Warframe- Taking Note Between Old School, And Current Gen

[Phoenix86]

I defenetely agree, "we know too much" compared to them... and since everyone hates nerfs DE has to "buff their skills" not their HP!

[Volume]

I guess I can get behind most of your post, but we don't need more invisible enemies. A couple grineer already turn invisible and teleport behind you - I think we just need to speed up their attacks because it's usually like "oh, lol, someone popped up behind me and is taking 5 entire seconds to wind up a charge attack, guess I'll kill him before he hits me once"

[Hitomo]

just a quick thought

 

dont assume the devs ar not aware of the problems brought up in threats like this

 

the thing is, what you want for the game is not possible in the enviornment the devs had choosen for

bringing their concepts to the puplic ...

 

a better end game would need the introduction of new enemy types and tile.sets,

advanced assets wich are clearly a progression compared to the danger of early enemys

 

at the moment this happens between lvl30 - lvl40 when new and mor advanced units are pitted against you

but the actual end-game is only featuring those mid and low Level enemys in an upscaled form

 

the real question is, is it effective for a F2P game to invest in the creation of Content that

only Players will see wich already spend a big amount of time in the game?

 

when a game like this introduces new Content it will not add to the end-game

but to the first half of the game, where the Players are that didnt spend Money already,

 

a F2P game did not have resources and isnt set on a plan for long term delivery of playfun,

to be able to create Content variation that isnt maximizing the Profit from those who are

only motivated to Play the game a few weeks or only days

 

adding a great and complex Boss at Level 80 or introducing new types and forms of enemys

at lvl100 can only mean to totaly waste manpower and working hours ... because it will

not contribute to the form of income this Business model releys on ...

 

simple, isnt it?

 

the things that made this game really easy for me is a fully moded deathcube and using a sobek ...

but I can always go back and have a great challange with unpotatoed and low ranked gear ...

[neKroMancer]

just a quick thought

 

dont assume the devs ar not aware of the problems brought up in threats like this

 

the thing is, what you want for the game is not possible in the enviornment the devs had choosen for

bringing their concepts to the puplic ...

 

a better end game would need the introduction of new enemy types and tile.sets,

advanced assets wich are clearly a progression compared to the danger of early enemys

 

at the moment this happens between lvl30 - lvl40 when new and mor advanced units are pitted against you

but the actual end-game is only featuring those mid and low Level enemys in an upscaled form

 

the real question is, is it effective for a F2P game to invest in the creation of Content that

only Players will see wich already spend a big amount of time in the game?

 

when a game like this introduces new Content it will not add to the end-game

but to the first half of the game, where the Players are that didnt spend Money already,

 

a F2P game did not have resources and isnt set on a plan for long term delivery of playfun,

to be able to create Content variation that isnt maximizing the Profit from those who are

only motivated to Play the game a few weeks or only days

 

adding a great and complex Boss at Level 80 or introducing new types and forms of enemys

at lvl100 can only mean to totaly waste manpower and working hours ... because it will

not contribute to the form of income this Business model releys on ...

 

simple, isnt it?

 

the things that made this game really easy for me is a fully moded deathcube and using a sobek ...

but I can always go back and have a great challange with unpotatoed and low ranked gear ...

Virtually any game require balancing both early content and lategame content. However, focusing on early level content doesn't mean they're going to cater new players. On the contrary, they will lose new players through reviewers givin the game bad reviews.

" The game got stale fast after playing for 30-40 hours. Recycled assets from early level and give them more health makes he game more repetitive than it should be"

Compared to.

" The game still suitably challenge you throughout the progression through the map. New enemy types will keep you on your toes and make gameplay fresh despite playing for 40 hours"

Which game will you play?

Sure, releasing new shiny weapons to all players through the market is admirable method. We all like new weapons that aren't locked through some kinds of in-game wall. However, enemy design is a different matter. Right now, the fact that the game doesn't age well is due to farming/playing doesn't require player to be challenged with new mechanics. No need to adjust, no need to learn.

[Hayden11121]

I've never agreed with you so much as before, Aralyn.

 

I must say, this was a good rant, I believe that Grineer, Corpus, and Infested should all have a different feel to them.

 

Corpus simply overpower you and stop you from taking cover with their speedy flanking MOAs, Grineer make it harder to find you with blind shooting *JUST NO AIMBOTS DEAR GOD PLEASE NO AIMBOTS*, and Infested should have special abilities, like the ones in L4D 2.

 

I suggest PMing a mod *Blatant Fool is almost always on* and asking to change this to gameplay feedback, this thread is worth the Devs seeing.

 

+1, and good day.

[JessicaMeanie]

you people don't understand that making something more difficult doesn't make it more fun.

Edited September 3, 2013 by JessicaMeanie

[Hayden11121]

you people don't understand that making something more difficult doesn't make it more fun.

