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

[Vanille]

3 hours 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.

No. That was the initial concept of replacing Dark Sectors, which eventually turned into SO in a completely different relation not having anything to do at all with DS. You would have a 20 minutes COUNTDOWN and you had to survive/maximize your points to stay competitive between clan scoreboards and do objetives to go to next zones faster/more efficient with randomnized zone restrictions like in sorties for the challenge (which today got hotfixed as a 20% chance to get a hazard in a zone), not a "go as further as you can but in the end we won't let you". It had a challenge and was a new mode. What got scrapped and turned into what we have now is just another survival, literally kill stuff to keep life support (efficiency) up, except it will get to impossible to keep up levels, creating a false sense of "endless" because in the end you're not working to keep efficiency up as much as you can and not doing any objetives. It literally is a 15-20 minutes fixed survival mode without resource drops and different rotation reward table, but still the same basically. This creates a max range, camping passive afk aoe meta that DE was fighting against by revisiting passive/afk nuke frames, contradictory.

I love DE and encourage them to make new modes, but the original concept, which was actually a different mode than the ones we already have, was way better. I still would run it at least once a day because they finally listened to us on the focus farming part, OS is REALLY good to focus cap quicker and a break from Hydron/Bere longs run spamming or solo play Adaro.

Edited April 26, 2018 by Kiwinille
typos

[Nagranok]

2 hours ago, Kiwinille said:

 This creates a max range, camping passive afk aoe meta that DE was fighting against by revisiting passive/afk nuke frames, contradictory.

This. Very much this. I hate that doing well on scoreboards or getting past zone 7/8 almost requires cheese or aoe frame. It's disappointing because I think the mode has potential, but making it all about mindless waveclear-by-aoe is squandering that. 

[Arniox]

5 hours ago, DrBorris said:

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"

  Reveal hidden contents

38:23

 

I agree with these things. I personally don't care at all about the leader boards and getting a good score, but I'm glad they're resetting and the mission has turned away from being endura

[Arniox]

I agree. I like onslaught as a new missions, not as an endurance mission. So many people are so competitive in a game like warframe and it makes the game more and more about your efficiency in a mission. It becomes boring. I'm happy with the changes

[AlexLucas007]

It was impossible to stay there for many waves to begin with, because the efficiency meter would drop super fast, or you'd eventually get in a tileset with really bad mob spawn rate. Now it drops even faster. The fact that there is an efficiency meter already indicates it's not an endless mode of any sorts.

The changes to the sanctuary change nothing, except making the mode worse for those who wanted to farm focus, and since they said that sanctuary is supposed to be an alternative to focus farming, the fact that they are nerfing the focus gains to the point where it's not feasible to run it, doesn't make sense.

And the most important thing - the changes don't address the main problems - S#&$loads of bugs, no rewards for people who want to stay more than 8 waves, no rewards for leaderboards placement, horrible drop rates for warframe parts (horrible warframe too, khora sucks ass by design), and the mode is identical to survival, except tilesets change every 2 minutes.

The game mode is pointless now that we have these changes. It was before them as well, at least people would farm some focus.

Now it's just S#&$.

How is it healthy...

[NocheLuz]

If only efficiency get corelated to Affinity. Like if you kill eximus you got like 1k+ affinity. Eximus should gave out more efficiency than normal units. Reduce the spawn number (not spawn rate) but keep their health up so you can't kill him with just 4-5 shots. To reduced the use of AOE frame and keep the fight challenging.

Also, you can build another type like Super Eximus that will command all Eximus type with him when spawn and gave like 10% efficiency when killed. and have like 10 times health then normal Eximus. Immune to all status effect and his aura reduce damage taken by 50%. Make him that you can only encounter him in this mode only. Well, this is just my suggestion though... With the spawn rate and number very high. It is not good to add another challenge on top of this.

[Evanescent]

THEN WHY MAKE IT AN ENDLESS MODE?

If it's such a problem, make it a finite mode with extreme enemy difficulty ramp-up, like phoenix escalation was.

