The Jordas Verdict + Pherlica Pods, time for change

[TaylorsContraction]

Before going into a detailed explanation of why I'm asking, let me state what I am asking.

Wonderful Pherliac Pods will activate (draw out) any esophage in the Jordas Verdict trial when placed near them.

Where is this coming from, the tedium of doing the same puzzles. The problem with Warframe trials (raids) is that they are puzzle based instead of action based. The problem with puzzles that are not dynamic is they get stale pretty fast. A puzzle in RPG's is fun when you do a single playthrough, it adds an element of discovery and "feelsgoodman I managed to solve a puzzle". Dynamic puzzles like a rubix cube get pretty stale too, that's why most people that stick with it then try to do speed runs, it's the only way to keep the puzzle challenging for a bit longer. But in Warframe trials we do the same puzzle hundreds of times...without anything new. It becomes "just going through the motions". And because it isn't action oriented we aren't even using our awesome warframes and guns while this is happening.

As a result of this tedium players have been using skips in the JV trials since week 1. And to this day players are using skips (exploits in the environment or abilities that allows them to bypass some of the puzzles) for the sake of finishing the trial a minute or three faster. This "skip" mentality and approach that is prevalent is a symptom of a poor design choice. WF devs have admitted to making mistakes occasionally and sadly the approach to trials being puzzles versus action is definitely a mistake, one that they are changing with eidolons hopefully. The worst thing that can happen is that eidolons are actually just a puzzle and once you solve it, they become a "going through the motions" like JV and LoR  I hope that's not the case.

 

The second problem is how the pherliac pods are totally useless despite being Jordas' favorite thing. When our armor integrity drops to 0, that's all he ever talks about, his "wonderful pherliac pods". In the Jordas Golem Quest he also only wanted one thing, these pods. I have tried using these pods in a misison where they would be most useful, defection, both during and out of the event. Well guess what these pods do not lure the infested away from the lemmings, thus they offer no tactical advantage in the one mission they'd be good for. Giving pherliac pods the unique interaction with the esophages in JV will give them a use and will give experienced trial runners a LEGIT SKIP, an alternative approach to solving / bypassing some of the puzzles. I sincerely hope you will consider this, I know you guys hate working on trials because so few of us run them. But I also hope you learn from this mistake and in the future end-game content will be much more action oriented than puzzle.

[-Temp0-]

The main problem with raids is that they're buggy af and the same p2p which leads to lags on top of bugs. When you lag so much you can barely move or bug that not even /unstuck can save you thinking about anything esle is pretty pointless.

And JV's whole third stage should be freaking reworked into a boss fight or something else. It's such an awful design that half of the palyers that been doing the raid still have no clue what to do there.

Quote

I sincerely hope you will consider this, I know you guys hate working on trials because so few of us run them.

False. Plenty run them, it's not conclave. Just few actually like to do it because of how godawful they are and how cancerous public raids are, especially Jordas.

Edited September 17, 2017 by -Temp0-

[Radagosh]

24 minutes ago, TaylorsContraction said:

The second problem is how the pherliac pods are totally useless despite being Jordas' favorite thing.

2

They aren't useless at all, you can use them to ev in nm lor. Joking aside, there will always be people that use "black magic" just because it's faster. Even if the pods would summon esophages, it would still be faster to glitch through some walls than to hassle with filling batteries and such. Now I'm not saying it's okay to glitch but I'm saying people will always go for the easiest and fastest way.

Now we could argue that DE has to fix the glitches, which they are doing. I remember a time when we could skip the decryption and kill Jordas w/o going inside. However, everytime they fix something (e.g. Nezha or Titania) something new emerges (hey there Nova o/).

[TaylorsContraction]

Just now, Radagosh said:

They aren't useless at all, you can use them to ev in nm lor. Joking aside, there will always be people that use "black magic" just because it's faster. Even if the pods would summon esophages, it would still be faster to glitch through some walls than to hassle with filling batteries and such. Now I'm not saying it's okay to glitch but I'm saying people will always go for the easiest and fastest way.

Now we could argue that DE has to fix the glitches, which they are doing. I remember a time when we could skip the decryption and kill Jordas w/o going inside. However, everytime they fix something (e.g. Nezha or Titania) something new emerges (hey there Nova o/).

I feel like your post is beside the point. We shouldn't alleviate the puzzle tedium because people will use skips regardless? I don't agree with this mentality, it would be a nice interaction with plenty of bugs I'm sure upon implemention (if they aren't careful with the nerve 2 eso that pulls in the vaporizer for example).

And any spectre sumoned in nm lor can be ev'ed.

[Radagosh]

11 minutes ago, TaylorsContraction said:

We shouldn't alleviate the puzzle tedium because people will use skips regardless?

 

summoning the esophages wouldn't change much imo. All it does is skip the battery filling process, which isn't hard at all if you have an injector (which should be removed especially with PoE taking away another 3 gear slots) and know what you're doing. However, knowing what you're doing is the real problem. JV is a huge clusterfuck introducing new mechanics that are never explained just let ordis say something like "I wonder what happens if we fill this and shoot that" and use some markers to show what we're supposed to do or give some hints. Especially on the inside of Jordas...

Again summoning the esos wouldn't save as much time so glitchers would still use glitches, while the newer people your fix is directed to would still not understand what they needed to do on the Golem's inside even with skippable batteries.

[TaylorsContraction]

Being able to summon esophages provides the following puzzle skips. I'm typing this to refute you opinion that controlling esophages doesn't offer speed up.

 

Nerve 1, allows us not to bother filling bottom vape, then hacking two consoles just to get to the nerve 1 room.

Nerve 2, allows players to access behind glass button without waiting for vape fill in the container. Typical issue is always the delay before esophages can be used. By the time they are interactable and carry you into the glassed off room, the hacked terminal expires (due to filled vape expiring) forcing players to repeat the process. Currently this is entirely skipped in general with players just opening the nerve 2 lower door and not bothering with this entire section.

I'm the nerve 2 room you can summon the eso without hacking and filling Vapes, an exercise in time waste management.

Lastly for nerve 3 it allows players to open the glassed off container with ease and access the nerve 3 room without all the buggy esophage interactions. Currently players skip this entire puzzle by just going straight into the nerve 3 room.

My suggestion offered significant speed up using legit boosts at the cost of a great slot. Just because people have existing skips that exploit some game mechanics doesn't mean this isn't a positive change.

Naturally people using exploit skips will now be able to run it even faster but there is nothing I can do about this approach to trials.