Petition (Or Discussion!) To Remove Or Redesign The Grineer Rollers

[AndryB94]

As of now they're just horribly hard-to-hit stunlockers. Their only purpose is to annoy you to death, especially while other Grineer are shooting at you.

They are quite hard to avoid. Slower frames may not be able to outrun them. Unless you're very good, they can even interrupt one of your jump attacks, and they're almost impossible to hit with melee. You can get them with ranged if they are coming straight towards you and you have a Lex, or you have a very very good aim.

I am honestly not a big fan of them, but I can understand why they're here. I'll admit it, I don't have many ideas on what they could be replaced by, or how they could be redesigned (at least not for now). If somebody with better ideas than me wants to join in, you're more than welcome!

[CY13ERPUNK]

they just need to have attack animations/cycles

 

currently they have a persistent dmg aura 

 

which means they stun no matter how they bump into you or if you jump on them or whatevs (they'll even interrupt a jump attack on top of them, you have to do it near them but not too close)

 

i think if they were required to go into and commit to an attack animation with the blades out and do some kind of jumpy-sideways-horizontal-spinning-bladed-ball-of-death attack then they wouldn't be the annoyances they currently are

 

they'd still swarm and tear you up, but since they would behave more like other melee enemies, they would only be attacking/dmging WHILE they were attacking, not a persistent effect always on them

[katari]

Only issue I have with them is their radius of attack is larger than their hitbox so when you jump over them it hits you, other than that I'm ok with them stunning me and such.

[AndryB94]

they just need to have attack animations/cycles

 

currently they have a persistent dmg aura 

 

which means they stun no matter how they bump into you or if you jump on them or whatevs (they'll even interrupt a jump attack on top of them, you have to do it near them but not too close)

 

i think if they were required to go into and commit to an attack animation with the blades out and do some kind of jumpy-sideways-horizontal-spinning-bladed-ball-of-death attack then they wouldn't be the annoyances they currently are

 

they'd still swarm and tear you up, but since they would behave more like other melee enemies, they would only be attacking/dmging WHILE they were attacking, not a persistent effect always on them

 

Only issue I have with them is their radius of attack is larger than their hitbox so when you jump over them it hits you, other than that I'm ok with them stunning me and such.

Agreed with both of you guys.

[Amistyrja]

Am I the only one who thinks they're kinda cute, would love to have one as my sentinel, and laughs myself half to death watching my team spinning around in circles trying to shoot them?

[DeiUmbrarum]

Yeah, they annoy the crap out of me. I didn't know about the damage aura, maybe that's why they feel actually unfair instead of just hard.

[AndryB94]

Am I the only one who thinks they're kinda cute, would love to have one as my sentinel, and laughs myself half to death watching my team spinning around in circles trying to shoot them?

It'd be pretty fun to have them as a pet of sorts, maybe in a Tenno version, though they may be a bit hard to code?

Also, yay. Getting downvoted to promote discussion. Gotta love it xD

[Hezekiah]

I typically don't like petitions towards developers about the components, but man..........I HATE THOSE THINGS.  They really make solo play very unfair

[Madotsuki]

It'd be pretty fun to have them as a pet of sorts, maybe in a Tenno version, though they may be a bit hard to code?

Also, yay. Getting downvoted to promote discussion. Gotta love it xD

There are a vocal group on the forums that downvote and reject anything involving tweaks to enemies that even remotely decrease their annoyance/"challenge".

 

I for one don't find Rollers THAT annoying usually....until there are more than 2 at once, at which point it becomes a stagger festival of anger and frustration. However, even though i can usually deal with them (i've never died to Rollers), i still think they are just horribly designed in general. Giving them a charge-up before an attack would make them much less dumb. What I have in mind is for the roller to stop in place and start revving up (invuln at this stage) and then charge the player in a straight line at high speed. It can only damage/stagger players when charging. If it hits a wall mid-charge it gets disabled for a few seconds, so smart players can use the environment to their advantage.

Edited May 1, 2013 by Madotsuki

[AndryB94]

There are a vocal group on the forums that downvote and reject anything involving tweaks to enemies that even remotely decrease their annoyance/"challenge".

 

I for one don't find Rollers THAT annoying usually....until there are more than 2 at once, at which point it becomes a stagger festival of anger and frustration. However, even though i can usually deal with them (i've never died to Rollers), i still think they are just horribly designed in general. Giving them a charge-up before an attack would make them much less dumb. What I have in mind is for the roller to stop in place and start revving up (invuln at this stage) and then charge the player in a straight line at high speed. It can only damage/stagger players when charging. If it hits a wall mid-charge it gets disabled for a few seconds, so smart players can use the environment to their advantage.

Cheers for the feedback.

Also, I really like your idea. Wouldn't that make them quite similar to leapers, however?

[Madotsuki]

Cheers for the feedback.

Also, I really like your idea. Wouldn't that make them quite similar to leapers, however?

Leapers are much easier to hit, are never invulnerable, and don't react when smashing into a wall. They are similar in certain ways, but hey, you can't make every single enemy completely unique. It's still better than rolling constant stagger machines.

[AndryB94]

Leapers are much easier to hit, are never invulnerable, and don't react when smashing into a wall. They are similar in certain ways, but hey, you can't make every single enemy completely unique. It's still better than rolling constant stagger machines.