You "people" don't understand playing god mode in a coop game discourages anyone from continuing playing, spending money to fund developers, and is only fun the first 10-20 times you nuke the room.

[Ganpot]

I disagree with the OP.  Adding new functionality to enemies will not make the game challenging.  Either that new functionality will be too powerful, in which case the game will become punishing instead of challenging (like most old-school games used to be), or the functionality will not be powerful enough, in which case the game will still be too easy. 

 

Functionality is not the defining factor of difficulty.  Vor has plenty of functionality, but he's still a cakewalk to anyone with decently leveled mods / weapons / warframes.  There are three things which determine fair difficulty.  These things insure that a player's mind and body are both constantly active and coordinating. 

 

1. Prediction - Enemies must have discernible attack and movement patterns.  These may be complex or change depending on circumstances, but they must always be there.  If a player cannot learn to anticipate an enemy (even if it is merely one second in advance), that game fundamentally cannot be challenging. 

2. Avoidance - After successful prediction, a player must be able to avoid damage from attacks.  The tools for avoidance can (and should) vary, from blocking to dodging and jumping. 

3. Punishment - If a player is not successful at recognizing and avoiding an attack, the player must be punished.  The punishment must always be in direct proportion to how easily prediction and avoidance can be accomplished.  An attack which is extremely hard to predict and avoid must always be less damaging than an attack which is easy to predict and avoid. 

 

New enemy AI and abilities would be great, but they won't make the game challenging by themselves.  A fundamental shift in mindset is required of the developers before that happens.  In some cases, DE has already done a decent job of this, but in other cases they have not. 

 

One example of fair challenge in Warframe is Shockwave Moas.  They have a long and obvious windup animation.  After this animation is complete, players can jump to avoid the shockwave attack completely.  If the player fails to do this, the player is punished relatively severely since the player is knocked down for several seconds.  The only flaw with Shockwave Moas is that when multiple ones are around, dodging their attacks becomes virtually impossible. 

 

An example of bad difficulty is the Grineer Commander.  Its switch teleport has no animation or windup time.  It therefore cannot be anticipated.  The teleport also cannot be dodged; if the Grineer can see you, it can teleport with you.  This does not make the enemy challenging, it makes it cheap and frustrating. 

[rangeless]

I think AI are really good... but i think they need more actions....example: every enemy with a knockdown ability or Stalker's Smokescreen and Slash Dash

[SlyBoots]

@ ganpot: i think your proposal really only seems to work for small scale encounters where player and non-player characters don't differ in power by orders of magnitude - which is just not the case in warframe besides maybe boss battles. and even then the boss battles have invulnerability stages or dps checks (recharging shields) because this is a game about stats.

 

case in point are shockwave moas - they get mowed down most of the time to the point where people hardly even bother to time a jump to avoid knockback because warframe lends itself to a lazy stat stacking approach which seems to bypass player engagement more than it encourages it. it's either stat stacking or press button to kill/crowd control everything. think in arpg/diablo-like terms rather than fighting game (or whatever) ones.

Edited September 3, 2013 by SlyBoots

[Ganpot]

@ ganpot: i think your proposal really only seems to work for small scale encounters where player and non-player characters don't differ in power by orders of magnitude - which is just not the case in warframe besides maybe boss battles. and even then the boss battles have invulnerability stages or dps checks (recharging shields) because this is a game about stats.

 

case in point are shockwave moas - they get mowed down most of the time to the point where people hardly even bother to time a jump to avoid knockback because warframe lends itself to a lazy stat stacking approach which seems to bypass player engagement more than it encourages it. it's either stat stacking or press button to kill/crowd control everything. think in arpg/diablo-like terms rather than fighting game (or whatever) ones.

 

On the contrary, that approach works in all situations and games.  It doesn't matter whether the enemy is a boss or something which the player is expected to cut through 1000 of during the course of a single level.  Look at Devil May Cry or Dust An Elysian Tail: the player is expected to mow down dozens of enemies in rapid succession, but each enemy's attacks can be predicted and dodged.  The absolute core of those games is that the player does not ever need to suffer damage.  If you are damaged; it is only because you did something wrong. 

 

An enemies' health level isn't really meaningful to the issue of core enemy design.  I can kill Vor much more quickly than I can kill Phorid, but Phorid is a terribly designed boss (and yes, I'm aware that it is a placeholder).  While shockwave moas are easy to kill due to their low health, their design philosophy is solid (health and damage levels can be easily readjusted at any time; they aren't really what I'm addressing). 

