The game's outdated horde-shooting mechanics are showing (Challenge Discussion)

[MJ12]

4 hours ago, LightZodiac said:

I strongly disagree on this one. Against higher lvl Grineer which mostly use alloy armor you just make a radiation, corrosive, viral slash weapon and it works great against everything... and everything else is kinda poo, and that's kinda boring.

Take a look at Fortuna enemies, they have shields, proto-shields, health, robotic health, alloy armor, robotic armor, and since they start at lower armor values said armor doesn't dominate all that much in lvl 60 bounty. First time I entered Fortuna I took a corrosive crit/stat hybrid because hey that works against everything and well it didn't really work all that well.

You can't really make one weapon which is great against everything, you can make weapons which work good against everything though. You can also make different weapons which work excellent against certain enemy types and then switch them on the fly... or not even switch them if you use melee against one kind of opponent and gun against the other. Things are much more interesting and a lot of weapons which were collecting dust until now can find their place in Fortuna.

And I think that's a good mechanics, mix it up a bit, allow more then one meta to be viable.

The problem with this is that it makes building for a faction completely non-viable, because you can't take advantage of elemental weaknesses when you have a half-dozen different elemental resistance types to worry about. It makes it so that the only viable build is shoving as much raw damage as you can, ignoring elemental resistances/vulnerabilities, because chances are a good chunk of the enemy resist whatever you're shooting at them and another good chunk are vulnerable to it.

If you want player choice and builds to matter, the core dynamic needs to be simple enough that a player will easily be able to remember it, and predictable enough that a player will generally be able to build to take advantage of it. Rock-paper-scissors balancing is common in RTSes because it's extremely intuitive and creates a predictable counter dynamic that players can take advantage of.

[LightZodiac]

8 hours ago, MJ12 said:

The problem with this is that it makes building for a faction completely non-viable, because you can't take advantage of elemental weaknesses when you have a half-dozen different elemental resistance types to worry about. It makes it so that the only viable build is shoving as much raw damage as you can, ignoring elemental resistances/vulnerabilities, because chances are a good chunk of the enemy resist whatever you're shooting at them and another good chunk are vulnerable to it.

If you want player choice and builds to matter, the core dynamic needs to be simple enough that a player will easily be able to remember it, and predictable enough that a player will generally be able to build to take advantage of it. Rock-paper-scissors balancing is common in RTSes because it's extremely intuitive and creates a predictable counter dynamic that players can take advantage of.

It's not you absolutely can take advantage of elemental weaknesses as well as procs it's just that you can't make a weapon which has +75% against all enemies within the faction, I mean you can't do that even against the grineer since they use alloy and ferrite armor. It basically does end up as rock-paper-scissors kind of balancing within the faction itself since enemies can be split into three groups shield/hp, shield/robotic, shield/alloy.

Extremely intuitive = let's make it even more casual.

[(XBOX)Avant Solace]

13 hours ago, (PS4)Chimaera244 said:

If Warframe lost its core gameplay of you out in the amount versus a massive number of mobs at once it would no longer be Warframe. It would just be another generic cover shooter, just with a sci-fi aesthetic. 

I don't think we want to totally remove the hoard aspects, just remodel them so enemies don't gray together. In my former comment I suggested a sort of tier system, making weak mobs common but adding tougher/smarter enemies on occasion to mix things up. As it currently stands, Warframes only means to make enemies and missions "harder" is to bump up enemy armor and increase the spawn rate of tougher and eximus enemies. The overall core mechanic of "throw bigger numbers at them" never really changes, which is what prevents Warframe from giving a proper challenge.

[Steel_Rook]

21 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I don't understand. What is stopping a points-buy system from offering separate legitimate and mostly-equal choices separated by user preference? Look at Dark Souls 2/3 and their points-buy system: Agile Dex builds, slow-but-strong Str builds, sorcery Int builds, miracle Fth builds, and pyromancy Int/Fth hybrid builds are all more or less "viable." Yes, there are certain "meta" builds that offer "optimal" performance... But you still see tons of diversity because they all play differently and still get the job done.

I've never played Dark Souls so I can't speak to its particular implementation, but I absolutely HATE these kinds of FASERIP-style systems. At this point, I'm a hard pass on any game that requires me to balance Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution and whatever else got left over from D&D. As I've been saying before, that works for a P&P game which lacks the mechanics to resolve combat through direct player input, not so much in pure action games where players have direct-input control of their character's actions. I'll have to take your word on Dark Souls, but the way you're describing it doesn't fit with the system you're proposing. The attributes system offers the veneer of a broad opportunity space that still breaks down into a few viable, optimal builds. "Agile Dex builds, slow-but-strong Str builds, sorcery Int builds..." etc. - yes, those are a few discrete options which don't sound like they benefit from a per-point attibution, points-buy system and don't sound like they wouldn't be possible in a "hero shooter" style character selection system, instead.

