Enemies Overhaul/rework

[Mainabi]

18^th June: Infested Overhaul

In the incoming presentation I will talk about the Enemies, Team gameplay-changes, new type of cc and rebalance of frames and weapons (passively buffing switch teleport, pull, fireball or mind control, since the new enemy concept will make use of these and every other skills, further information inside)
PS I'm sorry if it's hard to read, I'm not a native english speaker.
PSS: will deliver pictures later, didn't do the sketches yet

 

 

INFESTED

 

 

A wonderful day to everyone, I hope you’re having fun and a chill day fighting the infested. Honestly I really wish you full chill and a relaxing fight…

NOT

Right now the situation with the infested is pathetic. These guys are weak and just bulletsandbags, which is pretty sad, annoying and weak, that’s no challenge and honestly no fun neither.
Infested should corner you, make you feel fear and give you paranoia. That's why I'd like to present a complete overhaul of the infested behaviour, attacks, and feel in general, promoting teamplay and rebalance weapons. Also opening the paths to new mods.

Let's jump directly in:

The infested will split up in 3 Classes: Spawn, Adult and Ancient 
These guys will have different difficulties, higher levels will mean different fighting pattern, not just high Hp and high armor and simply high attack damage, the fighting will be different!
(I didn't include the bosses)

 

also note that the weaknesses doesn't include elemental damage, since every infested should be weak to fire in general

 

1. The Spawn

these guys are the basic infested and spawn on every infested map. These guys are weak and their attacks are pretty weak, but these guys are fast and deadly in numbers.
There are 2 Spawns: Charger and Leaper, Runner got removed!

 

Charger

• Spawn Count: 

  - very high (higher difficulty will increase the spawnrate)

• HP Value: 

  - 50 (+2 HP per level)

• Defense:

  - very light armor around the body (dmg reducion by 10%)

• Weakness:

  - Head

• Movement:

  - 1.5 (+0.1 every 20 levels, as comparison: ash without rushmods: 1.4)

• Behaviour:
  - aggressive
  - reacts on sight, dead allies will make these gather around the dead ally
  - spawns and walks mainly as a horde
• Attack pattern:
  - charge and attack (won't ever stunlock/stagger)
• How to fight them?:

  - Spray and pray will work wonders, outrunning them on higher levels won’t be possible: wallruns and climbing will help, also these guys won’t stagger ever.

 

Leaper

• Spawn Count: 

  - high (higher difficulty will increase the spawnrate)

• HP Value: 

  - 30 (+3 HP per level)

• Defense:

  - very light armor around the body (dmg reducion by 10%)

• Weakness:

  - Legs

• Movement:

  - 1.2, can walk on walls and ceilings

• Behaviour:
  - aggressive
  - reacts ONLY on fast movement (crouch movement will keep them unalerted, reacts on own enemies, if a charger spots the tenno and starts to move fast, the Leaper will also react on that.)
  - spawns and walks on its own
  - won’t alert allies
• Attack pattern:
  - gets around the target by walking on the walls/ceiling, If the targets is close enough (5m horizontal distance), if the target is close enough, it will do a leap attack (can stagger with a chance of 33%)
• How to fight them?:

  - Focus fire on these guys first before going to the chargers since on a successful attack it will stagger you for 0.05 seconds and dealing decent dmg, the stagger is simply to break a spell/reload or melee animation.

  Fighting against many enemies means move your &#! as much as possible to dodge incoming attacks,
  on stealth missions if you got targeted by a leaper, just stay still and sneak away it will simply lose track of you.

