There’s still a lot of people unimpressed with the amount of tower defence/capture the flag/escort mechanics in the campaign. The algorithm and the sentinel are the only missions void of any of those situations. I agree that the voids edge has enough different elements to it’s level to make it enjoyable. The rest, not so much. Asking for more horde mode style missions without “protect x” involved can’t be dismissed or excused with one short phase of a single boss fight
I actually kind of like the ‘tower defense’ maps, though I do find them ussually underwhelming (I want more turret emplacements!) while, at the same time, overwhelming because holy cakes how many enemies spawned just now?
I agree that it feels like there’s an overabundance of those maps. And half the escort quest (the Archive) is awful. That thing needs way more health. When I went into it the first time I though I’d be able to spend shards to improve it somehow. But nope. I wonder what made them forget about that.
Though, if you ask me, the reason these maps are disliked is because when those stupid AI and static objects die, you have to start all over again from the begining. If the missions simply spat everyone in the closest respawn room and made them restart the section they failed only, it would be much more beareable.
Though they still need more health (and it should scale a bit with the difficulty because, seriously).
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You can spend shards to heal the Wolf sentry in the voids edge. Did they just completely forget to put that option in with every other tower defence and escort?? It makes absolutely no sense
Gearbox has already said they’ll be patching the difficulty on level 7, The Saboteur. It’s definitely unreasonably hard when playing on normal. Not impossible though, I’ve got through it with some perseverance.
Here is my take on the escort/protect missions.
From a first-time-playthrough perspective they are decent missions.
Also from a first-time-playthrough perspective I don’t mind the fact that if you lose the objective you fail the mission. Normally (except for Sabateur) you learn from your mistakes and you beat it the 2nd or 3rd time and all is well.
To me, the biggest issue with these missions is replayability. And this is key. Once you unlock whatever trophies you’re going for and once you’ve gotten whatever legendaries that a mission might provide you, what is the incentive to ever replay these missions again?
Why would you choose to play the Archive again on Advanced when you know that if you let one thing slip by, even if you have 12 extra lives, you could have just lost 20-30 minutes of playing time? Yes, you do get to keep some XP and gearpacks that you found, but it won’t be as much as if you had successfully completed the mission.
Which is why I keep finding myself repeating Algorithm, Sentinel (My favorite), Heliophage (Not as much due to the time limit…but better), and Void’s Edge…since I can replenish Wolf’s health.
Here would be my advice on helping these escort/protect missions have more replay value.
If you’re trying to beat one of these levels for the first time on a particular mode (Normal, Advanced, Hardcore, ect.) then implement the mechanic that if you fail the objective you fail the mission.
BUT…if you’ve already beaten the mission on that particular mode, then if you fail the objective, you lose an amount of lives equal to the number of players…and if you have enough lives…you all respawn at the last objective save point.
I think this would solve the replayability aspect that currently has me a bit frustrated.
The only issue is how to handle multiplayer…where you might have a team where 4 people have already beaten the mode and one person has not. (So you have to decide if you allow respawn or not…and if you do…do you allow the other players to ‘win’ that mode even if they had never beaten it before and got the win after a respawn)
There are ways you could go about this problem…but none great. But even a not-great solution would be better than having this problem with no solution at all.
So escort and protect missions are not my favorite…but I don’t mind them so much. I just find that I lack any enthusiasm to replay the missions once I’ve achieved whatever goal I’ve set for myself…while I find that I do enjoy replaying the other missions because I know that by and large I will only fail the mission if I fail to survive.
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Well said. I find myself flicking through the story missions like, “The archive? Nope. The experiment? Nope. The sabotuer? HAHAHAHA. Nope. Guess I’ll just play the sentinel again with it’s unimaginative bosses. But at least I won’t fall because of bull ■■■■” lol
it looked like we just fought 3 sentinels they just got bigger as we moved on ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
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