Later on you ask why keep the points-buy system in the first place, and my answer for that is the same as it is for pretty much every points-buy system I've run into: Because it's an easy middle ground for developers to put in. As a developer, you don't have to fully model or understand it as player ignorance will mostly balance itself out. As an average player, it gives you the illusion of choice, a learning curve, a source of progression and some customisation. As a min/maxer, it allows you to absolutely break the game completely, which developers will typically let you get away with unless and until it takes over build diversity in the game - then nerfs and buffs and reworks start to happen. At the end of the day, though, your actual, meaningful choices are far far smaller than the opportunity space would suggest, breaking down to a discrete handful of combinations which actually work well. Everything in-between is a newbie trap that offers no real benefit to the playerbase.

And while I haven't played Dark Souls, I've played a few "Souls-Like" games in the past. I'm aware of the strength-based builds and the speed-based builds and the ability-based builds. Thing is, those builds work best with particular gearsets attached to them. You don't build a speed set with a two-handed greatsword, a tower shield and heavy plate, you don't build a strength build with leather armour, a dagger and harsh language. This goes all the way back to D&D, where you COULD in theory build your Wizard for Strength and Constitution at the expense of Intelligence, but there was no real point to doing that. If you want to build a Strength-based character, you go with a Strength-based class. In fact, Diablo 3 represents sort of the cross-over point where developers finally had to admit that that system doesn't work, shifting gears in real time. Used to be attributes would increase stats relative to themselves, like strength increasing damage, dexterity increasing accuracy, etc. After the major redesign which came with the removal of the auction house, every class was given a "primary attribute" that most of their stats were based off of. My Sorceress, for instance, started gaining more damage from Intelligence, rather than from Strength.

I've played a lot of games with points-buy systems that aren't Dark Souls. Every single one of them has broken down into a few viable builds and "everything else." The complexity of determining viability would vary from game to game, sure, but in the age of the Internet that's not much of an issue any more. "Just Google it." I no longer believe in points-buy systems altogether any more, which is why I'm in favour of restrictions more so than further freedom, generally speaking. It's why I don't see the point in allowing all weapons to be built for Crits or for Status or for Base Damage or for Support or for anything the player might desire. For one, I'm not convinced this is even doable. For another, you're still going to end up with "crit guns" and "status guns" anyway based on simple optimisation, just at the cost of obfuscating what constitutes a "good build" to newer players.

The long and short of it is I don't see "tons of diversity" in what you're proposing. I see maybe a handful of options out of potentially thousands. At that point, why even bother? Just give players only the viable choices directly and tie them to progression. "+X% crit damager per level" or "Rank Y mod for the crit damage slot" or such. You're not really losing much in the way of choice, so much as the padding between the meaningful ones.

 

21 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Dark Souls does a damn good job of this, actually.

I get it, Dark Souls is perfect, but you're conflating a few things here. Dark Souls doesn't have an "energy" system, on account of having a combat system that's completely incomparable to Warframe. For one, Dark Souls Stamina starts regenerating almost instantly and regenerates to full very quickly. That's because it exists to set the flow of combat, not to be a managed resource. Warframe has no native energy regeneration and very minimal, unreliable energy drops from defeated enemies. You have to defeat enemies in order to gain back energy, which suggests that abilities were intended to be used sparingly and rarely. That, however, is at complete odds with their actual design, which in a lot of cases is minor benefits and lots of spamming. Even ignoring ability spam from the likes of Nidus and Atlas, few abilities in this game are designed to be used once per four or fight fights, which is what it typically takes to regen off of Energy Orbs.

What this has the effect of is pushing people into alternate energy generation sources - Team Energy Restores, Rage, Energising Dash, etc. That, or pick Warframes who don't benefit from ability spam like a more passive Rhino or Inaros. In my case, I have both Inaros AND Rage for a build in which Energy may as well not even exist. Even Parasitic Eximus enemies can't typically out-drain my Rage, and that's when I remember to actually USE energy-costing abilities. And that's the crux of the problem right here. Energy systems which exist for the sole reason of barring the player from spamming abilities do not work. Either players find ways to circumvent them entirely, or they quit because of them. At their core, these are "anti-fun" system which hard-limit how often I can do the stuff players actually enjoy, which is why they fail.

Dark Souls gets away with it because Stamina regenerates VERY quickly and because combat is typically slow enough that Stamina has a chance to regen fully before needing it. As long as you don't use up all of it, all you have to do is back up for a couple of seconds and you're good to go again. In Warframe, you could be waiting 5-10 minutes for your energy to come back if you don't have one of the "ignore Energy system entirely" options. We're going off-topic, though.

 

19 hours ago, Mach25 said:

I believe we are missing an important aspect with where we are in the discussion at this point. We know that meta entails elemental and physical damage mods. The biggest problem here is dealing with the armor system. Yes, we can talk about elemental damage having a more utilitarian nature and the like, but I believe that whatever proposals come, it must be said that armor values in this product are tp be corrected to be more reasonable according to enemy level.

It's pretty clear that armour values are a result of power creep, and why percentage-based resistance systems tend to cascade into absurdity due to the nature of the mitigation/effective health function. I've seen this happen before, where a developer will lose control of the game's balance, let players optimise into ludicrous damage output and survivability, then have to crank the numbers on enemies up to seemingly ludicrous levels just to keep pace. It's typically the only way to avoid a MASSIVE across-the-board nerf to player power and - if done right - really only affects the top 1% of players who have the most expensive, most min-maxed builds. Unfortunately, due to the nature of online gaming these days, those "meta" builds start filtering down the line and shifting the status quo up until even newer players are pushed into it.

