Madotsuki
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Posts posted by Madotsuki
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This is going to be the first of a series of threads where I suggest ideas to the devs for new units to introduce, improvements to the AI, and tweaks to existing units, in order to patch up existing features that are too frustrating or exploits that people use to cheese the AI, basically to make each faction as interesting to fight as possible.
This first thread is dedicated to the Grineer, one of the currently most boring factions. In its current state, the Grineer are essentially generic human enemies that only require the player to take cover and play whack-a-mole with their heads. The only thing that spices it up is the Roller, and yet the Roller not only does not fit the general design of the Grineer (human-based military faction), but is obnoxious, repeatedly staggers players, enforces certain playstyles and loadouts, can stunlock in groups of 3+, and makes players more likely to run away to slowly cheese them in peace instead of facing them like a man. Below, I shall suggest a list of new enemy units that can spice up the faction, such as forcing players out of cover without relying on stagger mechanics, as well as AI improvements to make the Grineer a tough but fair faction to face off against, including the introduction of squad formations and tweaks to existing enemies. For reading convenience, each part will be kept in a spoiler window.
NEW UNITS
Grineer Grenadier
- Heavy unit
- Uses a pipebomb launcher, with a fire rate of 1 bomb per second. Has a clip size of 4 before reloading.
- Pipebombs, unlike sticky grenades from other units, can bounce off walls and roll slightly on surfaces. On hitting a surface, it will activate a 3 second timer, exploding afterwards. Pipebombs glow and make a beeping sound upon activation.
- Each pipebomb does a base damage of 150, increases with enemy level. The further the player is from the centre of the explosion, the less damage he takes.
- Role: Launch pipebombs around and over cover using its arc and wall-bounce properties to flush players out of cover.
Grineer Juggernaut
- Heavy unit
- Carries a shield similar to Shield Lancers but scaled up in size. Big enough to block out all damage from the front except to his feet. There is a thin glass slit on the shield for the Juggernaut to see through. Glass slit can be broken by bullets and then shot through for headshots, giving an advantage to precision weapons.
- Instead of a gun, carries a Manticore axe/Brokk hammer. Moves much the same way as Shield Lancers until in mid-range, at which point he breaks into a sprint towards the player. Shield is moved slightly to the side in this phase.
- When the Juggernaut reaches the player, he stops and smashes his axe/hammer at the ground where the player is. If hit, deals 500+ damage, knocks back and knocks down player. Also creates quake effect on impact with ground, causing stagger but no damage if hit. Quake radius is half that of Fragor, can be jumped over.
- After a strike, Juggernaut takes 2 seconds to lift up his hammer/axe again, during which his shield is moved to the side, leaving him vulnerable to damage completely. After the 2 seconds, he will recover and reposition the shield in front of himself. Has a minimum of 5-second cooldown before he can attack again.
- Role: Provides mobile cover for Heavy units (nearby units will run forward with the Juggernaut when he charges). Provides different approaches for players (precision aiming at glass slit/flanking with multiple players/baiting into attacking)
Grineer Torcher
- “Commander” unit (between heavy and medium)
- Wields a flamethrower. Shoots a medium range stream of fire instead of Napalm fireballs.
- Attempts to ambush players like light units. Once in close range, he will spray a stream of fire at players, dealing constant damage while players are touching the fire. Keeps spraying as long as players are still in range, stops to retreat if not. Moves as slow as Heavy walk speed when attacking, allowing players to outrun him.
- Has a 0.5 sec “priming” time before attacking, during which the tip of the flamethrower starts glowing from heat and makes a sound of gas being released, giving players a slight warning.
- Role: Ambush unaware players and flush players out of cover with flames.
BETTER AI
Squad mechanics
The Grineer, despite being a military organization, is one of the most random and un-organized armies I’ve ever seen. They have barely any teamwork and just randomly send whatever they have on board at you. The only flanking I’ve ever seen them do is spawn a wave behind you in the room you just cleared 5 seconds ago. What they need are Squad Formations.
Essentially, aside from the constant stream of fodder, have them also spawn in certain groups of formations. For example, having two Shield Lancers guard a Seeker while he deploys Latchers at players in relative safety; having two Heavy Napalms cover the area behind players with fire as a wave of light units zerg rush from the front; having a Commander switch teleport you into a ring of Powerfists; the possibilities are endless! Squad Formations can spawn more often as enemy level goes up, as well as increasing their complexity. That is a much better way to increase difficulty instead of just making enemies more bullet spongy.