 

 

 

2. The Adult
tough guys, aka the elites of the infested. the corpus/grineer etc that mutated for a longer time than just 5min
there are 3 Adults: Spore, Tentacle and Golem

 

Spore

• Spawn Count: 

  - low-mid (higher difficulty will increase the spawnrate, expect to get 5 of them on wave 3 on xini)

• HP Value: 

  - 200 (+10 HP per level)

• Defense:

  - it has a shell that can cover most of it's body and reducethe damage down to 10%

• Weakness:

  - Mouth x2dmg, legs will receive full dmg

• Movement:

  - 3, can walk on any surface

• Behaviour:
  - passive, it will try to run away from you
  - reacts on everything on sight
  - can spawn in a group and solo
  - it has 2 modes: when in combat mode it dig itself into the surface making the Spore unable to move, but it will completely dig it’s legs into the surface, making these weakness hidden/covered, but at the same time the mouth is slightly open.
• Attack pattern:
  --ranged (up to 40m)
  - it will shoot needles in bursts. These needles have a flight time and are dodgeable (higher difficulty will spawn explosives in the back of the needles, making them similar to sticky grenades with an explosion diameter of 1m, these minibombs will explode 3sec after it pierced a target/a surface, higher difficulty will also make them shoot faster between the bursts)
  - before it shoots, the mouth opens wide so if you look carefuly you can see when it will shoot and it exposes its biggest weakness the mouth
• How to fight them?:

  - there are 2 general ways to fight them, get close to the Spore so it will try to run away, while it runs away it can’t shoot. Or use yourself as bait, and let the spore open the mouth to shoot you, while the mouth is far open: shoot it

  - the mouth will never completely close it will always have a small opening, perfect for hitscan or sniper weapons.

 

Tentacle

• Spawn Count: 

  - medium (less than spores)

• HP Value: 

  - 300 HP (+15 HP per level)

• Defense:

  - none

• Weakness:

  - none

• Movement:

  - 1 (+0.07 every 10 levels) it can also walk on walls and ceilings

• Behaviour:
  - aggressive, will try to get close to the target
  - reaction on sight
  - will only alert if the attack was successful
• Attack pattern:
  - it will try to get close to you, as soon the target is in the attackrange (5m), the tentacle will grab the targets legs, and the victim can’t move anymore, but the victim can still attack/fight
• How to fight them?:

  - try to keep a min. distance of 5m

  - In case you got snared by a tentacle, try to kill it before the Hordes of Chargers and Leapers will run you over, it doesn’t deal any damage so it’s a pure cc type.

 

Golem

• Spawn Count: 

  - low (around 2-3 per wave after wave 5 on xini)

• HP Value: 

  - 600 HP (+60 HP per level)

• Defense:

  - Arms and Body.

• Weakness:

  -  Legs aren’t armored and shooting the legs will make the Golem fall down (similar to jackal) but 10% of the damage to the legs will go towards to the whole HP pool, and the legs can regen itself, but it will take some time. The damage to the head is x1.5. The backbone is also exposed it will receive increased elemental damage.

• Movement:

  - 2 (ice effects can only lower his speed by 25%) it can climb for about 2seconds

• Behaviour:
  - aggressive but dumb, it won’t try to get cover or try to circle around you
  - will react on sight and sounds
  - on reaction it will make a warcry gathering a massive amount of chargers
• Attack pattern:
  - Charge: it shouts loud and buffs itself with a speedbuff(speed x3) it goes wild and the armor will be hardened, (effective armor will be x2), it runs in a straight line the range of this attack is 10m front and 1m to every side, the charge will stagger the the golem if it only hits the wall, if it hits a target it will punch the enemy and let teaches enemies to fly, (so who’s brave enough to play matador?),
  - Jump attack: it will slam the floor twice and then do a jump attack, the jump attack itself is pretty fast and the effect will be the same as the heavy grineer slam, since the golem will slam the floor twice you can still dodge it.
  - Throw (higher difficulty/high lvl only): the golem will grab an ally (Spawn only) and throw it to the target simple but still effective.
  - Bodyslam (higher difficulty only): it will climb on walls and then jump away from the wall, using the body as a big giant cannonball on impact it’s similar to a jump attack: massive aoe and knockdown, it will stagger itself on impact
• How to fight them?:

  - be a matador, dodge in the right moment

  - long range and accurate weapons will do wonders (snipers will shine)
  - loki switch teleport to help teammates, mags pull to save the ally
  - switch teleport/pull it away from the wall to counter his bodyslam

 

 

 

3. The Ancient

Welp what should I say? Ancient don’t feel or look ancient at all, just morphed Corpus Techs, and I can’t think that the Corpus had the same looks hundreds of years ago, also Ancients are annoying but not really scary. There will be 3 types of ancients: Healer, Disruptor and the Toxic Hive.
Also Ancients never spawn on Solo runs.

