Sharpening our Razorbacks: a PC weekend post-mortem.

[Vulpei]

If you guys are going to make everyone use a cipher for a mission, the polymer bundle count needs to be reduced.  Originally I was fine with it because at the time I believed only one cipher was actually needed to run through the mission once.  Also, because only one cipher was needed this time around, the event was over really quickly.  I really doubt that the relay would have even been saved had it been 4 ciphers per run, and now the next time it's going to have x5 as much health AND require everyone to use a cipher...

Goodbye whatever relay gets attacked by Razorback next time.

[Drasiel]

This is great information but what about the polymer count required for the keys? It's rather high considering polymer is the rare uncommon resources.

[Hedasker]

On 15/05/2017 at 7:42 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

2) Easier hacking puzzles in the Razorback Arena

Wh... what !!!??? It was hard ??? For who ? LOL

 

You're adressing only half the problem. 3500 polymer for a one time consumable is insane. Why are you always attacking our stockpiles ?

[Lady_Khaos]

Hopefully the needed resource will actually drop for me next time...

[Lady_Khaos]

3 hours ago, Vulpei said:

If you guys are going to make everyone use a cipher for a mission, the polymer bundle count needs to be reduced.  Originally I was fine with it because at the time I believed only one cipher was actually needed to run through the mission once.  Also, because only one cipher was needed this time around, the event was over really quickly.  I really doubt that the relay would have even been saved had it been 4 ciphers per run, and now the next time it's going to have x5 as much health AND require everyone to use a cipher...

Goodbye whatever relay gets attacked by Razorback next time.

That's how much it took for solo players. Not seeing the issue. Heck, I couldn't even finish the 3 runs because the armada was wiped out too quickly.

[taiiat]

idunno the map wide lockdown is only really an issue for Players trying to W+M1 through the Mission. actually paying attention to what you're doing isn't really much to ask of the Player.

[Envixer]

I'm guessing it's safe to say there will be no reduction in cipher cost from DE.

It's easy:

1. Leave the strength as is, but disallow keyshare

2. Allow keyshare, and increase the armada strength

With the current list of solutions, and no word on the biggest complaint, l pretty sure we'll be left with a dead relay.

I mean, that's basic mathematics - Going in for the overkill solution will make the whole thing impossible.

If you want to avoid player toxicity, then tell us something definitive about the cipher cost.

[Xavier]

On 5/15/2017 at 11:42 AM, [DE]Rebecca said:

5) The Armada will have more global health for a longer stay (it should stay approximately 5x longer now).

6) Fixed the Razorback Cipher not being consumed for all players (it'll be removed at EOM). This will prevent abuse of not spending Ciphers and toxic moments that occurred as a result.

Since many players were exploiting a glitch in which Razorback Ciphers were not used, this greatly increased the available number of active ciphers, and thus the number of Razorback kills, for the event. I would urge DE to consider that 5x the current health for a 4-day duration with a reduced number of active ciphers / reduced number of active players could easily result in the event becoming much more difficult for the community than initially intended.

One major way to compensate for this, as many have pointed out, is to lower the polymer bundle requirement to build a single cipher. It felt rather excessive that I had to consistently farm more polymer bundles to continue contributing to the event. It is noteworthy that the exploit that allowed players to kill the Razorback without consuming a cipher may not have been so popular or catalyzed had farming the ciphers not been so difficult.

In both of these situations, it feels like the symptom (toxicity due to players exploiting the functionality of the ciphers *and* the relatively short duration of the event) is being treated without addressing the source of the issue. I feel that "cracking down" on these factors, which served to compensate for perceived difficulties with participating in the event, may be far more counterproductive than DE realizes at present. I hope, for the sake of DE and the community, that we do not have to learn this lesson empirically.

[RedShiftZero]

Apology in advance - this is almost entirely unrelated to this thread.
I just thought it might be the most direct way to reach out to a head of the community, and I wanted to voice a concern. 
In short, coming Fomorian threat invasion... 
We used to get 5 R5 cores - at the given conversion rate of 80 Endo per 1 R5 core, 400 Endo - and *often*. Perhaps even in addition to other loot sometimes?
Spacemom, your troops invested in plat on resource boosters to farm the resources for the keys for those invasions - just concerned about getting our money's worth in modern-day Endo rewards, just at the same rate it used to be. Nothing more - unless you're feeling generous, of course.
Anyway, if you've made it this far, thanks! Keep up the great updates this year, guys. Y'all really seem to be taking this new year seriously!

[somakasan1]

а может новый перс будет оборотнем?

прост предложил. :)

[mac10smg--Toa_of_Green]

Honestly, something like 2x longer or even 1.5x longer would be sufficient enough.

5x longer is just begging for Relay destruction.

[Feynt]

On 2017-5-15 at 1:42 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

6) Fixed the Razorback Cipher not being consumed for all players (it'll be removed at EOM). This will prevent abuse of not spending Ciphers and toxic moments that occurred as a result.
 