I have vivid memories of asking for opinions on the Gorgon on the Steam forums, and being told that I'm stupid and should be using the vaulted Soma Prime, instead. As an MR 3 player with about 10 hours on record at the time... Similarly, in another thread I talked about wanting to build Inaros for Power Strength because it increases the healing I get from Scarab Swarm, only to get told that I should be using Arcane Grace. You know, the Arcane which drops from the Eidolon Hydrolist that I've still never even seen much less killed, and which sells for over 130 Plat on the Market for a single one of them. And I'm sure from the perspective of the people who told me this, it makes sense but this is how "the meta" becomes the status quo.

I'm of the opinion that armour itself isn't a problem. Yes, its damage resistance can become quite high, but I'm fine with needing specialist weapons after a certain point as long as there's a broad range of them. The problem, rather, is that there aren't really any "good" ways of dealing with it. Not counting four stacks of Corrosive Projection (because that abomination has no business being in the game in the first place), your options are really just Corrosive damage. Which would be fine if all armour were vulnerable to Corrosive, but Alloy Armour isn't. It would also be fine if only the Grenier had armour, which - again - isn't the case. This goes back into the damage types and status systems that I feel are kind of a complete mess right now. Players have a bit TOO much control over what damage types they deal (crucially, being able to have almost all of them), the statuses these damage types deal don't always reflect the enemies they're good against very well and the enemy resistances are all over the place with no real rime or reason.

Personally, I feel that armour can stand to be a little less powerful, shields can stand to be a LOT more powerful and defence type crossover not a thing. Let Armour be only a Grenier thing, shields only a Corpus thing and just plain old lots of health and healing be an Infested thing.

 

1 hour ago, (XB1)alchemPyro said:

I don't think we want to totally remove the hoard aspects, just remodel them so enemies don't gray together. In my former comment I suggested a sort of tier system, making weak mobs common but adding tougher/smarter enemies on occasion to mix things up. As it currently stands, Warframes only means to make enemies and missions "harder" is to bump up enemy armor and increase the spawn rate of tougher and eximus enemies. The overall core mechanic of "throw bigger numbers at them" never really changes, which is what prevents Warframe from giving a proper challenge.

I'm personally of the opinion that you can have it both ways. Some factions could have hordes of weak enemies overwhelming you with numbers (i.e. the Infested), some factions could be predominantly bosses with very little filler (i.e. the Grenier) and some can be a little of both. I'd also recommend drastically cutting down on the enemy variety within a single "corps" in exchange for having more "corps" per faction. The Grenier already have a number of separate Corps, such as Kuva, Tusk, Frontier, etc. The Corpus currently only have the Terra, but more could be made. These can vary by tileset as they do now, but multiple could occupy the same tileset with a random one being chosen to spawn at mission creation. These can even be made different in an attempt to slightly vary the experience. For instance, the Frontier Grenier could be a lighter force predominantly made up of Lancers similar units, while the Kuva Grenier could be an elite unit made up of a lot of Heavy Gunners and Bombards.

Currently, every faction at nearly every level is a Zerg rush. You start a Survival mission, you open the first door and you're rushed by 20 of whatever the resident cannon fodder is almost immediately. You're rushed by Grenier with rifles and shotguns and different rifles and different shotguns and for the most part you neither can nor care to tell them apart because they're all just cannon fodder anyway. There's no real point to stop and think until a Bombard Eximus or a Nox shows up. Frankly, that dynamic feels more at home with the Infested than with the closest this game has to a professional army... Disorganised and stupid though the Grenier may be.

Basically, pull the factions farther apart so that they all behave distinctly differently, require different tactics and benefit from different gear.

Edited January 16, 2019 by Steel_Rook

[MJ12]

4 hours ago, LightZodiac said:

It's not you absolutely can take advantage of elemental weaknesses as well as procs it's just that you can't make a weapon which has +75% against all enemies within the faction, I mean you can't do that even against the grineer since they use alloy and ferrite armor. It basically does end up as rock-paper-scissors kind of balancing within the faction itself since enemies can be split into three groups shield/hp, shield/robotic, shield/alloy.

Extremely intuitive = let's make it even more casual.

In your hypothetical enemy design paradigm, there are two possible ways the game will shake out.

The first is if there is an enemy type that either is far more dangerous or far less dangerous than the rest of the enemies in that faction. In that case, you either build specifically to counter them if they're more dangerous, or if they're less dangerous, you build to counter the other two factions at the cost of tanking your ability to deal with the weaker enemies but you don't care because they're relatively ineffectual. In other words, you have basically a simplistic faction-wide counter system, but you've managed to obfuscate it and add needless complexity to the entire thing.