 

Healer

• Spawn Count: 

  - rare (max 2 every 5 waves and up to 5 in a normal mission, won’t spawn in solo runs and only on maps with min lvl 20+ enemies)

• HP Value: 

  - 1600 (+40 HP per level)

• Defense:

  - almost fully covered with a decent armor

• Weakness:

  - joints +50% extra dmg, and basic melee and only ice on melee will slow it down (the slow will be twice as strong).

• Movement:

  - 0.5 (slower than rhino sprint, +0.02 per level) can’t climb, can’t run or stick on walls

• Behaviour:
  - passive, it will try to run away if anything but an infested gets close
  - tries to cover
  - it won’t advance forward on its own
• Attack pattern:
  - it’s rather simple it shoots a pack of mutated flesh with nanospores, the attack will go up first and fly towards the locked point it is easily dodgeable on lower levels, on impact it will explode, damaging every enemy in the area (the aoe size has a diameter of 6m) and every infested in the impact gets a massive regeneration boost, 200 HP per second for the next 5 seconds, the projectile can be shot and taken down while it’s flying, if destroyed it doesn’t deal any dmg and it won’t heal the allies
  (increased difficulty will simply increase the attackrate of this attack and later on it will make the projectiles HOMING)
• How to fight them?:

  - corner the healer and beat it to death with melee since it will also slow down the attack (similar to the ice field on the void maps),
  - shooting the mini rockets will stop them from healing infested and dealing massive damage (you can also destroy the mini rockets from the heavy grineer)
  - and using hitscan weapons to focusfire on joints will also help since the joints move a lot and are small enough to easily miss with bolttype weapons)

 

Disruptor

- based on Corpus Cyborgs made few hundreds years ago

• Spawn Count: 

  - very rare (slightly less than healer, 1-2 every early 5 waves and it only spawns with lvl 30+)

  HP Value: 2100 (+30 per level)
• HP Value: 

  - 2100 (+30 HP per level)

• Defense:

  - strong armor in the front, arms aren’t armored but damage to his arms won’t damage the body, the back has a very weak armor, the arms can regenerate.

• Weakness:

  - joints, face and the reactorcores (on his back)

• Movement:

  - 1.5 (+0.01 per level, with lvl 60+ it can jump around, but the jump has a cooldown of 5 seconds, and on landing it slows down for 1 seconds)

• Behaviour:
  - aggressive
  - egoistic, will push allied infested away on the way to the target
  - it will react on everything in its aggro zone
  - shouts to alert allies and gather them from far away
• Attack pattern:
  - Slash: it will use its blade type arms to inflict damage to his victim, fast and precise, doesn’t stagger (similar to the fang since it also doesn’t stagger, but it’s fast)
  - EMP shockwave: if an enemy is close (5m radius around the ancient) it will launch an emp attack completely destroying the HUD, making it hard to see and blocks every ability for 3 second. It will deal decent damage to shields. (this attack can always be done even if it does another attack at the same time, but it has a cooldown of 10seconds)
  - Charge: it will try to get closer to the hostile by doing a charge attack
  - Bind: that’ll be an interesting Skill if the Disruptor gets close enough it will grab the enemy hold him in the air and lock it there (sure it will move the enemy around) the hostile can’t move, can’t shoot can’t attack nor use any spells, and while locked the energy and shield gets drained slowly 10 energy and 50 shield per second, it will keep draining energy till the energy is down to 0, if the energy counter reaches 0 the disruptor will throw the target to the floor dealing massive damage, if you’re unlucky and your shields are already at 0 you will receive heavy dmg to the HP. (the Drain starts after being locked for 2 seconds and it will at least drain for 1 sec: min skill duration 3 sec + animation time then)
  - Leap (high difficulty only): the disruptor will jump to his target (max range 10m) and knock him up it will deal aoe dmg and making the victim an easy target for bind.
  - EMP grenades (high difficulty only): it will shoot grenades (flight speed of the dera) and make an aoe explosion on impact, staggering you for 0.5seconds or less and also blocks your abilities and HUD and stops your shield from regenerating, it doesn’t deal any damage. (it can be shot any time, even while binding a target)
  - Higher levels will let the disruptor chain and combo his spells and attacks (for example emp grenade > leap > bind)
• How to fight them?:

  - Teamplay, Only teamplay! solo player will most likely get their asses raped if they can’t dodge perfectly.