 

Like you said, one of the major problems with Warframe's combat is the RPG elements (aka stats).  The only skill-based RPG shooter I've ever seen is Mass Effect 3's multiplayer (and even that isn't perfect); however that only works because of its cover system (which isn't a good fit for Warframe).  However, Dioblo and other action RPGs have managed this, to an extent.  Many (or even most) boss (and potentially sub-boss) abilities can be avoided by moving around (especially the AoE ones).  In a game where enemies' health and damage levels can fluctuate almost infinitely due to levels, the only possible way to allow for a fair challenge is to allow for complete prediction and avoidance. 

 

Here are the potential avoidance moves already in the game:

1. Jump

2. Slide

3. Roll

4. Block

5. Air-Kick

 

A good start would be to make these more useful (especially Slide, Roll, and Block).  For example, players used to be able to slide under a Grineer's shield while it was charging.  I considered that awesome and thought it was actually intended.  Unfortunately, that turned out to be a glitch, and was removed.  Block needs to, at the very least, prevent all damage from light melee attacks.  Roll should provide invincibility frames against all attacks (but consume a lot of stamina). 

[neKroMancer]

I think both Arlyan and Ganpot approach are both equally important. While Arlayn's viewpoint is about giving AI new functionalities to counter our powers, Ganpot's idea is about how they should be implemented without frustrating player and take away the fun.

AI requires both in order to get better. AI must have abilities to counter our attacks (defense) and telegraphed attack pattern (offense). The window and the effect accompanied to the attack will be major factor to determine the difficulty of said action. Taking good examples from Mass Effect 3;

- Cerberus sniper will emit a red laser at targeted player before shooting. Not too long to make the attack trivial and not too short to the point of unavoidable.

- Cerberus mech will stomp it's foot and ready it's cannon before shooting one. A few seconds worth of time to avoid.

- Cerberus Phantom has footstep that could be heard within certain range. Allowing player to run away before she execute the instakill attack. Probably less 2 second, just enough to sprint away from the current location and our of her range.

Generally, there are three things that player could use to react against the AI's attack : sound, graphic, and animation changes. The existing mechanic of Warframe : jump, slide, wallrun, parry are more than enough to cope with the situations which could arise.

However, all these are about telegraphed attack pattern that gives player a way to avoid the incoming damage, not one of them is about how could the AI defend itself against our attacks. Therefore, it needs countermeasure against Tenno's powers.

[Arlayn]

I disagree with the OP.  Adding new functionality to enemies will not make the game challenging.  Either that new functionality will be too powerful, in which case the game will become punishing instead of challenging (like most old-school games used to be), or the functionality will not be powerful enough, in which case the game will still be too easy. 

 

Functionality is not the defining factor of difficulty.  Vor has plenty of functionality, but he's still a cakewalk to anyone with decently leveled mods / weapons / warframes.  There are three things which determine fair difficulty.  These things insure that a player's mind and body are both constantly active and coordinating. 

 

1. Prediction - Enemies must have discernible attack and movement patterns.  These may be complex or change depending on circumstances, but they must always be there.  If a player cannot learn to anticipate an enemy (even if it is merely one second in advance), that game fundamentally cannot be challenging. 

2. Avoidance - After successful prediction, a player must be able to avoid damage from attacks.  The tools for avoidance can (and should) vary, from blocking to dodging and jumping. 

3. Punishment - If a player is not successful at recognizing and avoiding an attack, the player must be punished.  The punishment must always be in direct proportion to how easily prediction and avoidance can be accomplished.  An attack which is extremely hard to predict and avoid must always be less damaging than an attack which is easy to predict and avoid. 

 

New enemy AI and abilities would be great, but they won't make the game challenging by themselves.  A fundamental shift in mindset is required of the developers before that happens.  In some cases, DE has already done a decent job of this, but in other cases they have not. 

 

One example of fair challenge in Warframe is Shockwave Moas.  They have a long and obvious windup animation.  After this animation is complete, players can jump to avoid the shockwave attack completely.  If the player fails to do this, the player is punished relatively severely since the player is knocked down for several seconds.  The only flaw with Shockwave Moas is that when multiple ones are around, dodging their attacks becomes virtually impossible. 

 

An example of bad difficulty is the Grineer Commander.  Its switch teleport has no animation or windup time.  It therefore cannot be anticipated.  The teleport also cannot be dodged; if the Grineer can see you, it can teleport with you.  This does not make the enemy challenging, it makes it cheap and frustrating. 

Mario wasn't punishing. Infact everything in the game was scripted to do the same thing over, and over. All you had to do was watch a pattern, same thing would happen in Metroid. Also on that last sentence with the Grineer Commander. It is frustrating, but every player expects it in the high level missions. Its one of the few ways the game can keep up with us as a whole. The Grineer Commander is predictable, and most players will go through the game with a Press 4 mentality moment they get switched out the player is in the center of a enemy crowd... BAM press 4 wipe crowd... If anything Commander's are counter productive in helping their team, and they just end up killing everyone. Its kinda like a lockdown... very counter productive when the enemy doesn't stand a chance, so they just lock themselves in a room with the Tenno and die.