I actually liked that only one person's key would be removed, and considered the host's consuming everyone else's a bug.  >P

I understand the change and the intention, but the cost of a cipher is....   ridiculous...

[Ikusias]

@[DE]Rebecca

thx for the "fixes" but two words sum the situation perfectly:

TOO LATE

While most of the fixes solve the main problems about drops, other issues remain unaddressed:

- disappointing boss fight depending on puzzle mechanics to "solve" a boss that's invulnerable to damage 100% of the fight - all damage is from the hacked bursas;

- cramped tile, one of the bigger hangars from the corpus spaceship would be a much better fit after a bit of renovation;

- bugs fixed after the event - couldn't the fixes be applied during the event or the event itself being prolonged? this feels like salt on the wounds;

- fixing cipers and increasing 5x fleet health will prove overkill - also players burnout, next razorback armada will have much worse attendance;

- cipers cost needs a drastic nerf or a change of resource and aquisition: most players despise archwing and forcing them in it isn't a good way to promote it;

To reiterate in general all fixes were:

TOO LITTLE TOO LATE

Overall the entire boosfight still needs to be revamped:

- dedicated tile/arena, much bigger spaces to let the razorback let rip with all its arsenal;

- more dinamic and aggressive boss behaviour, with use of pillars, obstacles and in general more dinamism like the hiena pack drones behaviour;

- invulnerability needs to go, as well as serial bursa hacking, this isn't Grand Teft Auto or Saints Row, the fight can be gated in different ways;

- external shield generators in the arena that need disabling to open the boss to damage;

- ablative armor sections on the boss, to have a visual feedback of damage done, from pristine to stripped, wrecked and then charred;

- multiple razorbaks in the arena, with the corpus launching more and more to prevent their destruction in their cargo cradles;

- an entire large tile only of Razorback cargo cradles ready for transfer to boardin shuttles/ teleporters activating one after the other;

- facing the bosses in multiple tiles on the corpus ship before launch, and in a desperate last ditch defense inside the relay;

If I can come up with this may ideas in 5 minutes surely your entire creative staff can do much better than this - currently the very idea of doing again this event as currently is feels quite unpalatable if not revolting - even after fixes.

YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS

[._.-._.]

On 5/16/2017 at 0:42 AM, [DE]Rebecca said:

5) The Armada will have more global health for a longer stay (it should stay approximately 5x longer now).

not until the relay reconstruction is on, in case of razorbacks going to destroy a relay, 'permanently'

yet anyone wants to witness the razorback attacking relay

 

so epic

 

yet that's not going to stop anyone after drinking ^{greedy milks} and being 'greedy' to farm puncture set, gorgon wraith parts, promising rewards (as in huge credits, a CRAFTED potato)

[SprinKah]

On 5/16/2017 at 1:32 AM, Rekalty said:

I mean, if they WANT the relays destroyed, this is the right move. But yeah, doing nothing at all after the previous event, even though they were told about pretty much the exact same issues, and then AFTER this event is over, saying that they'll fix it for the NEXT time... I'm sure they could have handled it worse than this, but I fail to see how.

 

I am curious to see what Nef has to say when the relays get destroyed I tell you that.

Also, 1 relay is good enough, don't need 3...it's a good push for them to make relays more...individualized. Like the Earth one.

[SprinKah]

On 6/1/2017 at 0:26 AM, Primbone said:

not until the relay reconstruction is on, in case of razorbacks going to destroy a relay, 'permanently'

yet anyone wants to witness the razorback attacking relay

 

so epic

 

yet that's not going to stop anyone after drinking ^{greedy milks} and being 'greedy' to farm puncture set, gorgon wraith parts, promising rewards (as in huge credits, a CRAFTED potato)

 

I dunno about you but puncture mods suck...I don't see why people would want them...I mean they're decent but physical damage types are not as good as elemental damage types sometimes that's for sure

 

Slash is the best one but...the slash mods don't contribute to slash damage over time...seriously.

[._.-._.]

1 hour ago, SprinKah said:

I dunno about you but puncture mods suck...I don't see why people would want them...I mean they're decent but physical damage types are not as good as elemental damage types sometimes that's for sure

 

Slash is the best one but...the slash mods don't contribute to slash damage over time...seriously.

i neither know about you

[SprinKah]

5 minutes ago, Primbone said:

i neither know about you

yeah no one knows about anyone here chap.

[._.-._.]

heh, who am i kiddin

there is always an ambitious farmers out there, regardless, for selling them for fortune of plats, or whatever they want to do

[Linisti]

Thank you so much, I was afraid nobody was going to get a chance to get the puncture mods, what with everyone on warframe all trying to kill the razorback and draining its health.

