machine event: OMEN modular exterminator attack tower

[saaya]

the intro of how this challenge works is... lets say... not very detailed? :P
every single time i encounter it, the other players stay on their stations and assume thats what they have to do, when in fact you only need to stay on a station for a few seconds to unlock the weak points on one of the segments of the attack tower
they also dont seem to know that they have to target the weak points, and instead nuke the tower with AOE attacks and try to just blast the entire tower with brute force :)

might i suggest an actual intro explaining how the machine event works? :P
1. stand on the platform until weak points are unlocked (picture of platform)
2. weak points can now be targeted, take them out
3. success!

[DariusSlayer]

Exactly. And if you have an Engi or are one, build mini platform towers in front of each pad to block most shots. If you're a Gunner, then use your shield.

[St0rmFury]

Originally posted by DariusSlayer:

Exactly. And if you have an Engi or are one, build mini platform towers in front of each pad to block most shots.

Woah, you can do that? Will it block the plasma beams?

[saaya]

Originally posted by DariusSlayer:

Exactly. And if you have an Engi or are one, build mini platform towers in front of each pad to block most shots. If you're a Gunner, then use your shield.

thx for the tips!

[saaya]

Originally posted by Wiawyr:

Originally posted by saaya:

the intro of how this challenge works is... lets say... not very detailed? :P
every single time i encounter it, the other players stay on their stations and assume thats what they have to do, when in fact you only need to stay on a station for a few seconds to unlock the weak points on one of the segments of the attack tower

If you leave the platforms, the weakpoints retract into the tower after a few seconds, actually. Also the info screen you see when you load the game already explains everything that you're saying needs to be added.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1975656236

thats not the right place to share this kind of info
but thats besides the point, it doesnt matter if the info is available SOMEWHERE
what matters is that most players clearly arent aware of it
i even ran across players who refused to play this machine event because they say its too hard or dont understand how it works hah

[Vash(88)]

Originally posted by St0rmFury:

Originally posted by DariusSlayer:

Exactly. And if you have an Engi or are one, build mini platform towers in front of each pad to block most shots.

Woah, you can do that? Will it block the plasma beams?

The plasma beams and twin slicer will melt the engineer platforms

[Deja Vu]

The "Standing on it" part is not terribly obvious. I failed my first one due to timeout simply because I was running around trying to find something to use "e" on.

[saaya]

Originally posted by Deja Vu:

The "Standing on it" part is not terribly obvious. I failed my first one due to timeout simply because I was running around trying to find something to use "e" on.

yeah i remember i was excited the new update was out, me and some friends played right away, and the first machine event we ran into was this one... and we were all confused what to do, ran around, blasted the turret, but ran out of ammo and then it timed out hahah

[saaya]

Originally posted by Wiawyr:

Originally posted by saaya:

thats not the right place to share this kind of info
but thats besides the point, it doesnt matter if the info is available SOMEWHERE
what matters is that most players clearly arent aware of it

Prove it.

hahaha, HOW?
and why would i waste any time to try to prove it?
let me clarify though, when i say most players, i mean most players ive played with in southeast asia

[Chibbity]

Originally posted by Vash(88):

Originally posted by St0rmFury:

Woah, you can do that? Will it block the plasma beams?

The plasma beams and twin slicer will melt the engineer platforms

Very true, but it will buy you a little bit of time. I still think it's worth doing, especially if you have the extra plats on hand.

[DariusSlayer]

It's worth doing even though they will go through, the damage delay is much better than having none, IMO :/

[kestrel]

Originally posted by Wiawyr:

Originally posted by saaya:

thats not the right place to share this kind of info
but thats besides the point, it doesnt matter if the info is available SOMEWHERE
what matters is that most players clearly arent aware of it

Prove it.

he's not wrong, most players aren't gonna bother to read a text dump when they boot into the game, and those who do likely aren't going to remember everything by the time they eventually find a tower.
mission control doesn't even have any dialogue for when the event starts. pretty much every single time i've done the event, i have to tell my teammates to stand on the pads and shoot out the weak spots

(as an aside i think it would be better if mission control gave instructions right after inserting the tritilite key, it gives his guidance more time to soak in)

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

My first encounter with this took about thirty seconds to figure out.

I noted just shooting the Omen didn't do SQUAT to damage the emplacement's three weapons systems, as the health bars didn't even flinch to my lead storm.

Then I remembered noticing the three 'boxes' around it prior to startup. I hadn't seen those boxes 'DO' anything. So I deduced there was an interaction I had to perform to make the Omen vulnerable involving the boxes. Then I noticed the tops of the pads had glowing outlines, and took a leap of faith... Literally. I did a running jump onto one and immediately got the 'authentication' hologram filling a meter.

From there I saw the green targets pop out and had this machine solved.

You don't NEED text to solve this event. It utilizes gameplay cues that are perfectly in line with how DRG works. Conspicuous objects, light, and color. Half the fun of that first time engaging the Omen was figuring the thing out.

I think the problem with this particular interaction is that the glowing pads are low in a player's field of view (on the 'ground'), and they don't look 'down'... Much like how people often don't look UP without some kind of cue. So the unobservant tend to miss the cue.

[Deja Vu]

I saw them but the idea that stepping on them would do something never occured to me. Literally never in DRG has standing on something done something. It's always been "press 'E' to interact" or shoot it. I mean that's something I would do in Portal but it never crossed my mind in DRG.

I only figured it out because I ended up stepping on one by accident while dodging fire, and the color changed.

[Derpykat5]

As someone said, putting the explanation after the key is inserted rather than when the event starts would be better. Less pressure on the player so they can listen more, more time to ask your team if there is something you don't understand. Existing dialogue would only need some small tweaks to fit there.

[saaya]

yeah, i dont think standing on the platforms is intuitive

and for a couple of other events in DRG mission control announces what you need to do
I totally agree, not having any instructions for this one, spoken or written or at least some images, was confusing for me and my team mates, we were waiting for an announcement and were confused when nothing came.

and like i said, we figured out we need to stand on the platforms eventually, but by that time some players are already low on ammo or health or both or even died without figuring it out.

and the fact that you dont actually have to REMAIN on the platforms is something that until today NO other player ive played with has figured out...

this is actually one of the nicer machine events, in my opinion, but a lot of people ive run into it with, do NOT want to activate the machine event because they dont get how it works or say its "too difficult" which im pretty sure is because they dont know how it actually works