  - if a player is in a "Bind", his teammates has to break the bind by shooting the arms, or destroy the arms with any damage source (for example embers fireball would be really strong), Switch teleport with Loki can also break the bind or simply mags pull will save his teammate.
  - Melee is hard but you can do it, invisibility can be destroyed by the emp but if you get into his range while being invis, it won’t activate his emp shockwave, and the ice on melee will slow it down hard. Or play risky as saryn, get in and immediately make a moult the emp shockwave will come but the Disruptor will target the Moult tries to bind the decoy and leaving himself open to melee.

 

Toxic Hive

- based on multiple infested, grown and mutated together

• Spawn Count: 

  - rare (expect min 4 on the end of the 5 waves, and up to 8 on a normal map lvl 25+ only)

• HP Value: 

  - 400 (+20 HP per level)

• Defense:

  - it has a Swarm that protects the hive (it's like a shield and the swarm can regenerate itself if it swarms around the toxic hive)
  - moderate/decent armor

• Weakness:

  - the swarm is very weak against fire in general
  - but the hive itself doesn’t have any weakspots itself.
  - Ice will weaken and slow down the spawn of the Larvae and Swarm (Only Melee from ice can affect it)

• Movement:

  - 0.5 (+0.005 per level)

• Behaviour:
  - not aggressive nor passive, it simply slowly advances forward
  - react to fast movement in a 10m radius, if alerted it reacts to everything in a radius of 20m
  - the swarm reacts to anything in a 6m radius
• Attack pattern:
  - Suicide Larvae: The toxic hive is covered with eggs, these eggs will spawn Larvae/Bugs, mini Infested, (size 20-40cm something in this size), these bugs will simply seek the next target and suicide on range leaving a poison cloud (that’s why Runners should be removed completely)
  on higher levels it can spawn more than 1 larva at the same time and the spawn rate will also be reduced = more larvae = more boom = not good if you don’t take care of these guys
  the larvae are pretty weak itself, these larvae have max 100hp and you can kill these larvae, but if they’re already spawned it will still leave a poison cloud and the larvae are pretty slow (only 0.8)
  - Swarm: the Toxic is covered in a swarm of mini infested (it’s like that swarm that flies around on infested maps) it always covers the toxic hive leaving only the feet exposed, shooting directly on the swarm will only damage the swarm, the acts like a meatshield but at the same time it can also be used as a weapon. If you get too close to the toxic hive, the swarm will leave the hive and instead attack the enemy/intruder shredding the target and making it almost impossible to see (as a player the screen should be almost black with just a few open spots to see), and if the swarm is destroyed the toxic hive will START to spawn a new swarm.
  Also the longer you’re being attacked by the swarm the more dmg the poison it will do, so yup the swarm will apply poison damage(higher difficulty will spawn multiple spawns up to 3, the range will also increase the reaction range up to 10m)
• How to fight them?:

  - The swarm and the larvae can be a pain, to uncover the eggs the swarm has to be gone, use embers fireball or volts shock to buzz the swarm away or use hitscan weapons to destroy the swarm since the swarm moves pretty fast around the toxic hive, covering the hive almost 100%, so kill the swarm, and then focus fire on the weakspots while 1 person takes care of the eggs, so it won’t spawn larvae or the swarm.
  - Teamplay also works great since a player can act as a bait for the swarm (for example embers overheat would be great)        

 

 

 

Thoughts:

These Changes would be pretty radical but I think radical changes are necessary to make it challenging, also it's kind of a buff/nerf of weapons and frames

- hitscan weapons will be easier to handle since infested will be fast and deadly and the weakpoints are pretty small, slow moving bolts won't rly hit the weakpoints (but it ignores armor so it doesn't matter too much)
- underused spells like mags pull, or trollskill switch teleport can be extremly great against the new infested, even psybolts for nyx can break the bind, or nyxs mind control on a disruptor? F*** yeah!

