people getting disoriented because it's multi-level, otherwise they're among the easiest spy vaults in the game.

Easiest? No, corpus is easiest followed by grineer, then sealab grineer, then after that its up in the air which goes before which between lua and kuva. I say kuva is easier since it doesnt require you going through TOO much lasers but it makes up with that by having a myriad of traps and guards in the vaults vs so many lasers and obstacle courses of lua. I can do all except kuva well since i rarely do it if at all(no reason to go do it outside sorties).

PS for clarification i meant i can do all the spy vaults not all their routes some are just too time consuming or hit the right sequence at the right time or risk starting over type deals. Im looking at you lua!

Edited February 20, 2017 by Omnipower

[Snib]

@Omnipower yeah well with the appropriate choice of frame none of that matters so I'm not even considering that when thinking about vaults, all I care about is the time it takes to do them. Lack of elevators and multiple panels to hack makes Kuva vaults quite fast to me because you can just race through most of them. Sealabs are certainly the slowest (for the entire mission, not the vaults themselves).

Edited February 20, 2017 by Snib

[midtarget]

On February 18, 2017 at 1:02 AM, Nazrethim said:

Let me ask you a question.

Did you..

A)...try to force your way trough the Vaults guns ablazing?

B) ...try to force your way with invisibility?

C)...try to go slowly, observing the layout and seeking alternate paths, as a ninja?

 

One of these is the correct way of doing a Spy vault you are not familiar with. Take a wild guess. Not everything is RUSH RUSH RUSH.

Yes, I do 3, but I keep finding parts that I think are correct and end up in a dead end or at the beginning, I do a lot of spy missions, and I know the if you are confused do this tricks, but those just lead me into dead ends

[Chipputer]

On 2/17/2017 at 7:22 PM, Hap-muhr said:

if your answer is other than "spend X amount of hours memorizing the pointless underwater vortex system" , I deem your advice pointless.

So the correct answer is pointless?

You'd rather go read someone else's results after they spent X amount of hours memorizing the pointless underwater vortex systems?

God, how did you handle your first job, then?

[(XBOX)CannyJack]

I skip as much of the underwater fan vortex as possible. Go in, get past the first fan, and find the first passage leading up. Then you hop out the water, wall run across above the shimmering magnetic alarm thing (the passage with the short walls extending from one side and then the other), and you're at the vault. 

The one that still stymies me every so often is the one that you can flood - mostly because it's like a new thing every time (I do sealab spy so infrequently, and for some reason I can never remember that one room). 

[(PSN)Tenchi145]

As A fellow tenno who completely despises puzzles i will agree that the grineer sealab tileset spy mission really rustled my jimmies when I first attempted them. With the introduction of Ivara into spy drop tables I learned quickly how to do them as I did not, or rather, felt that that the decreased population on the tileset would increase my odds of acquiring the part I desired.  I agree that the design team could have given us a bit more in way of hints of how to complete the vaults with stealth. Here is how I learned to get through each vault.

The vault with the tower in the center completely baffled me for over 12 runs until I figured out the the glass covering the pipes were breakable and flooded the room. each level has  2 pipes that must be broken to proceed to the next so you have to do this 3 times to access the terminal.

The vault with what seems to be either a hangar or distribution plant. This room has at most 4 guards in it and the first two can be completely skipped if you utilize speed, patience and the ventilation shafts.  Afterwards is a hallway with laser grids moving in this pattern UP(1), DOWN(2), UP(3). IMO Speed is your frenemy because move too fast and you'll mess up your timing and run into one of the grids or move too slow and get caught by a laser before making it out the grid's range. Once you make it to the end of the hallway there is another vent that you can break and this leads you right inside the vault and depending on frame you can either take out the guards or you can just hack the console and leave. If either of the aforementioned laser accidents do happen try not to panic and turn to the left and find the fan that is glowing as you will have dropped into the water and need to navigate quickly to the next console.  It is here that the sudden drop ,depending on if you got knocked down by the lasers, is very disorienting and has lead to many of my failed attempts at this vault because I'm going the wrong way. After breaking the aforementioned fan go through the new hole and turn left and navigate upwards.  If you find an exit you went the right way kill the two guards after you come out the water then hack the console.

The Final vault with the underwater fans.  UGH!!!!!! When I first dealt with this vault it brought up my memories of the Zelda: Ocarina of Time's Water Temple puzzle and I immediately quit the mission because....reasons.  Anyways after 16 attempts at this vault (and finally obtaining the grattler) this to me is the easiest of the vaults to complete.  It is time consuming using my method as I just recently learned the other route but since I'm a creature of habit this is how I handle it.  Hack the first terminal upon entering take the left entrance. After entering the water you simply follow the yellow data line to get to the console. Proceed to the first junction to shots to the middle on each side to disable the fan. move to next junction. Aim as close to glowing yellow recess in the wall to disable that fan(sneaky devs took me forever to learn not all fans have those breakable generators in front of them) Move to next juction. Pass by the fan in the middle of the next section as it isn't a threat(sometimes I blow it up for the lolz.) Next junction blast the fan generators again and move to the back wall looking down at the other fan. If you have the Itzal you can wait until the fan stops and aim up at the platorm and zip right outta there, but with odanata and the Amesha its a bit risky, while the Elytron is gonna get caught because its so darn slow.  Blast those generators out if you need to be on the safe side and hope on out. Hack the door. Then Hack the terminal and done.

Apologies your the wall of text but I really feel like these will help you complete those vaults better. and although they come off as snarky it is true.  Once you done these vaults over 20 times and ingrained the routes to memory you'll have no problems with them anymore. Could the devs have put better indicators in?  I believe so, but the data cable and the shimmering of the breakable bits is all that we have.  So attention to detail in your surroundings is the best way to go.

Edited February 24, 2017 by (PS4)Tenchi145

[Nazrethim]

41 minutes ago, (PS4)Tenchi145 said:

The vault with what seems to be either a hangar or distribution plant. This room has at most 4 guards in it and the first two can be completely skipped if you utilize speed, patience and the ventilation shafts.  Afterwards is a hallway with laser grids moving in this pattern UP(1), DOWN(2), UP(3). IMO Speed is your frenemy because move too fast and you'll mess up your timing and run into one of the grids or move too slow and get caught by a laser before making it out the grid's range. Once you make it to the end of the hallway there is another vent that you can break and this leads you right inside the vault and depending on frame you can either take out the guards or you can just hack the console and leave. If either of the aforementioned laser accidents do happen try not to panic and turn to the left and find the fan that is glowing as you will have dropped into the water and need to navigate quickly to the next console.  It is here that the sudden drop ,depending on if you got knocked down by the lasers, is very disorienting and has lead to many of my failed attempts at this vault because I'm going the wrong way. After breaking the aforementioned fan go through the new hole and turn left and navigate upwards.  If you find an exit you went the right way kill the two guards after you come out the water then hack the console.

The ceiling  of the "outter area" (where the first guard is) also has an opening that leads to a much slower and easier "laser grid moving part".

41 minutes ago, (PS4)Tenchi145 said:

but the data cable and the shimmering of the breakable bits is all that we have.  So attention to detail in your surroundings is the best way to go.

DE likes subtle cues. For example, in the Conclave Map for Cephalon Capture Corpus Outpost both sides seem identical... until you realise one side is bathed by sunlight (sun side) while the other is covered in the shadows of the mountain (moon side). Cephalon Spire Cephalon Capture map features the same, with the middle area glowing white, the sun and moon sides glowing golden and blue respectively.