Sentinels. Or At Least My Future Hopes For Them.

[Ol_Ephraim]

Okay, I love my sentinels, but they are missing one thing, the ability to live. All they do is float there and shoot or pick up stuff. What I really hope for in the future is their ability to move dynamically, like for instance, land on your shoulder when you are not moving or have some kind of animations kinda like the warframes do. When they move for example, they should tilt down and go forward kinda like a helicopter. 

 

The second thing I wanted to say is, we need walking sentinels, not just flying, man's best friend was not a raven unless their name was Oden. Sentinels as I see them are kinda like familars out of dnd, what they need is variety. People have had semi mechanical achievements in the robotics field in terms of animals. This would help make them more life like. For example, Wyrm for all intensive purposes looks like a catapilliar draped over a stick, with another stick shoved through the tail. I think it would be more astectically pleseant if he could crawl around behind the tenno kinda like a centipede or catapillar. A small dog, or cat that follows around the tenno would be nice, or just a roach. I'm not talking like way out of proportion variety like WoW's pets, just a small number like say 12 different types would be nice. Just enough to cover the animal kingdoms. Arachnids, Insects, Birds, Canines, Felines, Apes/Monkeys, snails/slugs, Lizards, Snakes, frogs, etc. etc. Just to give them some variety and give them some animations that fit the species they are based off of, for example a dog chewing on its arm, or a bird or cat cleaning themselves.

 

Third thing is Thank you for all your hard work DEs.

[Guest]

What you ask is certainly a lot of work. Especially the non-flying sentinel part, since that would mean they would require a good pathing AI to not get stuck everywhere. I think this has been discussed before.

Also, given the current appearance of the sentinels, it doesn't seem like the devs are much interested in making them look like actual things. Unless you consider "a sock on a doorknob".

 

In any case, Sentinels right now seem to be quite placeholder. I mean, they don't even aim, they shoot at the exact same spot, roughly where the enemies' right shoulder would be, and they don't move their aim even if said enemy is currently lying on the floor, they miss all the time. I believe they should fix the Sentinel's blatantly brain-dead aiming AI before adding more.

 

Not that I personally have anything against your suggestion. It's just... it seems like a very distant goal.

[Jaypalm]

I was thinking about this a bit too. I want a quadruped spider-like sentinel that climbs about the Tenno's body itself, rather that floating or walking around the Tenno. I'd imagine it being somewhat disc shaped with 4 legs, climbing about the Tenno's body with a flux rifle type weapon, mounting itself to your shoulder before firing at a target. And maybe its secondary precept could be an enemy detection ability.

[Drazhar14]

How would walking Sentinels keep up with parkour? I find Sentinels kind of annoying though, would be better if you had a backpack that you could customize with Sentinel mods or something. Imagine a shoulder mounted gun that auto targets things like the Predator has! 

[Ol_Ephraim]

What you ask is certainly a lot of work. Especially the non-flying sentinel part, since that would mean they would require a good pathing AI to not get stuck everywhere. I think this has been discussed before.

Also, given the current appearance of the sentinels, it doesn't seem like the devs are much interested in making them look like actual things. Unless you consider "a sock on a doorknob".

 

In any case, Sentinels right now seem to be quite placeholder. I mean, they don't even aim, they shoot at the exact same spot, roughly where the enemies' right shoulder would be, and they don't move their aim even if said enemy is currently lying on the floor, they miss all the time. I believe they should fix the Sentinel's blatantly brain-dead aiming AI before adding more.

 

Not that I personally have anything against your suggestion. It's just... it seems like a very distant goal.

I know, I just wanted to see what everyone else was thinking about it. I take no offense and I know that is a very distant goal, however, with enough support this may happen, and some of the sentinels have a shape, look at the deathcube. People make it into a flying companion cube all the time. Eventually, they will probably make the AIs for the sentinels better, so why not just hope for the best?

[Ol_Ephraim]

How would walking Sentinels keep up with parkour? I find Sentinels kind of annoying though, would be better if you had a backpack that you could customize with Sentinel mods or something. Imagine a shoulder mounted gun that auto targets things like the Predator has! 