[LordPreda]

One change I would recommend for the next Armada is the removal of multiple health bars on the Razorback. It does not use the Jackal's mechanic of separately vulnerable arms and legs, so the separate health bars serve only to confuse a player who wishes to gauge out its health status.

Another thing I'd like to see is faster rocket barrage. Those things move too slowly, but they are not destructible and can't be hidden from behind the level geometry. So make them faster and less distracting.

[-Temp0-]

Quote

Wh... what !!!??? It was hard ??? For who ? LOL

It's wasn't "hard" it was tedious. After you've done it 50, 100 times you don't want to solve it ever again.

I'm one of those people that don't like to waste resources (even normal ciphers, health or energy pads) and generally like spy missions and hacking process, but when I was farming Razorback the first time it appeared I used ciphers a lot, especially in the second half of the event. That's even with the fact that I never bothered to hack panels to let Bursas out and skipped that part which means even less hacking involved it still made me sick in the end of the event just by looking at the corpus consoles.

[MirageKnight]

For the next Razorback event, I very much want to see what is effectively Jackal Boss Fight v2.0 SCRAPPED.

Why? Because it's boring, tedious, uninspired, and irritating.

Boring and tedious because of the grind you have to undertake to "enjoy the privilege" of fighting Razorback. The fight itself isn't even that interesting anyway. Big boss that shuffles around like a caged animal that occasionally shoots at you and tries to grind you underfoot. Release and hack Bursa, wait for Bursa to do damage, fire a few shots yourself, repeat ad nauseum.

Uninspired because it's basically just the Jackal boss fight with a bigger boss in a slightly larger arena and a couple of gimmicks thrown in for good measure.

Irritating because you have to hack Bursas - one of the most annoying units in existence - to negate an arbitrary invulnerability phase. All while under fire. Then there's the low drop rates for the rewards...

But is this event hard or challenging? Not in the slightest - especially with decent gear and teammates.

Aside from what amounts to a collectable MR3 bullet hose, the rewards are...interesting, but the drop rates are very low and necessitate a fair bit of grinding the mission alone. Having to run this fight several times will get fairly expensive with all the ciphers you'll be building. For me...the rewards aren't worth the tedious grind involved and seeing as it's been hinted that DE doesn't seem to want the targeted Relay to fall...there's no real incentive for me to want to put up with everything that's wrong with the event and just slog through. There's no real consequence to me or anyone else completely ignoring all this, except missing an opportunity to pick up some rare mods and parts for a rare MR3 gun...things that you could trade for ANYWAY.

Yes I do care about the new player experience, but honestly it was never really threatened: DE's not stupid enough to allow that to happen and they'd have to have a contingency plan in place. And if the Corpus did actually capture it...so what? We can always take it back, right?

I strongly feel that the Razorback event, as it stands now, really needs to go. But what should it be replaced with then? The answer is replace with something better and more dynamic that makes sense.

So here's a suggestion. DE, please give us an event where we're fighting on the surface of a planet and we're protecting a colony settlement from a Razorback and its escort. Or perhaps we're trying to destroy it before it can be loaded onto a ship to be used elsewhere. Either way, Razorback needs to be fought in a very open area, where it can try and chase us and hunt us down. Give it heavy damage resistance unless you take out an exposed system that shuts down its shields, all the while fighting off escorts / guard units intent on protecting the Razorback. Heck, I can even see this being used in a Plains of Eidelon-type setting, with us using our Archwing gear - if we want - to allow us to engage Razorback from above. As far as rewards are concerned, they should be Corpus-themed - as in mods and gear that the Corpus would use against any enemies they'd face. The Gorgon Wraith is a Red Veil-modified Grineer built and designed weapon. Why would parts for it drop from a giant Corpus proxy? That doesn't even make sense. Have it drop resources that make sense (Fieldron Samples, Circuits, Controller modules, Salvage) and parts for a special Corpus weapon that would be a part of the Razorback's own loadout...say that upcoming Corpus shotgun or something new.

But really, the current iteration of the Razorback event needs to be completely redone.

 

[RickyZen]

another fix, another improvement..
another way to scratch my back with Armada's event..
love this event, not only it gives me new challenge but also Gorgon Wraith and some Bore mod..

[polarity]

Will we be able to keep our Ciphers and ALUs after the event has ended, to use in the next one (or will that throw off your estimates for how fast to progress the mission in the time alloted)?

Ciphers do constitute a considerable Polymer Bundle investment after all, for those of us who made stacks of them.

Also, could we get 10x cipher blueprints (also for the fomorian event), so we don't have to baby-sit the foundry for hours (I managed 80 runs, so I literally spent 80 minutes waiting for one to finish so I could start the next. doing them between missions isn't really any more efficient, because you still have to hop through all the menus).

As for the fight itself, get rid of the health-bars for the legs, as only the bursas can damage them, and it confuses a lot of players into thinking it's exactly like the Jackal fight.