100 waves of Data extraction the good & bad & the tips.

[velvet plank]

So since i could not find a 100 wave endless run - I did one. The feedback is as follows:

The Good:

• Performance wise the game did excellent, i collected all items from 100 supply buoy's and added it to the ship with no crashes or hitches. Began to only see slight FPS drops from wave 85ish just when inside the ship but still totally playable thru to over 100. Even with the stutter bug.
• Loot variety was good, with a constant random mix of artifacts, ship consumables, anti-ship weapons & on foot consumables.
• Running solo, Buddy was helpful with taking the gunner seat & deploying the Burst Shield. Helped sending loot to ship but always stacked it in the same pinpoint location. #clips-and-screenshots message

The Not So Good:

• Once you slap in some legendary artifacts it's basically 'fish-in-a-barrel' scenario as no enemy scaling with wave level.
• Shield Reflector destroys anything that hits you with out firing a shot. Even Corvettes.
• Artifacts regularly spawn clipped thru or beside the shelves on the buoy.
• Every 5th or so wave Iris announces 'they're sending something stronger, prepare for a tough fight'. This is 6 basic ships that spawn in a group & can be destroyed in under 5 seconds. I think this voice trigger is misplaced.
• The supply buoy's always spawn 400m in front & with their (bottom)tail towards the ship. Very annoying spawn angle, having to adjust the ship to every time to enter the buoy.
• Weapon spawn height on the buoy's weapon boards dramatically varies from just out of upper interaction reach to on the floor.
• No progressive wave difficulty increase unlike data extraction so potentially go on forever as you become overpowered.
• Discovered a new bug with the scanner where the scanner cannot render the image when too many ships (disabled corvettes) are still in the map space. Lost background assets too.
• Some loot icons stay onscreen when brought to the ship & sitting on the storage area causing even more HUD clutter.
• The interaction lockout bug when adding an item to an existing bag got me several times. Spamming Q or accessing the jump map mostly fixed it. Other times i just had to wait for the game to sort itself. Panic when the wave starts!
• Predictable & repetitive enemy spawning. Almost same place every time. It would be nice to be blindsided once in a while.
• Ship weapon damage & fire rates are a bit all over the place can lead to come crazy outcomes when combining multiples of the same artifact like 2 or more Mass Proxy.

Tips for anyone who wants to go for the 100:

• Waves 4-12 are the hardest because you are yet to have a physical advantage over the enemy ships & corvettes regularly appear. Survive this & you will very quickly gain artifact levels & true power.
• The Dart is a bit more nimble than the Cat & choose components you are comfortable using as a pilot.
• Materia clouds only appear from ships in the first few waves. After that all materia is found on buoys.
• Early levels save non ship artifacts (don't install) as you use them to upgrade more powerful artifacts when you get them.
• Only install ship damage, ROF or enemy de-buff artifacts. Reflective Wrath, Shield Reflector, Legion Blueprints & Mass Proxy are peak as your shields will constantly be chipped.
• 100 waves takes about 6-7 hours depending how fast you destroy waves.
• Difficulty will scale up with more players as the director will add more ship emergencies that will drain resources.
• Artifacts come in 3 strengths, common, rare & legendary. Each an improvement over the next. Don't be afraid to remove existing artifacts if you find Legendary versions.
• Choose augments that will help with ship tasks like repairing.

[viral atlas]

While I've had fun looking at these crazy runs, I've added a mounting difficulty addition to the level as the ground version has. Right now it is a custom thing but it will be tied into the modifier system in the next update (Probably) to create a bit more variation while increasing difficulty in step with the increase in waves. If you play more I'd love to see if it's too punishing or still a bit to tame still.

[velvet plank]

@viral atlas Happy to test out and experiment with changes. Keep me informed on what your after. I just completed 100 ground waves yesterday and have some feedback on that too.

[viral atlas]

Think my changes will come out with the next update! The point of the change is to create a real difficulty curve which currently does not exist

[velvet plank]

I agree. Ship can be currently fitted out to the point where you don't even have to attack. The reverse damage from artifacts takes them out automatically.

Ground waves is a bit different where you eventually have to match or over power the enemy before they damage you from the attack scaling. You get to a point where only 1 or 2 enemy hits takes you down. I think by wave 120 we would reach the point of any hit from enemy damage is instant down. I was only just hanging on 240% (wave 100). You can notice the 10% strength increases later in the waves. But again wave 4 of ground waves (seeker groups) needs a change. I will see if it's any different on the new update.

100 waves of Data extraction the good & bad & the tips.

[viral atlas]

Working on the balance of the ground version aswell, might bump the damage gain a bit or give them more shields. But yes im aware of the seeker spam gonna fix that

[velvet plank]

I think the ground waves are fine. Solo you can tank them because Buddy will revive you so no ship damage = no fail. With more players you would defiantly hit the wall much sooner like around wave 50. There is also the mission time to do it too. it's unlikely a crew will play for 6hrs onthe 1 map.

The enemies getting stuck in the map walls is still a major problem. It turns every consecutive round (when they get stuck) into a full length wave timeout.