Magnetic boots. Sorry I just had to, I mean all of the maps have some metal flooring except earth, or they could just latch onto you if they need to. Plus, you can always hope for a Plasma Caster, but unless you tell someone you want one, it will not happen.

[--MANA--]

i against walking sentinels since they can block your bullets and such. i bet they are gonna be easier to kill rather than the flying ones.

[(PSN)profileseven]

I like your idea. Sentinels feel so inanimate to me that I actually get annoyed at them constantly hovering over my shoulder. At the moment, the sentinel is more of a tool and less of a companion and even less a pet. I think DE has to decide on what they want it to be. 

 

The pet mechanic for the Sentinels would be quite interesting. I am guessing flying in a fixed position for sentinels is the easiest option now in-game as it limits the sentinels contact with the environment, thus making it less likely to get stuck. Though, this can be rectified by a "respawn to me" feature once a distance is crossed. I really wouldn't mind a re-purposed corpus walker sentinel that deploys shields or a robotic tenno attack dog that melees it's enemies with it's razor teeth. 

 

It is a lot of work on DE's part but I am sure they can achieve this mechanic as other games have done it as well, so it is still a possibility!

[Guest]

I know, I just wanted to see what everyone else was thinking about it. I take no offense and I know that is a very distant goal, however, with enough support this may happen, and some of the sentinels have a shape, look at the deathcube. People make it into a flying companion cube all the time. Eventually, they will probably make the AIs for the sentinels better, so why not just hope for the best?

Magnetic boots. Sorry I just had to, I mean all of the maps have some metal flooring except earth, or they could just latch onto you if they need to. Plus, you can always hope for a Plasma Caster, but unless you tell someone you want one, it will not happen.

 

Well, DE does tend to focus on the things the community are most vocal for.

 

Actually the magnetic idea is not that bad... maybe "walking" Sents could latch onto surfaces, jumping between them just like geckos do, and if you give them a high enough agility they shouldn't have much problem keeping up. They would just need to be far more nimble than Warframes. I can see this. Still, with doors and all that jazz a "respawn near" ability would probably be necessary.

[Romalic]

sentinels are mobile weapons platforms and thats all really, thats their purpose, to give you some additional survivability in the field, animals as sents would be ok, but think how much work would go into creating a whole animation set for every possible movement and as was all ready said, pathing would need to be worked out too

 

its a nice idea but i imagine it would take a ton of work and while it would be nice they function just fine as they are right now and look the part of what they are supposed to be

[Xandis]

The Zanuka/Harvester/Hyena AI seems to follow a Tenno pretty well, with the exception of some moments, like taking shortcuts over a bridge.

[Ol_Ephraim]

Well, DE does tend to focus on the things the community are most vocal for.

 

Actually the magnetic idea is not that bad... maybe "walking" Sents could latch onto surfaces, jumping between them just like geckos do, and if you give them a high enough agility they shouldn't have much problem keeping up. They would just need to be far more nimble than Warframes. I can see this. Still, with doors and all that jazz a "respawn near" ability would probably be necessary.

Hardcode Ash'es teleport ability to them so they can always spawn near the player if they get beyond 50m.

[TonyFoot]

I can see myself enjoying this. +1

[Els236]

a couple of the ideas here are awesome :D

 

also, as noted above, there are already multiple AI's that follow Tenno or follow a leader.

 

 

Zanuka is probably the closest thing there is to a "proper pet" - it does what Alad V says. Does an Attack-Move command, homes in on Tenno and when old Salad needs reviving, it's there to help-out.

 

Reverse engineer this and bam! A perfect sentinel. Able to follow you everywhere, go and attack enemies and come back if needed.

[Revpeachs]

I like the idea of it.  Some sentinels flying around you, others running alongside or teleporting to keep up, possibly some even just crawling over the Tennos body.  It would take some work doing, but overall I think it's better than the interchangeable shoulderbling we have now.