AI Fixes
Currently there are some pretty stupid things that Grineers do that make potentially challenging attacks trivial. Here is a small list of particularly visible Grineer AI idiocy, and how to fix them.
- Grenade throwing. Currently the AI does not take into account the environment and will blindly aim their projectiles at your feet. This can’t be helped much with straight-flying projectiles like Bombard rockets and Napalm fireballs, but considering grenades can arc, this is pretty stupid, as they simply fail at throwing them over cover and most nades simply latch on and explode to the front of boxes while players hide on the back safely. With a little bit of work, by having the AI take the environment into account (cover etc.) and calculate a trajectory to land the nade as close to the player as possible by controlling throw strength, angle of projection etc., nades will become a much more useful weapon for them. Enemy level can change the possible margin of error, so that lower level enemies have relatively poor aim, while higher level enemies can pull off call-of-duty-across-the-map throws reliably.
- Light units are idiots. So many times I’ve had sawmen and powerfists attempt Leeroy Jenkinses on me from across the room while I casually line up a headshot for them. Flameblades fare a little better due to teleportation, but they can’t all have teleports can they? Sawmen and Powerfists really need better pathing so that they can try to attack from the side or back of the player. Whether this new pathing triggers over the straight-ahead pathing can be based on distance and enemy level.
Tweaking existing enemies
Aside from the above AI fixes, some existing enemies really need some tweaking to make them either more challenging or less frustrating.
- Seekers: First off, their Latchers really need a damage buff. For something that can be removed with a single roll, its damage is way too insignificant. For me, when a Latcher latches on, instead of “Oh god get it off” it’s more of a “Meh, there’s more important things to kill”. Latchers on players should at least do 100 damage a pop, increasing with enemy level. Secondly, Seekers are way too brave. For a unit whose main job is deploying explosive marbles, I’ve seen him out in the open attempting to blast me with a Kraken too much. He should be hiding in cover mostly, forcing players to search for him or track the Latchers to him. Only when found should he resort to shooting while attempting to retreat.
- Ballistas: As snipers, they don’t stay at range enough. Ballistas should be given better pathing and mobility (speed, super jumps) to stay in medium-long range and utilize high ground and cover.
- Heavies: First, a bit of a glitch. Lotus no longer informs players of Heavy Gunners, only other Heavy units. This ought to be fixed. Second, Heavies ought to have rechargeable shields. Currently, once broken, their shields never regen again. I think Heavies should be able to regen their shields as long as they’re not being damaged, like bosses but without nearly the crazy charge rate and non-existent delay. The current recharge rate and delay will do. (If you shoot a Heavy without breaking his shield and then wait, you’ll see they do regen)
- Commanders: Their Switch Teleport should only be usable if they have line of sight to the player, to avoid random through-wall teleports. Also rechargeable shields please. Would be nice if Lotus also informed players of the presence of Commanders (explicitly stating it’s a Commander, not a random Heavy unit)
- Rollers: I’ve gone over this in a different thread before. Basically, allow players to bat away Rollers with their melee weapon by performing a block (facing the Roller) when a Roller hits the player. The Roller will be sent flying for a distance and be disabled for 2-3 seconds on impact with a surface. Slamming the Roller into a wall deals damage to the Roller based on its impact speed (speed slows down the longer it flies due to air resistance), and slamming one into an enemy deals damage to that enemy based on impact speed. This increases the use of environmental awareness and is damn fun.
Tl;dr The Grineer can benefit a lot as an enemy faction with more unit variety and better AI.
Based on the reception of this topic, I’ll decide whether to make a Corpus and Infested topic in the future.
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Meanwhile, at Pluto.
Meanwhile, at Pluto, it's still the same old junk from Venus except on steroids.
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He was sick and tired of being farmed so much, so he decided to off himself in defiance XD
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I doubt the Moderator barely read the forums. The game introduced all the creatures way too fast.
Yeah I really wonder how often the devs actually read the forums and whether they only read the "hot" topics.
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First off, they're not creatures, they're enemies/mobs. Second, I agree with increasing enemy variety slowly through missions.
Take the Grineer for example. Currently, I can find the vast majority of units on MERCURY. And by the time i finish Saturn, which is the second planet, I would've seen them all (possibly except Rollers). As for the Infested, I've seen all unit variety except Disrupter on the one mission on Mercury already. And I'm pretty sure you can find every Corpus enemy on Venus (possibly excluding leech osprey and railgun Moa, or maybe i forgot them).
