The Index: A Few Things Terribly Wrong

[Pewpewnomnom]

Conceptually, i like the index. The gameplay is fun, it's thematically sound and the difficulty is approximately where it should be (probably, not here to talk about its difficulty).

However it's implementation fell short in some areas leading to the potential for punishing, broken, and abusable missions.

 

These problems result from the following:

Cross wager matchmaking- If I chose the bronze level wager, I could be matched with the gold level wager, silver, or any other combination of those 3.

Potential for going beyond wager- Also a potential for trolling. (I realize the vast majority of players wouldn't troll with this method, but it does happen.)

 

Description of problems resulting from aforementioned mechanics:

Both result in the punishment of randomly matched players. If a player chooses a high level wager and their group members choose not to participate after their lower wager is reached, they are at a severe disadvantage especially if those other members choose to afk as a result of the current mechanics and their wager being reached. 

If a player chooses a low wager and is matched with players who chose a high wager, after the first player's wager is reached, they are forced to participate in the mission for longer than they'd intended, potentially for levels they weren't ready for, or simply as an incredibly annoying waste of time. There's potential for a bronze risk player being matched with a group going for a high score- That player is now forced to abandon his wager, or be forced to sit in the mission for upwards of ten minutes with absolutely NO potential benefits yielded from the mission. This is the most regrettable aspect of these cross wager matches: should a low risk player help a high risk player with their wager, they receive nothing from the mission as a result beyond what they would've received for their own wager.

Since every index point added increases the timer (tenno points) or decreases the timer (anyo corp points), these mechanics compound each other to result in all the negative consequences above. The timer increase also allows the potential for trolling. A player could continue to 'bank' points to increase the timer for no other reason than to grief his teammates. 

This also happened to me as one deplorable man-child snickered in his microphone every time points were cashed. (I won't name names for TOS.)

 

Proposed fixes:

[[FIX 1] Best, simple fix for all of the above problems]: Extract/Continue option. If there was an extract/continue option implemented when a player's wager was reached. (Identical to the 5 round defense or 1 round interception extract/continue option) ALL of the above problems would be fixed. Since identical code infrastructure already exists for this in many other places in the game, I don't believe it would be an incredibly intensive work investment for DE as well.

[FIX 2] Simply REMOVE the potential for cross-wager matchmaking. This would eliminate many of the above described problems with the index.

[FIX 3] Add incentive for going beyond your wager. Numeric suggestions have been left ambiguous for balancing purposes. if there were a little value in running beyond mission time, this would be appreciated. This fix can even be combined with FIX 1 for the best player experience.

 

 

Minor (nearly irrelevant) problems as a side-note:

The mods drop way too frequently. A fix on this would be too late economically speaking.

Mastery gate is (in my opinion slightly) too low.

 

TL:DR

Adding extract/continue option on player wagers would VASTLY improve the index.