The second is that there's no enemy class which is particularly more or less dangerous. In that case, you can build towards one set of enemies in the faction... and get owned by the other two. I.e. you can't build towards one set of enemies, because that makes your weapon far weaker against 2/3rds of the enemies you encounter. And therefore, you have to build a weapon to be as generic as possible, with balanced damage types. In that case, why even have differing elemental weaknesses and resistances at all? They're pointless. They don't generate any sort of build questions (because the only thing that matters is more damage), they don't create any sort of interesting choices, they don't do anything other than obfuscate actual mechanics and create false choices.

This might make the game more "casual" in the sense that people will actually be able to understand the mechanics at first glance rather than having to look up a long-winded explanation and guide, but this isn't a bad thing. Making a game more accessible doesn't make it lesser, and this is especially true when the increase in accessibility is created solely by not creating a complex set of systems that just obfuscates the end result without creating anything interesting.

As an example of complexity without depth, look at this wiki page for the AI War combat system:

https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War:Combat_System

Originally, it had a highly complex combat resolution system which combined shields (which would make some attacks miss), range, shield effectiveness against various damage types, and random chance. This basically served to obfuscate the actual relevant information that the combat system should have given the player (i.e. 'are my units strong or weak against the enemy') and nothing else. That's complexity without depth, which is the same thing you want to create by basically making it so that you have to memorize a whole bunch of different interactions and what enemy type has what sort of defenses to either create the same thing as an overall faction weakness against certain damage types or make the damage type system redundant.

Because it was complexity without depth, Arcen changed it so that you just had straightforward damage multipliers and immunities, making the damage system and combat system much more intuitive without losing any depth. In fact, because the system was intuitive and much easier to understand, it allowed Arcen to implement more complex and interesting damage types and interactions in the long run, leading to a more, not less complex game that was nevertheless significantly more accessible. 

[DiabolusUrsus]

4 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

I've never played Dark Souls so I can't speak to its particular implementation, but I absolutely HATE these kinds of FASERIP-style systems. At this point, I'm a hard pass on any game that requires me to balance Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution and whatever else got left over from D&D. As I've been saying before, that works for a P&P game which lacks the mechanics to resolve combat through direct player input, not so much in pure action games where players have direct-input control of their character's actions.

Interestingly enough, the system I mentioned has nothing to do with controlling player input, and covers only things that can't be properly accounted for through button presses without resorting to QTEs.

For example, your character can still pick up and swing a weapon they aren't strong enough to use, though they will do pitiful damage with it and get thrown off-balance when landing/receiving hits. You can even effectively use heavier weapons by holding them with both hands instead of just one to increase your effective strength.

Point being, I agree that holdovers from tabletop gaming like "critical chance" and other RNG-driven action emulations have no place in action games... But that doesn't make every aspect of the system automatically incompatible or inappropriate.

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I'll have to take your word on Dark Souls, but the way you're describing it doesn't fit with the system you're proposing. The attributes system offers the veneer of a broad opportunity space that still breaks down into a few viable, optimal builds. "Agile Dex builds, slow-but-strong Str builds, sorcery Int builds..." etc. - yes, those are a few discrete options which don't sound like they benefit from a per-point attibution, points-buy system and don't sound like they wouldn't be possible in a "hero shooter" style character selection system, instead.

I'm not recommending a Souls-style points-buy system for Warframe; I'm giving an example of a points-buy system that doesn't fall into a strict set of niche metas (outside of PVP, anyway) to show that isn't necessarily an inevitable consequence of simply using the system.

Yes, there are various "package type" builds which work best together, but the game is balanced such that players can finish it without leveling up at all given enough input skill. In that sense, I feel it manages to avoid being a veneer of variety, because ANY build is more or less viable.

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Later on you ask why keep the points-buy system in the first place, and my answer for that is the same as it is for pretty much every points-buy system I've run into: Because it's an easy middle ground for developers to put in. As a developer, you don't have to fully model or understand it as player ignorance will mostly balance itself out. As an average player, it gives you the illusion of choice, a learning curve, a source of progression and some customisation. As a min/maxer, it allows you to absolutely break the game completely, which developers will typically let you get away with unless and until it takes over build diversity in the game - then nerfs and buffs and reworks start to happen.

Irrelevant. If DE is dead-set on taking the easy way out, this entire discussion is worthless because they can safely ignore everything we've said because clearly the game is not crashing and burning with what they're doing already.

Assuming, however, that DE is willing to put in the effort to create something good and not simply good enough, what could they use in place of a points-buy system that would avoid the associated pitfalls?

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And while I haven't played Dark Souls, I've played a few "Souls-Like" games in the past. I'm aware of the strength-based builds and the speed-based builds and the ability-based builds. Thing is, those builds work best with particular gearsets attached to them. You don't build a speed set with a two-handed greatsword, a tower shield and heavy plate, you don't build a strength build with leather armour, a dagger and harsh language. This goes all the way back to D&D, where you COULD in theory build your Wizard for Strength and Constitution at the expense of Intelligence, but there was no real point to doing that. If you want to build a Strength-based character, you go with a Strength-based class. In fact, Diablo 3 represents sort of the cross-over point where developers finally had to admit that that system doesn't work, shifting gears in real time. Used to be attributes would increase stats relative to themselves, like strength increasing damage, dexterity increasing accuracy, etc. After the major redesign which came with the removal of the auction house, every class was given a "primary attribute" that most of their stats were based off of. My Sorceress, for instance, started gaining more damage from Intelligence, rather than from Strength.