[DeMonkey]

Whilst it might have been "healthy", I still don't think it was a good thing. Quite frankly, despite claiming it's supposed to be bite sized and arcadey it's nothing like an arcade game. Many of those you could play for hours on end in a single run.

I think the thing that bothers me the most is that the mode almost seems like a lie. The leaderboard and the fact that it is "technically" endless give the illusion of continual progress, maybe if I did a bit better I'd last a bit longer... but no, it's fake.

I think they should scrap the endless side of it to be honest, remove the illusion of staying longer and remove the leaderboard since it's clear we aren't intended to stay.

If Pacman had a withdrawal timer that counted down faster and faster with every level until it was physically impossible to eat enough pills to continue... would it be a good game? Not in my opinion.

[Midrib]

Nothing about Onslaught is healthy, it embodies everything that is wrong with the game.

From the S#&$ty AI, to the enemy spawn rate, to the silly scaling, to the grind, to the way DE handles endless rewards, to the way DE handless Solo mode, to the mindlessness of it, to the way it S#&$s on any frame that doesn't do 9 million damage in an area of effect.

its definitely fun, but it is in no way healthy nor is it the type of fun that lasts. I can see burnout being the big theme this year due to Onslaught, i get burnt out just playing the mode for 30 minutes.

The first showcase of onslaught showed much more promise and at least had a better objective other than "KILL EVERYTHING. till your efficiency starts dropping faster than enemies spawn to maintain it" but this is just a badly designed mode in my opinion.

Edited April 26, 2018 by Midrib

[Prime-Ares]

Onslaught is just fine. If it's so bad, why doesn't anyone speak up about it??

Exactly. Cause there is no problem with onslaught.

/Thread.

Edited April 26, 2018 by Prime-Ares

[Zanchak]

Every single scoreboard is about cheese so Im not sure why anyone thought this would be different. I don't see the point, who cares about cheesed "leaderboards" apart from the people cheesing them. That person out-foured me, better go out-four them back. lol

I prefer a short intense game personally so it sounds more appealing than it was. Won't know til Im back in there though.

[Zobaken]

14 минут назад, Prime-Ares сказал:

Onslaught is just fine. If it's so bad, why doesn't anyone speak up about it??

Exactly. Cause there is no problem with onslaught.

I hope it was sarcasm, otherwise - nice b8 m8. Have you even read the forums since it was out? Everyone are talking about it.

Edited April 26, 2018 by Zobaken

[Prime-Ares]

13 minutes ago, Zobaken said:

I hope it was sarcasm, otherwise - nice b8 m8. Have you even read the forums since it was out? Everyone are talking about it.

If anyone can't see the sarcasm in that I genuinely feel sorry for them.

[Zobaken]

18 минут назад, Prime-Ares сказал:

If anyone can't see the sarcasm in that I genuinely feel sorry for them.

It's early morning here, I'm not very good at seeing sarcasm atm. 

[DeMonkey]

8 hours ago, DrBorris said:

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.

Kinda glazed over this bit whilst reading. The leaderboard is still pointless since we can currently kill enemies as soon as they spawn. If you spend 12 zones killing everything immediately and fail because of efficiency then you have attatined the highest possible score. If someone scores higher then that's because RNG favoured them more, and no leaderboard should be decided based on RNG.

[Iludra]

47 minutes ago, DeMonkey said:

The leaderboard is still pointless since we can currently kill enemies as soon as they spawn. If you spend 12 zones killing everything immediately and fail because of efficiency then you have attatined the highest possible score. If someone scores higher then that's because RNG favoured them more, and no leaderboard should be decided based on RNG.

^ So much this. It would make sense to have the leaderboard if there were multiple possible strategies to deal with the situation, so you had to work towards the score. Right now the only thing you have to work towards is to keep up with the efficiency drain as you cross more zones, thus games where you're working for the leaderboard score and games where you simply want the loot play exactly the same.

 

[CrazyNutz]

8 hours ago, Mintaro said:

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.

if the top spots on the leaderboards are 5 hours of work it will the "competative" aspect for anyone that dont have that time to invest. so making it shorter opens it up to more players.

so what do you want a few happy players or many happy players ? .. who knows now when they have the mode settup what stops them from adding other flavours aswell ?

