Making Mobile defense better

[Xekrin]

After finishing a solo void syndicate MD I had a few ideas to try and make it a little better.  

First off, change the name.  As mentioned probably many times Hijack is mobile defense than mobile defense is.  What we are doing is defending consoles in a stationary position.  Second, while there are many possible ways to actually change MD into a true mobile defense mission, I'm just going to try and improve what we already have available.  That said...

• Add rewards to the mission.  We are hacking and defending between 1 and 3 locations.  It would be a simple matter to add rotation rewards. 1 console = Rot C, 2 consoles = Rot B,C = 3 consoles Rot A,B,C.  Simple.  
  • Or just give 3 rewards regardless of consoles defended.
• Cut the time to defend in by one third or even one half of current required time.  They are too long, period.  They get boring.  Especially with the utter lack of mission rewards.  Other than alerts, syndicates etc.. there is little to no reason to play them over other Mission Types.
  • Yes MD offers a great farming solution, static enemy levels, endless enemies etc.. but that's beside the point, this is to fix the actual objective part of the mission.
• Scale the enemies somewhat gradually, increasing the level of enemies as time elapses.  
  • Perhaps every 10% of the duration, enemies go up a few levels with a multiplier making them harder and harder the less time remaining.
• Utilize more consoles.  This a tricky suggestion to explain but I'll try.  Each console initially hacked will activate a new console nearby(ish, perhaps a few rooms away) that must also be defended.  It will have a warmup period before enemies become aware that its a threat allowing us time to locate it.  Similarly the primary console will slowly power down, no longer requiring defense.  Each time 30% of the duration elapses, a new console will be triggered.
• Equip consoles with counter-measures that activate periodically.  
  • Near the console a security feature will activate which purges all tenno made defenses.  
  • Or it will spawn a mega boss of that faction that must be eliminated quickly.  This guardian would not attack the console.  Its purpose would be to eliminate tenno, not destroy valuable data of the faction.  The guardian could be any heavy or demi-boss of that faction (ie, not juggernaught ffs), which is different each time.
• Add more consoles, rather than 1,2 or 3.  Make it up to 6 or so.  With duration reduced and the console hopping making it a bit more versatile.
• Add mapped caches upon completing consoles.  Not the type where we much search and listen for sounds but one that is located via info gained through Lotus hacking the console.  It will only exist for a few minutes before being destroyed/locked away or some other thematic reason.  A possible mission rewards solution.
• Encourage more offensive forms of defense.  Rather than locking the room down with nova or limbo, the more enemies defeated during hacking has a more positive effect on the reward results or simply decreases hack time needed.  Something along those lines without actually being those lines.  Suggestions welcome.

That is all I can think of at the moment.  Feel free to dispute or add your own ideas.

Some ideas inspired by

I don't expect each and every suggestion to coalesce into a single mission, these are just ideas thrown around to get the juices flowing.  Any combination of above suggestions would substantially increase the quality of the mission IMO.  Especially some form of reward.

Edited May 6, 2017 by Xekrin

[taiiat]

it'd be great if Enemy response escalated over the Mission, so the first Console has some resistance, and the more of them there are, the higher the Enemy response.

as well as to contrast from other Gamemodes focused around Killing, over the course of those short couple minutes for each, Enemy Spawns should be nuts. and then the existing quieting down when a Console isn't active.

 

i am not against the idea of having much shorter Duration but many more Consoles across the Map Seed.

[Asdryu]

Yeah, changing the name could definitely be a starter... I just remembered that there's a defense on Uranus with basically with same traits: everytime you're done, you have to move onto the next console. NOTHING different except mobile defense ends because of a timer and defense ends because enemies failed their mission.

Mobile defense is the hybrid of a regular mission and an endless one, with both the bad parts on it.

[(PSN)XxDarkyanxX]

I feel like the room in which those console are located should trigger a Self-defence protocol as to detect and eliminate the potential danger that inserted a Foreign Data Mass in the console to begin with.

You know,
-cameras for corpus/Sensor for grineers
-Heavy turrets
-Disruption mechanism ( Basically a giant Nullifier wave that shatters existing powers and prevents you from using them any more for a short duration when it's fully charged )
-Insert other futuristic technology that won't damage the console, but that will make your life harder
-Enemies that Jams Lotus's signal and slows her down when interacting with the DataMass ( If that's how it works )
-Enemies that tags along the jammers and amplify the signal.