 

Even during a boss battle lockdowns are counter productive for enemies. Moment they do the lockdown allies can't come in to help their fellow Boss. Now a good example of by far one of the best mechanics in the game would be the Railgun Moa. Not shockwave because we kill that thing so fast(due to the fact it comes in close.) Meanwhile Railgun is sitting far away taking pot shots on you through your snow globe, and shields... taking our your friends. IT does have a load time as well as it winds up with that charging motion before firing.

 

 

@ ganpot: i think your proposal really only seems to work for small scale encounters where player and non-player characters don't differ in power by orders of magnitude - which is just not the case in warframe besides maybe boss battles. and even then the boss battles have invulnerability stages or dps checks (recharging shields) because this is a game about stats.

 

case in point are shockwave moas - they get mowed down most of the time to the point where people hardly even bother to time a jump to avoid knockback because warframe lends itself to a lazy stat stacking approach which seems to bypass player engagement more than it encourages it. it's either stat stacking or press button to kill/crowd control everything. think in arpg/diablo-like terms rather than fighting game (or whatever) ones.

This is a good example as I explained with the Railgun Moa vs. Shockwave Moa. Shockwave Moa was there from the start and now it has degraded. We have gained such a vast area of capability since the game came out, that the shockwave Moa has been rendered helpless in the storm of bullets, and destruction. We do need the enemies to force us to NEED to create a strategy to fight them. Something that won't just let us run through, and bypass the entire game as we have been doing. Till you get to the end planets/void Tier III where your forced to use armor piercing, acrid, or Ogris(which is the real punishment, that is not a difficulty).

 

 

On the contrary, that approach works in all situations and games.  It doesn't matter whether the enemy is a boss or something which the player is expected to cut through 1000 of during the course of a single level.  Look at Devil May Cry or Dust An Elysian Tail: the player is expected to mow down dozens of enemies in rapid succession, but each enemy's attacks can be predicted and dodged.  The absolute core of those games is that the player does not ever need to suffer damage.  If you are damaged; it is only because you did something wrong. 

 

An enemies' health level isn't really meaningful to the issue of core enemy design.  I can kill Vor much more quickly than I can kill Phorid, but Phorid is a terribly designed boss (and yes, I'm aware that it is a placeholder).  While shockwave moas are easy to kill due to their low health, their design philosophy is solid (health and damage levels can be easily readjusted at any time; they aren't really what I'm addressing). 

 

Like you said, one of the major problems with Warframe's combat is the RPG elements (aka stats).  The only skill-based RPG shooter I've ever seen is Mass Effect 3's multiplayer (and even that isn't perfect); however that only works because of its cover system (which isn't a good fit for Warframe).  However, Dioblo and other action RPGs have managed this, to an extent.  Many (or even most) boss (and potentially sub-boss) abilities can be avoided by moving around (especially the AoE ones).  In a game where enemies' health and damage levels can fluctuate almost infinitely due to levels, the only possible way to allow for a fair challenge is to allow for complete prediction and avoidance. 

 

Here are the potential avoidance moves already in the game:

1. Jump

2. Slide

3. Roll

4. Block

5. Air-Kick

 

A good start would be to make these more useful (especially Slide, Roll, and Block).  For example, players used to be able to slide under a Grineer's shield while it was charging.  I considered that awesome and thought it was actually intended.  Unfortunately, that turned out to be a glitch, and was removed.  Block needs to, at the very least, prevent all damage from light melee attacks.  Roll should provide invincibility frames against all attacks (but consume a lot of stamina). 

Moment you improve jump, slide, roll, block, and air-kick you might as well just give us Megatron's Absolute **** all cannon, or Shockwave's Infinite dimension ****ing Cannon. The player shouldn't be more capable of evasion. Also Phorid is the second fastest thing in the game to kill, with Nef being first. Most enemies in the game can be killed with a walk and mow... Why would you want to improve the basic movement functions when I can walk down a hall with a Supra/Gorgon/Flux Rifle/Ogris/Kill all Press 4 to wipe out the entire Armada?(I bet a squad of four Rhino's with energy siphon can walk into the Grineer Palace non-Chalant like, and win). I ran circles around Phorid with iron skin on, and a Modded out Supra just opening fire on him while all his abilities were left void of any effect on me. Most Warframes have this effect where ever they go. Ember can walk through an Infested level like a Super Model on the strip while she burns everything... Volt can take Corpus without even trying because he is fabulous. Rhino... can take anything without trying...

 

Our capabilities far surpass the game in every function imaginable. Why would you give more power to the already overpowered player? Someday eventually the enemies in this game whether its AI, function, abilities, attacks... something... has to catch up with the player at some point in time.