[LupisV0lk]

The "changes" aren't healthy.

What kind of person  bases their entire company and brand off listening to the community and then flat out doing the opposite with all the community feed back?

I know the community should be dictating game development but there comes a time when the mob is right.

Edited April 26, 2018 by LupisV0lk

[DeMeritus]

Best change to warframe:

Host migation makes you lose all rewards.

[Lucavee]

As it stands right now, all the onslaught test is the host's manner and our patience.

And seeing how my blood pressure is increasing after wasting my time with the onslaught, I dont think its very healthy either.

[Madway7]

9 hours ago, DrBorris said:

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

Iirc the point of highscores there was to test you to do better if you wanted on a given level. Major difference being that there wasn't rng there, in here we have random spawns that might break etc.

If you do the same run over and over again, you would find the exact same enemies at the exact same times in Super Mario Bros, not here.

 

[--END--Rikutatis]

I think Onslaught is ok, just not the endgame content I was hoping it would be. I think the efficiency mechanic is a bit meh the way it's currently implemented, but I can live with it. The major issue I have is that there's a lot of people on the forums and reddit asking for more challenging endgame content because their builds can melt lvl 155 bombards in the Simulacrum in a couple seconds and there's nothing in that game giving that challenge outside of spending 2h+ in an endless mode. Onslaught could have been that, and I was super excited when I heard enemies would start at lvl 80 and scale up from there. Then super disappointed when I realized their levels capped at lvl 180 and the challenge was an artificial efficiency meter, not the enemies themselves. Now their level dropped to start at 60 and they scale slower than before. This is just not the endgame challenge I was hoping it would be, that's all. It's an ok game mode despite that, but it makes me lose hope that the devs will ever give us the challenge we want. All they had to do is make a "flood" version of kuva survival that already starts at lvl 80 and goes up from there and gives us twice the kuva per siphon. That's all I wanted to be happy. 

[Mach25]

13 hours ago, DrBorris said:

I have jumped around on both sides of this topic quite a few times already since the workshop a few hours ago...

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.

Since you've heard both sides of the argument, your position of reasoning is strengthened. As such, due to the praise this game mode received during its initial deployment, very clearly there are many players that want an endurance mode. This should serve to encourage the dev team to make another mode - the clamors for new content can be satiated in the short term as well as long-term, at least to some degree, by the release of another game mode based upon the mechanics and rigors of Onslaught in its first release phase. At this time, I think it would be wise to view this as a "Eureka!" moment and apply lessons learned here going forward.

Edited April 26, 2018 by Mach25

[Lakais]

11 hours ago, PrivateRiem said:

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.

You could get technical with sorties being that 80+ mission. And I'd also say that adding such "content" would be a waste of resources as it's not so much a problem of "not powerful enough enemies" but a problem of us having too much power given to us. Or at the very least, combinations of mechanics that clearly defeat the purpose of this so called "challenge". At those levels the game is more about risk rather then challenge. Demanding the use of a specific playstyle and build that just stops enemies and bypasses various mechanics put in game to then erase these shut down enemies. Now it's a skillful thing in and of itself, but I honestly don't believe that should be the focus of the game. To funnel every single player into some pidgeonholed, cookiecutter CC CP farminator extraordinaire. 

12 hours ago, Ascarith said:

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.

I honestly can't remember them saying that this mode is anything BUT a short, intense arcade mode not meant for long runs. And if DE had made it where you have only 20 minutes to go as far as you can then we would be sitting on this exact same issue with a different title. "Why make it only 20 minutes!? We can go for longer! DE is anti-fun and oppressive!" And how would you reconcile the arguments of people needing to leave early in a wave based game mode? 

So I'd argue back that Onslaught is technically Endless. In that you can push it WAAAY beyond what the Devs intended to be the "normal run time". But they have done what they should of done with Survival and Defense and every other Endless mode and put in a "soft cap" where the game respectfully but firmly goes "Well done! Get out." 

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

I agree.  But that still doesn't address the flaw of the leaderboards.