That's because the weapons themselves don't have any real customization. In Warframe, it's the weapons themselves that have the customization/progression investment instead if the character (e.g., Str build/Dex build/Int build in the form of Damage/Crit/Status.)

Don't get too caught up in the specifics; nobody is suggesting a carbon copy of any counterparts.

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I've played a lot of games with points-buy systems that aren't Dark Souls. Every single one of them has broken down into a few viable builds and "everything else."

Warframe is not those games. It isn't said and done, finished and immutable.

So instead of saying "XYZ failed to do it, therefore Warframe will also fail," let's say "XYZ failed to do it because of ABC; let's avoid those mistakes with Warframe."

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The complexity of determining viability would vary from game to game, sure, but in the age of the Internet that's not much of an issue any more. "Just Google it." I no longer believe in points-buy systems altogether any more, which is why I'm in favour of restrictions more so than further freedom, generally speaking.

This only matters if the meta matters. If the meta offers only marginal advantages as I've discussed previously, and especially if the meta never offers universally-applicable advantages, Googling builds is a non-issue.

If players want to Google ideas instead of tinkering with the game themselves, let them!

Corrosive/Slash is only a problem because it circumvents every single defense in the game while offering no significant disadvantages in terms of DPS or other performance. It's fine to offer builds which do equally well against everything, but they should be overall weaker than specialized builds.

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It's why I don't see the point in allowing all weapons to be built for Crits or for Status or for Base Damage or for Support or for anything the player might desire. For one, I'm not convinced this is even doable. For another, you're still going to end up with "crit guns" and "status guns" anyway based on simple optimisation, just at the cost of obfuscating what constitutes a "good build" to newer players.

It's doable simply by making crits and status non-random. If you can make any gun crit just by landing a shot in the right place, you can turn any gun into a crit gun just by making it accurate and aiming. If status is determined by guaranteed on-hit effects and accumulated procs based on status damage, you can turn any gun into a status gun by using a different proportion of damage.

NOTE: Though I would still use a separate 'status modifier' based on pellet count and ROF to balance out shotguns and automatics.

If status and crit are viable across factions through active playstyle differences as I have described, how would a player go about creating a "bad" build? If the build works (and it should), isn't that good enough?

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The long and short of it is I don't see "tons of diversity" in what you're proposing. I see maybe a handful of options out of potentially thousands. At that point, why even bother? Just give players only the viable choices directly and tie them to progression. "+X% crit damager per level" or "Rank Y mod for the crit damage slot" or such. You're not really losing much in the way of choice, so much as the padding between the meaningful ones.

Following tht logic, we may as well just do that given what we have currently! Warframe players end up googling builds because a) the system is inadequately explained, and b) too many builds just plain suck.

If weapons are VIABLE with no mods whatsoever and mods only serve to tailor weapons to specific playstyles, how do you envision only a handful of options?

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I get it, Dark Souls is perfect, but you're conflating a few things here.

I didn't say that, nor would I. I'm not saying Warframe needs to be Dark Souls; I only brought it up again because you suggested stamina systems were impossible to do well at all.

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Dark Souls doesn't have an "energy" system, on account of having a combat system that's completely incomparable to Warframe. For one, Dark Souls Stamina starts regenerating almost instantly and regenerates to full very quickly. That's because it exists to set the flow of combat, not to be a managed resource. Warframe has no native energy regeneration and very minimal, unreliable energy drops from defeated enemies. You have to defeat enemies in order to gain back energy, which suggests that abilities were intended to be used sparingly and rarely. That, however, is at complete odds with their actual design, which in a lot of cases is minor benefits and lots of spamming. Even ignoring ability spam from the likes of Nidus and Atlas, few abilities in this game are designed to be used once per four or fight fights, which is what it typically takes to regen off of Energy Orbs.

What this has the effect of is pushing people into alternate energy generation sources - Team Energy Restores, Rage, Energising Dash, etc. That, or pick Warframes who don't benefit from ability spam like a more passive Rhino or Inaros. In my case, I have both Inaros AND Rage for a build in which Energy may as well not even exist. Even Parasitic Eximus enemies can't typically out-drain my Rage, and that's when I remember to actually USE energy-costing abilities. And that's the crux of the problem right here. Energy systems which exist for the sole reason of barring the player from spamming abilities do not work. Either players find ways to circumvent them entirely, or they quit because of them. At their core, these are "anti-fun" system which hard-limit how often I can do the stuff players actually enjoy, which is why they fail.

Dark Souls gets away with it because Stamina regenerates VERY quickly and because combat is typically slow enough that Stamina has a chance to regen fully before needing it. As long as you don't use up all of it, all you have to do is back up for a couple of seconds and you're good to go again. In Warframe, you could be waiting 5-10 minutes for your energy to come back if you don't have one of the "ignore Energy system entirely" options. We're going off-topic, though.

In other, simpler terms:

It's a supply and demand issue. Dark Souls does a good job of balancing stamina availability and recovery against player need for it, whereas Warframe does a bad job of it with energy.