- also banshees Sonic Boom can do wonders against the disruptor or golem, or against the mobs in general

 

thus underused/weak spells like mentioned above have a new meaning. 

 

it also encourages teamplay since walking alone is dangerous, and with a little bit paranoia people stick together, espeically since the Infested are deadly now.

 

The talk about kunai too strong etc can also be changed, why? since the kunai has a flight time it can barely hit the super small weakpoints and almost miss the weakpoints all the time, while hitscan weapons like lex, lato or kraken will come in handy against enemies with small weakpoints

talking about weakpoints snipers will also get a slight buff thanks to that since hitting the hitpoints should be rewarding.

then let's move on to the drops and future mods, drops can be splitted up to the classes that way and ancient could always drop a uncommon+ mod and uncommon or higher ressources.
since these guys are rare checking all the rooms that aren't on the way makes sense since you can also farm then and slow rushers a little bit down, but staying still/not moving much will also mean death since these guys come in hordes, and when I'm talking about hordes, like in L4D2 over 9000 Chargers at the same time.

 

What does it also mean to old mods? Puncture can be buffed to 6m+ again since you might need it for that amount of enemies

so in the end I it makes the game more challenging and interesting but with that scaling, you won't get overrun as a noob or casual player.

 

ah ps since melee should be rewarded since it's more dangerous to get close, buff pressure point :3

 

 

Feel free to leave any feedbacks and comments, but don't forget if you dislike it, I'd like to know the reasons

 

 

greetings Seira

Edited July 31, 2013 by SeiraSunmin

[Mainabi]

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[Mainabi]

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[MusicGamer]

This is quite well thought out, Seira.  It would certainly be interesting if these proposed changes were implemented in the game.

+1 for creativity, presentation, and the fact that the Infested do in fact need an overhaul.

[FLSH_BNG]

A couple of these enemies sound like souped-up versions of monsters from The Binding of Isaac...

 

I think I would certainly like to face off against these new infested... Hopefully at least one of the new bosses for the infested will be a large serpent-like giant worm or something.

 

Space ninjas fighting giant technocyte dragons would be way too much fun.

 

+1 for this thread!

[OoKeNnEtHoO]

UPVOTED.

 

This is the kind of threads we need to see more of on this forums.

[DarkDestiny]

Sounds pretty cool.

 

I like it.

[Inberun]

Yes we need a range Infested unit and less stunlock + knockdown

[Mainabi]

Yes we need a range Infested unit and less stunlock + knockdown

I'm fine with stunlock and knockdown if:

A. you can get away from it

B. your mates can help you

[KvotheTheArcane1]

+1, I'm all fr making enemies tougher, and I like the ideas behind the enemies here.

[General-Griffin]

you want them to not only completely redo them as a race but change the AI for each band of enemy. What people don't seem to get is when an idea is expensive and not worth the time. That idea is expensive, New models, change AI, loss of the money spent on creating the old race anyway.

 

This won't happen any time soon and ideas like this which want to "change the whole world" as it were are useless until the developers are happy with the basic mechanics of the game...which by the way they release updates and hot fixes there not. I like the effort mate how much do you think there willing to spend on reinventing a race when it has the problems it has. 

 

The premise of making enemies tougher sounds great but in all honesty it has to wait as dealing with this kind of issue is so difficult. Everyone complains that there too easy and there just there to be shot...that's the idea isn't it? They just run at you and at the moment the fear they put on high level players is because of the knock back and the energy drain.

 

I'd also like to point out that all this wouldn't make them anymore difficult. The only time I've had difficulty with them is in great number after wave 20 when their swarming the coffin but if the ancient sit at the back then I can use them to give my coffin time to repair and abuse anything that fires long range or sits at a distance. The only way this race really works is if it comes at you. 