If more units are introduced, which is a must might I add, then these units need to be spread out more. As it currently stands, going to new planets does nothing except give you enemies with a higher health pool, armor and damage.
I'll use the existing units for example. Terminus and M Prime (First 2 missions) should only have Sawmen, Lancers and Troopers. Starting from Caloris (mission 3), Ballistas start appearing. Starting from Tolstoj (mission 4), shield lancers start appearing. On Saturn, since it's non-linear, have the 3 Heavies strewn out around the missions on the planet as they currently do. Also, Seekers start appearing on Saturn. Commanders can start appearing in some of the end-missions of Saturn, or starting from Uranus (third Grineer planet). Rollers start appearing from Uranus.
As for Infested, Mercury can have chargers runners and leapers, and the standard Crawlers. Maybe 1 or 2 Ancient Healers. Venus and Saturn Infested missions can start having the other crawlers and Ancients. Venus for Disruptors, Saturn for Toxics. By Jupiter, everything can appear.
Corpus doesn't really have that many units to spread out among the planets :/
As for an "enemy information manual", I doubt that's necessary in-game, even if it would be cool. The wiki info is just fine. Not like enemies in this game have a lot of diverse weaknesses.
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This is exactly what's needed. I think i'll start a topic later detailing the possible additions to the Grineer unit variety and squad AI that can replace Rollers (well not completely replace them, Rollers can still have their place once tweaked properly) and bullet sponges. Thanks for this topic.
Also, I think the second part of Draukios' post was sarcasm.
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What should be done is increase the mission reward for higher difficulty levels. At least then people would have less of a reason to farm Vor or M Prime, because both options of either farming Mercury or playing Earth/Neptune would be equally rewarding.
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Hope they nerf the cronus BP selling price the next patch.
Are you kidding me? No way! At least Cronus BP farming is more fun than speed running M Prime for the credit reward!
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(lots of stuff)
Fully agree. More squad variety and enemy variety is a much better option.
Heavy Grenadiers: i've mentioned these in the thread before, so i won't repeat again.
Grineer Juggernauts (heavy shield lancers): This idea i got from a different thread. Details here: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/23915-new-enemies-ideas/
Not sure how i feel about Flamethrower units. Sounds interesting though.
As for Ballista cloaking, I think cloaking tech should be restricted to Corpus. I'd like Ballista's with jetpacks though XD
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Avoiding the chargers by jumping on the nearest box is a prime example of players resorting to incredibly cheesy tactics that just exploit AI weaknesses.
For a minority this might be fun, but at the end of the day it is nothing more than poor game mechanics. For this particular situation, a solution could be to give like half the chargers that spawn some kind of additional "acid spit" ranged attack. Or let them be able to lunge about 8 feet in the air and take a bite or something.
There are more problems like this, for example being able to avoid a huge pack of chargers by just running circles around one, most of them will keep missing you while you merrily hack them to pieces with melee attacks. It works, but it is cheesy nonetheless.
Anyway, a matured game concept should not show the above mentioned weaknesses. The tactics players develop should not revolve around exploiting flaws in game mechanics.
Exactly, I can't believe I've seen people who defend jumping on the nearest box as a "legit strategy" that requires "awareness of your surroundings". Concerning the whole "acid spit" thing, I actually think it would be a good idea to add a different Infested unit that can use ranged attacks, such as acid spit or armor piercing thorns. Has to be non-hitscan straight-flying projectiles though. It can be an "uncommon" unit, like Leapers. (I define common as stuff like Lancers/Troopers/Chargers/Runners, and uncommon as stuff like shield lancers/seekers/railgun moas.) It would be nice if chargers could at least jump up a little to get at box-standers though. They can jump into air vents, why not at players hiding on props? It's really silly how enemies get stuck on basic terrain so much. On the other hand, i don't exactly think the "running circles" move is exploitative of the AI though, even if it is a little cheesy.
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the picture doesn't work, try imageshack
edit: yeah it works now, nice photoshop XD
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I support vote-to-kick, but only initiable by the host.
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I thought you could already shoot the arms and legs off of Infested? Maybe I am wrong.
It's an interesting idea, though I think like Madotsuki says, it would be difficult to implement and we players probably kill them too fast anyway.
