Why the Elite Onslaught Changes are Healthy (beware of opinions)

[DrBorris]

I have jumped around on both sides of this topic quite a few times already since the workshop a few hours ago but I think I am settling on the "it was good" side which I know is going to push a few buttons, but here is my reasoning.

 

It all comes down to what DE always intended for the game mode to be, a short(er) arcade mission.

 

Onslaught was never intended to be the new endurance mode, we have known this ever since the first time it was announced. It is/was supposed to be a short intense arcade experience. So when people started pushing over an hour into the mission, the only thing stopping them being broken enemy spawns (which DE will eventually fix), DE was bound to make a change. Elite Onslaught was never meant to be a test of endurance, it was meant to be a test of our short-term mass killing potential.

With the changes DE has basically made it impossible to go forever, and that is good. It is going to make it more competitive for those who go for high-sore, not less. Now the difference will be less about how many hours you could spend in a mission (ala Survival) but more about your efficiency (heh) in a short mission.

Yes, you are going to be forced out of Elite Onslaught a lot faster than before the patch, but that is the point. It is going to become more of trying to squeeze every last point out of the rounds you have then pushing for endurance.

 

I have been preaching around the Forums about how you should not try to rework an endurance mode into something it is not. Every time someone says "Hey, make Kuva Survival super hard but only last 20 min" I quickly respond with "then you don't want to play a Survival, Survival is for.... survival." But in the case of Onslaught I have to be on the opposite side. Onslaught is NOT supposed to be Endurance, it is supposed to be fast and we should not try to twist and reform Onslaught into something it is not intended to be.

On that note though... can we please have Kuva Survival encourage endurance?

 

(Also, getting to zone 8 is nearly unchanged as are Focus rewards. So nothing about the "grind" of Onslaught actually changed, the only thing that changed is the leader-boards.)

 

Edit: Link to the last devstream where they described Onslaught as "arcade bite sized content"

Spoiler

38:23

 

Edited April 26, 2018 by DrBorris

[Blade_Wolf_16]

The problem is that nobody is looking for long runs of Defense/Survivals/Index anymore. There is just no reason to stay for an hour when you can get the stuff you want more easely by repeating the mission at 0 cost. 

Onslaught is new, challenging, fresh. It's something that players want to try and see how far they can go since they already did this in other endless missions until they got bored. It's a challenge with better rewards than most missions (aka radiant relics, very old weapons, etc.), so why would DE make it impossible to stay for long runs when it's what Vets wanted?

Being forced to redo missions over and over again is what people don't like. If long runs were worth the time/rewards, I'm sure that a lot of people would still be doing those. Problem is that since the Relic system was added and consumable Void Keys were removed, long runs are just as effective if not less than short ones. 

 

A challenge should stop when you reach your limit, not when the game is programmed to stop you at a certain point. 

[MobyTheDuck]

Onslaught is like running the 100m. Short, but explosive.

The thing is, you dont break the athletes knees then taunt them to complete the run to be rewarded, while you poke their now showing bones.

[rune_me]

2 minutes ago, MobyTheDuck said:

The thing is, you dont break the athletes knees then taunt them to complete the run to be rewarded, while you poke their now showing bones.

It sure would have made sports more interesting if they did, though.

[Yazeth]

It still sucks that the current reward system encourages more short sessions rather than long ones, since people would be more inclined to leave after receiving their first or second C reward and then finish the missions. Besides a small group of players who do endurance runs just to see how far they can go before they completely break, everyone else will probably just leave after 20 or 40 min, regardless if the mission was designed for endurance or not.

Well, I doubt DE ever wants to encourage long sessions anyways, as I remember hearing them say years ago that they are aiming for "all game" updates, where content is made accessible to everyone as early as possible, rather than creating an endgame (and stop it with the whole 'but the game is never ending' argument, DE just need to give something satisfyingly difficult for players to tackle).

[LSG501]

Um... didn't DE describe it as endless, yet everything they're doing to it is actually making it so we can't stay in as long. 

In most cases it isn't our ability that stop us going further it's things like the efficiency ramping up far faster than the enemies that allow us to maintain it... basically we can run out of efficiency even though we're s ranked.