I'm not conflating anything; you're overlooking that while yes, Warframe may use a very different implementation, perhaps it SHOULDN'T, for the very reasons you described.

That doesn't mean Warframe needs to match Dark Souls' pacing, but perhaps we should consider why its mechanics work well together and why Warframe's don't.

Dark Souls doesn't get away with stamina just because it regenerates quickly; it 'gets away with it' because it serves an explicit purpose: it punishes players for mindless input mashing, and rewards them for keeping their cool and moving deliberately even while under pressure. This creates a game environment where the solution to most challenges boils down to "pay attention and don't panic."

That's exactly why stamina was a terrible idea for Warframe when it was attached to basic mashy things like melee, sprinting, and even JUMPING, but something similar for energy might not actually be a bad idea.

PS: I lapse into using CAPS for emphasis because it gets hard to scroll up and bold/italicize on mobile, so please read it as such and not yelling. It's laziness on my part, not agitation.

[LightZodiac]

 

 

[LightZodiac]

2 hours ago, MJ12 said:

In your hypothetical enemy design paradigm, there are two possible ways the game will shake out.

Hypothetical enemy design paradigm? 

This was taken right out of the game, specifically Corpus enemies in Fortuna, before going any further I just have to ask do you know how damage mechanics in Warframe work?

How did you mod your weapon to deal with enemies in Fortuna?

[MJ12]

39 minutes ago, LightZodiac said:

Hypothetical enemy design paradigm? 

This was taken right out of the game, specifically Corpus enemies in Fortuna, before going any further I just have to ask do you know how damage mechanics in Warframe work?

How did you mod your weapon to deal with enemies in Fortuna?

Yes I am perfectly aware how damage mechanics in Warframe work and how there's a complete mess of resistances and vulnerabilities that enemies have.

As far as modding to deal with enemies in Fortuna, I used Rad/Corrosive, like I do with literally everything else, because what you took right out of the game is a bad system that far from encouraging variety in modding, annihilates it.

[LightZodiac]

3 hours ago, MJ12 said:

Yes I am perfectly aware how damage mechanics in Warframe work and how there's a complete mess of resistances and vulnerabilities that enemies have.

As far as modding to deal with enemies in Fortuna, I used Rad/Corrosive, like I do with literally everything else, because what you took right out of the game is a bad system that far from encouraging variety in modding, annihilates it.

Enemies in Fortuna start with lower armor values like 25-50 and bounties are up to lvl60, armor really doesn't scale all that much so do feel free to try out other combinations.

I use Battacor modded for Viral, so magnetic/viral one magnetic proc deletes 75% of the shields, one viral proc deletes 50% of the HP... works just fine.

[birdobash]

I think a simple but effective change would be to make mobs take scales damage at lower levels, basically how it works in destiny 2, if you're overpowered for that enemy level the damage you do scales down accordingly to the maximum possible on that mob so you don't one shot them with no regard, but damage doesn't scale down if enemy levels are higher than your light level and gear level, basically your maximum hasn't hit their maximum.

Basically what I'm saying is the balance of damage vs health in warframe is a very lopsided scale, you either deal overkill damage on lower level enemies or you don't deal enough to kill in reasonable amounts of time on higher enemies. There is a very small window of levels where enemies actually feel like they're in respectable kill time but not overly meatshielded, and that is a fundamental flaw of enemy level scaling along with armor and damage from weapons.

This would make lower levels feel less trivial, and hopefully some balances to armor and enemy scaling in general will be fixed alongside this so enemies don't become gods of one shot after a certain level or become basically invincible.

[Steel_Rook]

12 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

If weapons are VIABLE with no mods whatsoever and mods only serve to tailor weapons to specific playstyles, how do you envision only a handful of options?

For one, that would gut something like 3/4 of the game's progression system and take DE's entire business model with it. More to the point, though, you're still going to end up with a few templates which work best that players gravitate towards, be that through copying builds off YouTube or just experimenting. Yes, you COULD use a sword you're too weak to swing in Dark Souls, but most people aren't going to because it's a no-brainer that that's a bad idea, same as how I wouldn't bother using a two-handed hammer with a tower shield in Lords of the Fallen. Yes, I COULD switch to a two-handed grip when I want to swing it and back to shield when I want to guard (scrolling past all the ranged options), but there's no real point. And yes, you can finish Dark Souls without levelling up. You can make that argument for any game. I've been listening to that exact argument for why Payday 2 is "too easy" for five years. What people do as a self-imposed challenge to test what's possible isn't relevant to the experience of most people.

You're arguing against player psychology here, and making a common engineering mistake of trying to design around an "ideal user." Surely if we give players enough choice, they'll pick what they enjoy the most, right? Except most players' desire paths are informed by performance more so than by anything else. What "feels good" is what work, and what works is the meta. Sure, there's some leeway to that, but people by and large are pretty good at pattern recognition. Even going in completely blind, most of them will eventually stumble onto something that "works" and trivialises a particular problem they're having, then stick to it even if it's not exactly what they like using. I certainly don't like the design of Adaptation and feel it completely breaks the game's combat system, but I'm still using it because it's just that powerful.