Edited June 18, 2013 by General-Griffin

[Mainabi]

you want them to not only completely redo them as a race but change the AI for each band of enemy. What people don't seem to get is when an idea is expensive and not worth the time. That idea is expensive, New models, change AI, loss of the money spent on creating the old race anyway.

so you say you're fine the way it is? you should know they said themself they're going to rework the infested, ancients are just placeholders, the j3 will already receive a complete overhaul, getting a new model, conceptworks are already out. It's a PvE game challenge will be needed.

Expensive is one thing, it will cost but it's an investment in the gameplay

 

This won't happen any time soon and ideas like this which want to "change the whole world" as it were are useless until the developers are happy with the basic mechanics of the game...which by the way they release updates and hot fixes there not. I like the effort mate how much do you think there willing to spend on reinventing a race when it has the problems it has. 

Did I ever say they should make that in 5min? I don't think so neither did everyone else think that way

 

The premise of making enemies tougher sounds great but in all honesty it has to wait as dealing with this kind of issue is so difficult. Everyone complains that there too easy and there just there to be shot...that's the idea isn't it? They just run at you and at the moment the fear they put on high level players is because of the knock back and the energy drain.

you start the game, and after 5x infested you get so used to it that it's just plainly annoying and boring not even scary at all, I happily run towards every disruptor I don't care about them all although I use heavy ability frames like saryn or ember.

 

I'd also like to point out that all this wouldn't make them anymore difficult. The only time I've had difficulty with them is in great number after wave 20 when their swarming the coffin but if the ancient sit at the back then I can use them to give my coffin time to repair and abuse anything that fires long range or sits at a distance. The only way this race really works is if it comes at you. 

how doesn't that make it more difficult? if you ignore elites, the spores will attack the artifact if it's in range and you aren't, the golem will also first charge to the artifact if you're not there to take away his aggro, gg slam slam done.

ancients on the other hand, low lvl ancient are low lvl and shouldn't be too difficult at all, the higher the infested get the stronger they get making it more difficult by an artillery of mutagen packs from the healer, you won't be fast enough to shoot down a rain of mutagenpacksrockets whatever you wish to call them, disruptor are fast and agile and jump on you if you don't time your stuff perfectly grab and you'll be killed in short time if there's nobody to help you, and toxic hives will wreck anything if you ignore them and won't see the small larvae which attacks everything if you're not careful it attacks the pod while you almost won't see the larvae

Edited June 18, 2013 by SeiraSunmin

[Aizeol]

I approve. +1

[Notso]

This thread, all of the yes. I'd love to see what you could come up with for Corpus/Grineer if you put your mind to it.

[General-Griffin]

The sheer audacity you have to call any part of this game pathetic is beyond me in all honesty especially when I and plenty of others are still enjoying our time. Thinking up small things that you reckon could improve the game, great. Big things come up too but those things are deal breakers and the infested aren't a deal breaker.

 

Anyone can make up enemies, give them names and chuck on what you think they should do and what not but I don't think this faction even need it, They should be simple in my eyes and giving them all this . The only difference I'd want from the game with infested is randomly selected models from other factions to be infested with randomly placed weak spots on the body. 

 

You already said there working on it so why even bother asking them to change it if you know there not even done on the original yet.

 

Your suggestion wouldn't fix problem you set out to fix, it would just make it like the other factions. You've still got them running at you, you've still made them weak to kill. It just going to be the same except your given them range and a few new ideas for AI's to play. 

[Notso]

make it like the other factions.

 

So he's fixed the problem he has with them right?

[General-Griffin]

Only as copy and basting Corpus in there with infested skins and there lasers changed to spores then yea I suppose that fixed the issue of the infested being infested.

[MusicGamer]

 You've still got them running at you, you've still made them weak to kill. It just going to be the same except your given them range and a few new ideas for AI's to play. 

And you have to employ strategy to actually kill them, as opposed to using the old "stand there and hold down the mouse button until it dies" idea.  Which adds some variety.  And besides, not everyone is happy with the Infested as they are now.  I find them quite boring right now, to be honest.