[Skaleek]

Drop rates are crap. Fix em.

[VampirePirate]

23 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

 

 

It all comes down to what DE always intended for the game mode to be, a short(er) arcade mission.

 

Onslaught was never intended to be the new endurance mode, we have known this ever since the first time it was announced. It is/was supposed to be a short intense arcade experience.

I read everything you said here.  My question is, why did they constantly advertise this as a "new endless" mission?

[DrBorris]

4 minutes ago, Blade_Wolf_16 said:

The problem is that nobody is looking for long runs of Defense/Survivals/Index anymore. There is just no reason to stay for an hour when you can get the stuff you want more easely by repeating the mission at 0 cost. 

Onslaught is new, challenging, fresh. It's something that players want to try and see how far they can go since they already did this in other endless missions until they got bored. It's a challenge with better rewards than most missions (aka radiant relics, very old weapons, etc.), so why would DE make it impossible to stay for long runs when it's what Vets wanted?

Being forced to redo missions over and over again is what people don't like. If long runs were worth the time/rewards, I'm sure that a lot of people would still be doing those. Problem is that since the Relic system was added and consumable Void Keys were removed, long runs are just as effective if not less than short ones. 

 

A challenge should stop when you reach your limit, not when the game is programmed to stop you at a certain point. 

Then the problem is with Defense/Survival/Index, not Onslaught. This is the exact same thing that was happening with the Kuva Survival discussions, people anted a high level mission and they were willing to alter the vision for another mode to get what they were craving.

We already have plenty of "endurance" archetypes, the solutions should not be adding a new endurance but fixing the modes that already exist.

 

The challenge of Onslaught is not the enemies, it is the leaderboard. The whole point of the mode is to rack up a high score not live forever. Survival/Defense/etcetera are all about reaching your limit and those should be the places where trying to go forever is encouraged.

 

3 minutes ago, LSG501 said:

Um... didn't DE describe it as endless, yet everything they're doing to it is actually making it so we can't stay in as long. 

In most cases it isn't our ability that stop us going further it's things like the efficiency ramping up far faster than the enemies that allow us to maintain it... basically we can run out of efficiency even though we're s ranked.

I am pretty sure every time they brought it up the added some addendum of it being fast. And again, the enemy is your score not the enemies.

 

1 minute ago, Skaleek said:

Drop rates are crap. Fix em.

This post has absolutely nothing to do with drop rates, please bring that discussion someplace else (although I do agree they could use some work).

[rune_me]

Just now, VampirePirate said:

I read everything you said here.  My question is, why did they constantly advertise this as a "new endless" mission?

They said right from the moment it was introduced that it was something you would stay in for 20-30 minutes and then get out and that that was their intention with the new game mode.

[MobyTheDuck]

5 minutes ago, rune_me said:

It sure would have made sports more interesting if they did, though.

If you want more "athletes" giving up on the "sport" and giving the "sports federation" a bad reputation due bad "rules", making no new "athletes" to sign up, then yeah. It would be far more interesting.

[VampirePirate]

1 minute ago, rune_me said:

They said right from the moment it was introduced that it was something you would stay in for 20-30 minutes and then get out and that that was their intention with the new game mode.

I'm not denying it.  Just confused.  I remember Rebecca saying it was endless.  Maybe i heard wrong.  Maybe it was the Quantum Effect.

Anyway.  Thanks for answering.

[HyokaChan]

But everything about Onslaught encourages (but not facilitates) endurance running: A bar to show how well you've been doing, rewards every 2 zones, and the only penalty you get is if efficiency runs out. If the enemies kill the Defense objective it's game over. If life support runs out it's game over. But losing on Onslaught just gives you everything you've earned before booting you back.

[CupcakesMoo]

Onslaught would be good if there wasn't an instant death timer. I don't care what else happens with it. 

[DrBorris]

2 minutes ago, VampirePirate said:

I read everything you said here.  My question is, why did they constantly advertise this as a "new endless" mission?

38:23

 

[Skaleek]

6 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

This post has absolutely nothing to do with drop rates, please bring that discussion someplace else (although I do agree they could use some work).

Drop rates were changed. Change was not healthy for the mode. QFT. But i take your meaning and will refrain from posting further.