Yes, in a theoretical system where everything is equal and all choices are meaningful, people will probably pick by choice, but I've yet to see such a system - in games or proposed here. The closest we've come is Dark Souls, and I honestly don't even like that game or its systems. And while I might like Lords of the Fallen and The Surge, it certainly isn't for their systems or balance. And I furthermore don't see how Dark Souls is applicable to Warframe. To wit:

While, yes, you can let all weapons score critical hits with every headshot, that doesn't make every weapon a "crit gun." Inaccurate scatterguns like shotguns and LMGs, explosives, flamethrowers, slow arcing projectile weapons, etc. just aren't going to be very good for that. This is the exact same issue Payday 2 had prior to the introduction of Body Expertise and the CrimeFest 2015 ammo pick-up changes. In theory all weapons could score headshots, but players gravitated towards the ones which could score headshots RELIABLY and simply ignored those which couldn't by their basic design. Volume of fire meant nothing with these weapons because headshots still killed faster and at longer ranges. The only reason that's not the case today is - again - Body Expertise dealing partial headshot damage on a bodyshot, and you STILL don't see the old scatterguns being built for precision. In fact, Overkill had to TRIPLE LMG damage (from 40 to 80 and 120) before people started actually using them consistently.

The long and short of it is that just because a system allows players to do something doesn't mean players are going to want to do it. Just because you CAN have a crit shotgun or a crit LMG, doesn't mean you're going to do it. And sure, YOU might as you seem to come from a Darks Souls mentality of meeting challenges head-on, but most won't. Most won't build an inherently inaccurate, hard-to-control weapon for precision fire. Inversely, I don't see most people building slow-firing precision weapons for a stacking stat for the same reason you don't tend to see a lot of Corrosive on sniper rifles right now. The number of times you need to proc Corrosive vs. the number of shots you need to kill most things just isn't worth it.

I just don't see how all weapons can be viable for damage OR crits OR status without undermining their core design, or why people would want to build them against type for anything other than a self-imposed challenge.

 

12 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Dark Souls doesn't get away with stamina just because it regenerates quickly; it 'gets away with it' because it serves an explicit purpose: it punishes players for mindless input mashing, and rewards them for keeping their cool and moving deliberately even while under pressure. This creates a game environment where the solution to most challenges boils down to "pay attention and don't panic."

Which, as you've noted, isn't applicable to Warframe as a core mechanic. Actually, that DOES exist in one specific place - Operators. Damn near everything an Operator can do draws on a small but fast-recharging pool of... Well, "stamina," effectively. The result is honestly the most boring, limited-feeling and clumsy aspect of Warframe. I've gone on about this in the past, but I feel the main and most prominent boat anchor around the neck of the whole Operator system is that after all the soul-destroying grinding necessary to unlock their full potential, you're still left with a character who's slow, cumbersome and can't do anything interesting for fear of not having enough energy to live. I'd like to use Void Blast, but I can't because then I won't be able to use Void Mode. I'd like to use Void Dash, but I can't because then I won't be able to use Void Mode. And that would be fine if Warframe didn't throw a bazillion enemies at you at all times and the Operator-specific fights weren't so heavily designed around camping in Void Mode.

We're talking past each other a little bit here, though. I'm not saying the concept of limiting players by resources is in itself unworkable. After all, ammo exists as a concept in nearly all weapons with guns in them and players generally don't argue how it's anti-fun. And no, not because "realism." By and large, game designers are savvy enough to realise - if only subconsciously - that players like to shoot their guns and the game wouldn't be a whole lot of fun without doing that. So ammo exists to limit frivolous expenditure, but typically drops in large enough quantities to offset even remotely proper use. Now granted, Warframe's ammo system can REALLY use some work (namely, weapon-specific ammo pick-up values rather than box-specific such), but even then you don't see players arguing how the ammo system should be removed.

Energy - unlike Ammo and Stamina in a Dark Souls game - is designed around limiting what you can do 2, 5, 10 minutes in the future. In Dark Souls, Stamina only limits what you can do at that moment, not even in that fight. In Warframe, a player without some kind of game-breaking source of infinite energy generation can typically use 25 energy about every minute or two since that's about how often Energy Orbs drop. That's a pitiful amount and nowhere near enough to actually enjoy your Frame's unique playstyle, much less be effective. At that point, the primary difference between Warframes becomes their base stats and their guns. That's why people look to circumvent the entire Energy system - in this game and in others. Ultimately, these abilities are half the fun.

That's not to say no limits should ever exist, but I personally prefer Warframes who use their own unique resources, or at the very least some kind of more "active" resource. Think Nidus' Mutation or Atlas' Rubble for a "act to gain before spending" resource or Inaros' Scarab Armour + Negation Swarm for a "use then channel to regain" resource, or Baruk's Restraint for a "build up to critical mass" resource. Hell, even Rhino's Iron Skin kinda-sorta counts. Except all of these Warframes are additionally slapped with an energy cost of all of their abilities on top of it, even where it doesn't make sense. Nidus' core design seems outright aware of how ridiculous this is, which is why his Virulence outright generates energy and his Parasitic Link and Ravenous cost no energy.

