Yay, Smelter Complex is finally classified as a Repair Mission! That is a thing that makes sense.
And we got a new Investigation too, and it’s… Excise Vault?? Not Archivum Sycarax? Well, I guess in Excise Vault we’re collecting a thing to study it. Although, if that’s the case, then shouldn’t Mercantile also be Investigation since we’re looking into whether those stimms are blighted? And Ascension Riser is a Strike now, not a Raid? But, we’re stealing a thing, isn’t that what a Raid is? And now Hab Dreyko doesn’t end with scanning but with defending a probe that will kill a thing, which means it isn’t really an investigation anymore??
If we’re going to classify missions based on what they’re for in-universe, it’s a mess. In Silo Cluster (which is a Strike), we’re purging some demon corruption, but we’re there to fix the water supply, so shouldn’t it be a Repair just like Smelter Complex? If the objective of Hab Dreyko is to kill the Phage Tree now instead of study the plague, then shouldn’t it be a Strike or a Disruption now?
Yeah so the real problem here is that these mission types don’t really mean anything. They don’t correlate to gameplay at all. Like I said in my other topic about this, what’s the difference between disruption and strike anyway? I actually quite liked Hab Dreyko’s old scanning finale, just thought it would be better if it were about half as long. Now Archivum Sycarax is the only scanning finale. And it still isn’t an investigation.
So here are my suggestions:
Option 1, classify based on in-universe objective.
This is the current system, it’s all a mess because a lot of the time we’re kind of doing multiple objectives at once. Here’s an idea for simplifying it though. Condense everything into three much broader categories:
Priority Target
We need a specific thing destroyed. Go destroy it.
Chasm Station (Assassination)
Magistrati Oubliette (Assassination)
Hab Dreyko (Investigation)
Refinery Delta (Disruption)
The Warren (Disruption)
Relay Station (Disruption)
Reclamation
We need to acquire and secure a thing that will help our cause.
Silo Cluster (Strike)
Power Matrix (Repair)
Smelter Complex (Repair)
Enclavum Baross (Strike)
Consignment Yard (Raid)
Chasm Logistratum (Raid)
Espionage
We have another more complex task that will aid the war effort in a less direct way.
Archivum Sycarax (Espionage)
Vigil Station Oblivium (Espionage)
Comms Plex (Espionage)
Ascension Riser (Strike)
Excise Vault Spireside (Investigation)
Mercantile (Raid)
Actually lines up really nicely with six in each category. They could potentially have sub-categories that give more information about the crescendo, like Chasm Station and Magistrati Oubliette could still have “Assassination” on their label so you know they end with a fight with an arch heretic, while the other four could be called “Destroy Strategic Asset” or something.
I think classifying based on gameplay would be much more practical, since it would be of some actual use to players. The trouble is that gameplay doesn’t change that much from mission to mission. And now with Warren having us do like five different things, we can’t really classify things based on what minigames the final crescendo is about. I kind of feel like the prominence of hacking minigames (data interrogation and scanning) is one of the only things that separates some missions from others. Corruptor purging doesn’t really change how the game feels enough to be its own classification. Hauling stuff is pretty different, but only Chasm Logistratum (Raid), Excise Vault Spireside (Investigation), and Power Matrix (Repair) feature it as a major part of the finale, and now all three of them are different mission types. This kind of leaves us with only two types, Finale Has Hacking Stuff and Finale Does Not Have Hacking Stuff. Sub optimal.
Option 2, classify based on gameplay, and change missions around a bit to make the classifications make more sense.
This is the one that would take the most work but would make for the best system. There are a lot of ways missions could be differentiated from each other, like what enemies are likely to spawn, to how much the players have to alternate between staying in one place to defend and advancing to the next objective.
Going with the three category system I outlined above, Priority Target missions could, for example, be made more like assaulting an enemy stronghold, by making hordes much less frequent but the majority of ambient spawns are ranged enemies in defensive positions. Reclamation missions could then be in contrast by having lots of hordes and melee enemies, like we’re just wading through the less organized filth that the heretics have left lying around, like we’re attacking them from behind. Espionage missions could be highly objective focused, with few ambient enemies but longer and more dangerous crescendo events. You could even maybe get rid of hordes almost completely and fill the mission with huge patrols, so that we can feel like we’re going after something really well defended. Or something.
Option 3, Finale Focus
Though if you’re willing to change Hab Dreyko’s finale to be a probe minigame instead of scanning, you could do something like that for everything else and consolidate all the Raids to have hauling finales, and all the Espionages to have Data Interrogator finales, and all the Strikes to have big uncomplicated combat survival finales, and all the Disruptions to have destroy-a-bunch-of-objects-by-shooting-them finales, and all the Investigations to have Scanning finales.
And then you can change Archivum Sycarax to an Investigation, because it has a Scanning finale and we’re investigating something, for the Emperor’s sake.