Edited April 26, 2018 by Skaleek

[rune_me]

Just now, VampirePirate said:

I'm not denying it.  Just confused.  I remember Rebecca saying it was endless.  Maybe i heard wrong.  Maybe it was the Quantum Effect.

Anyway.  Thanks for answering.

They could have used that word. It is technically an endless mission. It's just an endless mission they don't want you to stay in forever.

[Ascarith]

1 hour ago, rune_me said:

They could have used that word. It is technically an endless mission. It's just an endless mission they don't want you to stay in forever.

I think the problem is that they weren't (and arguably still aren't) really upfront about that at all.

If DE introduced this as a score-based mode that would try it's hardest to make us fail, and our objective was to see how far we couldgo, people probably wouldn't be as confused.

Instead we were told it's a new "endless mode," (patch notes use this term as well) and so people are confused on why it's so difficult to sustain. It doesn't really work like any other endless game mode, so lumping it in the same category gave people the wrong expectations for what it is/was supposed to be.

Edited April 26, 2018 by Ascarith

[Mintaro]

If people can push that far then they should be allowed too. I am okay doing short runs myself but if others want to they should have the option to at least.

[PrivateRiem]

1 hour ago, DrBorris said:

Survival/Defense/etcetera are all about reaching your limit and those should be the places where trying to go forever is encouraged.

Name me one of those missions with enemy levels that start above 80.

There isn't one.

[Madway7]

I don't care about the endurance aspect of it, but if it wasn't meant to be one. Then remove the leaderboards.

Showing highscores is to show how much people endured, how far they were able or willing to go (like the people who did pacifism defect for 10 hours).

If it's supposed to encourage shorter runs, then just remove the unnecessary scoring system.

[DrBorris]

11 minutes ago, Madway7 said:

I don't care about the endurance aspect of it, but if it wasn't meant to be one. Then remove the leaderboards.

Showing highscores is to show how much people endured, how far they were able or willing to go (like the people who did pacifism defect for 10 hours).

If it's supposed to encourage shorter runs, then just remove the unnecessary scoring system.

So then why does a game like Super Mario Bros have leaderboard mechanic?

 

13 minutes ago, PrivateRiem said:

Name me one of those missions with enemy levels that start above 80.

There isn't one.

How exactly did you get to that part without seeing where I talk about how those nodes should be fixed? Like... I explicitly said those nodes need fixing...

Edited April 26, 2018 by DrBorris

[PrivateRiem]

3 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

So then why does a game like Super Mario Bros have leaderboard mechanic?

 

How exactly did you get to that part without seeing where I talk about how those nodes should be fixed? Like... I explicitly said those nodes need fixing...

I've been asking for level 80+ mission on the starchart for over 2 years. Why should I expect this to be fixed anytime soon after we just got something that fit the bill, until DE decided to just nerf it because it was harder than the "so difficult even our devs can't beat it" difficulty.

[OniDax]

1 hour ago, LSG501 said:

Um... didn't DE describe it as endless, yet everything they're doing to it is actually making it so we can't stay in as long. 

In most cases it isn't our ability that stop us going further it's things like the efficiency ramping up far faster than the enemies that allow us to maintain it... basically we can run out of efficiency even though we're s ranked.

Sadly, this has always been DE's philosophy. Defense and Survival are technically endless, yet DE made no secret of wanting players to stop at 30 minutes.

1 hour ago, rune_me said:

They said right from the moment it was introduced that it was something you would stay in for 20-30 minutes and then get out and that that was their intention with the new game mode.

If they only want players playing for 30 minutes, then they should just add a 30 minute countdown timer to it and call it a day. They shouldn't design a mode with the lure of being endless and then intend for players to only play for 30 minutes. If it's not meant to be endless, then they shouldn't make it endless.

Edited April 26, 2018 by A-p-o-l-l-y-o-n

[OoKeNnEtHoO]

They are trying to make the challenge similar to an endurance run by making starting enemy levels higher and efficiency rates dropping faster so as to test how fast we can kill without making us having to stay for hours.

I think that is great. Not everyone is a student or has (or not have) a job that allows flexible enough time to let them play for hours.