Yup. So, let me see if I understand it right: At a certain range from you they'll stop, turn invulnerable (or I suppose very well protected could be an alternative, like only 90% dmg taken) for a few seconds, then charge forward in a straight line for a certain distance/time. If they hit a wall or other hard obstacle they'll be "stunned" (and possibly weakened?) for a while, and if they hit a Warframe it will cause damage + stagger.

[Xytarez]

Roller balls arent really hard to kill.
I use a Rhino and either a Fragor or a Scindo on most missions. Rollers cant stun you when you swing a heavy melee weapon =) and the rest of my cell just climb the nearby crates and boxes and shoot whatever is not a roller.

They also get stuck in the environment often, which makes them even more vulnerable oh cmon, if i dont have a heavy melee weapon i just 1shot them with my latron. Yes, in close range it's even easier.

Also, AoE skills are really helpful, but somehow they make rollers explode in a shower of bodyparts. i suspect there're tiny greeners inside them.

 

on an unrelated note, finishing animation on the rollers looks damn hilarious, considering they never stop rolling.

Edited May 1, 2013 by Xytarez

[UncommonUnicorn]

Yeah, they're annoying.

Yeah, they remind me of platformer games.

Biggest and only fix they'd need is the damage aura, if any fix at all.

 

Maybe we can a variant roller that produces Latchers/Nervos?

[Luxangel7]

I imagine if they turned them into little "sonic" balls they would be much more fun to deal with.

 

1) they come (relatively) near to you

2) They start to spark and charge (vibrate w/e)

3) Then they come at you, as they normally do

4) they turn around and start the charge animation again

 

Rinse, repeat

 

This would keep the original concept, as well as provide a normal frustration free window of opportunity to kill the little buggers.

 

Presto change-o now they're fun to kill. (if for nothing else but revenge on all those times they were stun locking us every .4 seconds....)

[Unchained]

adapt or perish

[Guest]

I really do hate Rollers. They're not fun and challenging like a well designed enemy should be, they're just "I want to shoot myself in the @(*()$ head" annoying.

 

It's especially bad on Grineer defense missions where they spawn in packs of four or five. One will always come out of nowhere and stagger you, then the others will proceed to hit you one by one just before the stagger animation ends so you're perpetually stunlocked. Unless you have energy for an AOE nuke you're just gonna get knocked around for what feels like forever.

 

"Just stand on top of the boxes."

 

Try doing that past early game defense missions where every Grineer who are at least Lvl30 will all aim at you.

[Qb3rt]

Keep Calm and slide attack on.

[VER1]

Nothing wrong with the rollers.

They serve their purpose.

 

Build a warframe loadout with some form of counter towards them and know how to counter them.

 

I have had no problems with taking down rollers quickly when using either a Gorgon or Hek.

If the roller gets the jump on you, see where it is, move out of the way, turn around, start running away from it and shoot.

 

I generally use trinity so I do not have any of the radius blasts to take out a number of them in one go.

[stacey69]

No they are fine. No need for a nerf of any kind. 

 

Wait untill the roll towards you in a straight line and shoot just under them. Easy kills if you relax and follow <--- that. 5-6 of them and yeah your gonna get spammed so always keep their numbers down as much as possible.

[Spinner187]

Although I find them extremely annoying, I do appreciate the design of the rollers.

 

The only really issue I have with them is on grinner defense missions in the asteroid, they stick to the defense objective, and you can't always kill them with ballistics or melee weapons.

Edited May 1, 2013 by Spinner187

[11.11.11]

Just disable their spawns for solo. In my eyes that would fix most of their real issues. Oh, and have some sort of cool-down effect on their attacks. So that after one of them attacks a player, another can't for 2-3 seconds or so. To prevent being stun-locked to oblivion. 

[Tsukinoki]

Just disable their spawns for solo. In my eyes that would fix most of their real issues. Oh, and have some sort of cool-down effect on their attacks. So that after one of them attacks a player, another can't for 2-3 seconds or so. To prevent being stun-locked to oblivion. 

Either that or give the player a 2-3 second or so window of being immune to stuns/staggers?

[BlueSpark]

Two suggestions to make rollers a bit less of a pain in the &amp;#&#33;:

 

1) Remember how enemies become immune to knockdown effects (at least jump attacks) for a certain amount of time after they've been knocked down? A similar principle may be applied to roller attacks versus players. If we've been stunned by a roller, give us a couple seconds of breathing room to retaliate instead of being chain-stunned by the other 3 rollers scooting around the area.

 

2) Make rollers slow down by ~50% as long as they're taking a turn so as to make it actually feasible to hit them. You can't always "run away from them in a straight line", either because of map design or because you need to defend an objective. They should still move at their full speed when going straight and leaping at a player.

 

I'd like to see them modified ("nerfed' if you will) in some such form, but they're not the worst thing in the world. Even if they stay the way they currently are, I'll live.

[11.11.11]

Either that or give the player a 2-3 second or so window of being immune to stuns/staggers?

 

This is kind of what I was getting at. There are some other enemies, that will also stunlock you to oblivion - ie: grineer marines and corpus prod-men.

 

Perhaps we could have some sort of automatic 'rage' effect? If your frame gets stunned three times in a row say, they pick themselves up, and slam the ground / do a pivot kick. Doing a small AOE effect which stuns, but dosn't damage all enemies in a small radius around you. Perhaps even different frames could do different animations. 

 

I can see Rhino doing a ground-slam, Ember cloaking in flames, Mag doing a spinning kick, or a magnetic pulse, Banshee shrieking in frustration, and Volt slapping everyone in the face.