And while those exist, you can :
-Hack the camera system so that it sees the enemy as the potential danger and unleash a rain of bullets upon their head ( Helping you in the process of defending )
-Disable the Disruption mechanism so that it doesn't affect you or redirect an overloaded charge of energy in the adjacent rooms to nuke the enemies ( Protect the generator and you get a Double mobile defence.)
-Insert other futuristic counter-act to help you in your mission.
-Kill the bad jammers enemies
-Amplify Lotus's signal with dropped items from the other enemy ( Idk )

Well you get the idea, things that'll make you move out of that snowglobe and that you won't be able to shoot down from your comfy spot.


 

[UvBenServed]

1 hour ago, Xekrin said:

• Add rewards to the mission.  We are hacking and defending between 1 and 3 locations.  It would be a simple matter to add rotation rewards. 1 console = Rot C, 2 consoles = Rot B,C = 3 consoles Rot A,B,C.  Simple.  
  • Or just give 3 rewards regardless of consoles defended.

Take this and make it so you don't NEED to defend all 3 consoles (unless it's a sortie mission or something) and that would be good enough for me.

But just to throw out a few random ideas:

• If an enemy hacks into any security panels in same room as the current objective, it stops the hacking process until you're able to hack into that panel.
• Enemies randomly drop...something, which will allow you to hack into the console you're defending and shave a few seconds off the timer (10 seconds?)
• Something along the lines of "Data Recovery" might not be a bad name. Although maybe it should be a bit more...aggressive

[Xekrin]

1 hour ago, (PS4)XxDarkyanxX said:

And while those exist, you can :

These are all brilliant, rather than my concept of consoles defense hopping, instead you continue to defend one console while also having to race around locating other access panels to hack to turn off defenses and such.  I love it.

1 hour ago, UvBenServed said:

Enemies randomly drop...something, which will allow you to hack into the console you're defending and shave a few seconds off the timer (10 seconds?)

Except it would need to be used on a different console further away, a sort of stealth side mission for a single player to do while the rest defend.  One person (or two) have to race around gathering extra codes to insert into the mainframe to help the Lotus go faster.

Probably still not super difficult on its own, considering our powers of CC but it would definitely keep us hopping.  Maybe one of those extra codes occasionally releases a cache somewhere or something too.

[(PSN)XxDarkyanxX]

48 minutes ago, Xekrin said:

These are all brilliant, rather than my concept of consoles defense hopping, instead you continue to defend one console while also having to race around locating other access panels to hack to turn off defenses and such.  I love it.

Appreciate the review, it was mostly a brainstorm of what you wrote overall
Purging mechanism, Offensive approach, moving out of place

Which reminds me, here's an idea to go with the "Cache" suggestion you've made.

Quite possibly once the current console as been Datamined, Lotus may ( With a considerably fair % of chance ) disclose the estimate location of a resource Vault in form of a "Ping" ( I'm thinking of a very obvious Echo effect from the Vault location up to your current position every 2 minutes or so to give you an overall idea of where it is )
Lotus suggested course of action would be to investigate the Data location ( but you may leave if you aren't interested ).

Basically this could lead to finding special parts for a weapon or just an overall big amount of a certain resources and having to defend the agents sent by Lotus that will excavate ( Is that the correct word? ) the large amount of supplies found in the vault. ( And each squad member get a fair share at the end, meaning that if you managed to find the Vault solo, you'd get an overall bigger share, but it'll probably take twice the effort or time to do so since you're alone.)

I find this small event to be an interesting activity that keeps the theme of mobile defence, since you'll find yourself moving around to defend the agents and help with the transport to acquire a fair share of the finds. It's also a good way for Solo players to get their due rewards without making it obligatory for everyone to play solo.

Your thought? Would a Cache pinging system be better/more simple or do you find this quite interesting to mix with the whole Mobile defence idea?

Edited May 7, 2017 by (PS4)XxDarkyanxX

[AutoPhox]

Interesting ideas. But at this point id just bin the whole mission type and replace it with sabotage "2.5"; which could include some aspects OP suggests.