 

And even if DE is working on them already, this post is meant to offer suggestions for what changes they ought to make.  THAT is the point of this.

 

Also, copy and basting?  Last I checked we were talking about overhauling Infested, not cooking turkeys.

Edited June 18, 2013 by MusicGamer

[General-Griffin]

Yea and were supposed to comment and think about what people post and comment on it and here I just think its adding more stuff to to a pile that needs to just be cleaned up. They are not supposed to be strategic that's the whole point of this enemy. What you guys want is a higher level grineer with tech that means you have to work that way like the shields but maybe a mech with a weak back spot. All of which would be alot easier to do rather than an overhaul of this race. 

 

Seems to me that we should be looking to improve the factions not change what they are entirely. It's either a hive mind sending it's slaves against the onslaught, zombies or thinking and if it goes thinking then it just becomes the same as the other two. If anything the idea would be better suited to new xeno race for later rather than changing a easy race to get started on killing in bulk and as a new player I loved them for getting to grips with my gear and damage and leveling my melee as a new starter. 

 

Not to mention on defense having the healers at the back encourages people to leave the pod which at later levels as we all know is a bad move.

Edited June 18, 2013 by General-Griffin

[MusicGamer]

Yea and were supposed to comment and think about what people post and comment on it and here I just think its adding more stuff to to a pile that needs to just be cleaned up. They are not supposed to be strategic that's the whole point of this enemy. What you guys want is a higher level grineer with tech that means you have to work that way like the shields but maybe a mech with a weak back spot. All of which would be alot easier to do rather than an overhaul of this race. 

 

Seems to me that we should be looking to improve the factions not change what they are entirely. It's either a hive mind sending it's slaves against the onslaught, zombies or thinking and if it goes thinking then it just becomes the same as the other two. If anything the idea would be better suited to new xeno race for later rather than changing a easy race to get started on killing in bulk and as a new player I loved them for getting to grips with my gear and damage and leveling my melee as a new starter. 

 

Not to mention on defense having the healers at the back encourages people to leave the pod which at later levels as we all know is a bad move.

Well I dunno about you, but I like having to think when killing zombies.  Plus, they aren't entirely mindless; as is evidenced by J3-Golem and Phorid, they are capable of their own form of speech.  Why can't the rest of the Infested faction reflect this kind of intelligence?

And if it's such a hivemind sending its slaves out to battle, how come the Golem and Phorid seem to be their own entities?  They do not seem to acknowledge a hivemind at all.

[General-Griffin]

Granted they do talk and seem to take prisoners but its an example of what they give of as a race at the moment if you will and if you want to make it more difficult it would be easier to put something in like left 4 dead where they can can grab you and pull you down and  attack you on the floor. Something as simple as that would make them as a race much more difficult and mean you have to keep a distance or know your way around a melee weapon. 

 

What I want is limbs that can be shot off or damaged or individually damaged. I want the race to be difficult because of what limbs are best to shoot for maximum damage and how much punishment they can take with exceptions for the smaller dogs which should just be cannon fodder, well actually all of them are fodder but still. 

 

My original point still standing, you want tactics then you have the Grinnie's or the Corpus but straight pound for pound damage it's infested.

[ValhaHazred]

Update 9 or 10 is giving the Infested a major overhaul. So far they've revealed the new ancient model and Golem concept art.

I don't know how much they can do with the AI. I agree it could certainly be better.

The spawn rate is unfortunatley set due to lag and performance issues with players on less beefy machines.

[General-Griffin]

Sweet! New boss and a  model for the ancient, still I hope they don't start using guns next.

[MusicGamer]

Sweet! New boss and a  model for the ancient, still I hope they don't start using guns next.

You do realize that "range" does not equal "guns" right? >.>

[alocrius]

What you seem to be asking for here is an update that addresses gameplay as oppossed to an update that just gives (more of the same) content.  Well guess what.. the rest of us have our "fantasy" gameplay updates as well.  Let me know when you start to get bitter as you realize it's never coming.