You can shoot off Infested heads (no effect) and their legs (forces them to crawl), though not arms i think. Ancients have no destructable limbs.
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Let's have a look at another unit that heavily relies on staggering, the Infested Chargers. They are not nearly as problematic because unlike Rollers, they can be hit with any weapon. They do not force the player into a particular playstyle, i.e. the need to carry a rapid-fire rifle or shotgun just to deal with one specific unit. They are exposed and in melee range while they carry out the stagger attack, unlike the Roller which basically is a hit-and-run type enemy. I'd say the Charger, while definitely a threat in large numbers, is a well-rounded unit that doesn't mainly frustrate the player and doesn't interrupt game flow too much while staggering. Generally speaking, I think way too many units in this game use stun techniques. What we are missing are creative ways to disrupt the player, and present a challenge without being totally annoying. The Infested Disruptor for example, it is a nice idea to have visual disturbance. The game is missing things like this badly. On the other hand, the unit also in my opinion has the problem of being all-in-one, it stuns, it takes away energy, it can be quite fast, it removes shield. It could be, for the sake of variety, be split into three separate units, one that takes away clear vision, one that takes away energy (and not all energy at once, too many frames rely on energy or they are completely useless), one that removes shields. This is how you give variety to the game, without having overly aggravating enemies. A game first and foremost needs to be fun to play.
Agreed. As long as players are given a slight invuln period after each stagger, the current chargers are a very well-rounded enemy IMO, despite how some other people don't like them. Although I disagree that the Disruptor's abilities should be split. Reduce the amount of shield and energy taken on hit to a percentage instead of all in one strike, but don't reduce the number of its abilities.
And also, "A game first and foremost needs to be fun to play". Yes, yes and yes. Thank you.
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It's an interesting idea at the very least, though hard to implement in this game. When talking about dismemberment, it reminds me of fighting the Hyperion Loaders in BL2, shooting off their arms and legs to weaken the generally tough robots. I like enemy dismemberment, but I would prefer a boss or mini-boss that can have parts shot off of them along the fight.
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I really want to ask why the Hyena has been recolored to light blue? It looked so much more threatening in black! Plus, it kinda fits as camouflage in the dark! Light blue just makes Hyena look....awkward :/ What does everyone else think of the light blue Hyena compared to black?
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You sir deserve a medal for that vid XD Man if my computer could handle it i'd Fraps my Warframe sessions too.
I used to have so much trouble fighting shield lancers, they were the absolute bane of my existence! A good counter is actually to wait for them to charge at you, and then smack them with a charged melee before they bash before rolling away. Every once in awhile they still smack me on my &#! though =.=
Btw what is that music in the vid?
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Am I the only one who thinks the enemy fire rate problem was not fixed at all?
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So i was given -4 for giving him a +1? im confused at how the reading community on this thread works exactly :P Do you people even read the post before jumping the gun? atleast 21 people ACTUALLY read his post and gave feedback. Most read "i dont agree with the idea" and instantly became hostile. GG's to yas lol
Welcome to online forums. Enjoy your stay. *sigh*
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They need to add a section to the HUD dedicated to the sentinel, showing health, shields, regens remaining etc. While they're at it, they should also put options to turn on/off Sentinel guns and change Sentinel positioning so that they're not always floating directly above the player :/
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It's definately a good idea, but also definately not a priority. They can start developing a player content generation kit when the game is properly released.
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Most bosses get a rename in Alert missions. For example, Vor is renamed Grineer Electroprod, Jackal is renamed Jackal Prototype, and Golem is renamed Ancient Infestoid.
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where's the "tl;dr" part ?
I find it hard to summarise this topic sufficiently. I don't even know what tl;dr means. And come on, how hard is it to read a few paragraphs :/
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From personal experience, no i don't think the game is too hard for new players. I've always soloed exclusively in this game, right up from the start, and though it took some getting used to (as does any game), the first few planets were never overtly difficult, even though it was challenging at the time. Considering the game has barely any enemy scaling to player number, the problem is almost non-existent if the new players start off in groups.
Of course, I did start playing back in closed beta after U5 and before U6. The game has changed a lot since then, so it might not be the case currently.
Replace Grinders With More Grineer Unit Variety And Squad Ai
in General
Posted
Started a more thorough topic on the Grineer here:
https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/30942-grineer-new-units-squad-combos-better-ai-tweak-old-units/