My point was more a condemnation of just reusing Diablo style "mana" systems which stopped being relevant a decade ago, and certainly when Diablo 3 itself ditched the concept in favour of more "gamey" resources. Even Wizards don't use "mana" any more, instead relying on a Stamina-like Arcane Power pool which drains quickly but regenerates just as quickly. Frankly, I'm of the opinion that a Dark Souls style resource with a small pool but rapid regeneration could be useful for some Warframes, particularly the likes of Nidus and Atlas. It's a good way to prevent ability spam while still allowing for both rapid-cast abilities and sustained-cast abilities. It's the "one size fits all" generic energy system of Warframe that I take issue with.

 

15 hours ago, LightZodiac said:

This was taken right out of the game, specifically Corpus enemies in Fortuna, before going any further I just have to ask do you know how damage mechanics in Warframe work?

I wouldn't hold the Terra Corpus faction as an example of good enemy design. They're a smorgasbord of pretty much every mechanic in the game, meaning there's no real point in trying to be clever about your builds with them. They have health, armour, shields, barriers, mobility, range, control, numbers, bosses, all of it rolled into the same encounter. At that point, it's simpler to just build for game-breaking stats and not bother with the complexity because there are no right answers. It's a faction comprised almost entirely of priority targets, which I personally feel is a direct indictment of this game's state of balance. The only way to make something "challenging" is to just throw everything at the player, including the kitchen sink. The Orb Heist is probably the worst example of this approach, as the game both throws literally everything at you while simultaneously over-indulging on invulnerability phases AND barring you from using your Archwing via constant AA missiles.

The Terra Corpus is precisely what I want to AVOID by narrowing the spread of resistances within the same enemy group, and preferably narrowing the spread of "abilities" they have, as well. To me, a well-designed enemy faction would have distinct strengths and distinct weaknesses - things they're really good at punishing the player for, but also things they're really terrible at responding against. Again, I feel compelled to bring up Helldivers and the differentiation between the game's three factions of Cyborgs, Bugs and Illuminate. Cyborgs are heavily armed and heavily armoured but slow, bugs are tough and numerous but mostly melee, Illuminate have no armour or melee to speak of but are overloaded on long-range artillery and control effects. Even down to simple anti-armour weapons, they differ. You HAVE to bring some against the Cyborgs, you don't need any against the Illuminate and it's optional against the Bugs, depending on the situation.

And yeah, I get that the Orokin/Corrupted faction has filled that "all of the things" role since before I started playing, but I'm pretty opposed to THAT, too. The more enemy types you throw at the player at the same time, the more they - and the tactics/weapons/builds used to fight them - blend together and iron over the complexity of the game's combat system.

[LightZodiac]

3 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

The Terra Corpus is precisely what I want to AVOID by narrowing the spread of resistances within the same enemy group, and preferably narrowing the spread of "abilities" they have, as well. To me, a well-designed enemy faction would have distinct strengths and distinct weaknesses - things they're really good at punishing the player for, but also things they're really terrible at responding against. Again, I feel compelled to bring up Helldivers and the differentiation between the game's three factions of Cyborgs, Bugs and Illuminate. Cyborgs are heavily armed and heavily armoured but slow, bugs are tough and numerous but mostly melee, Illuminate have no armour or melee to speak of but are overloaded on long-range artillery and control effects. Even down to simple anti-armour weapons, they differ. You HAVE to bring some against the Cyborgs, you don't need any against the Illuminate and it's optional against the Bugs, depending on the situation.

And yeah, I get that the Orokin/Corrupted faction has filled that "all of the things" role since before I started playing, but I'm pretty opposed to THAT, too. The more enemy types you throw at the player at the same time, the more they - and the tactics/weapons/builds used to fight them - blend together and iron over the complexity of the game's combat system.

So you basically just want all guns to work the same against everything or what?

[DiabolusUrsus]

2 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

For one, that would gut something like 3/4 of the game's progression system and take DE's entire business model with it. More to the point, though, you're still going to end up with a few templates which work best that players gravitate towards, be that through copying builds off YouTube or just experimenting. Yes, you COULD use a sword you're too weak to swing in Dark Souls, but most people aren't going to because it's a no-brainer that that's a bad idea, same as how I wouldn't bother using a two-handed hammer with a tower shield in Lords of the Fallen. Yes, I COULD switch to a two-handed grip when I want to swing it and back to shield when I want to guard (scrolling past all the ranged options), but there's no real point. And yes, you can finish Dark Souls without levelling up. You can make that argument for any game. I've been listening to that exact argument for why Payday 2 is "too easy" for five years. What people do as a self-imposed challenge to test what's possible isn't relevant to the experience of most people.

It may be a self-imposed challenge, but it's not actually arduous in the same way doing the same thing in Warframe would be. Yes, you could be stronger and it could be easier, but in Warframe you can just flat-out not be strong enough and deal complete scratch damage while taking practically unavoidable attrition.

My point about using a weapon with two hands (there are actually reasons to do this, btw,) was less about specific builds and more about your comment that FASERIP-type systems falling into the same category of obsolescence as critical hits. Based on the observed implementation, that simply isn't true. Anything the player ostensibly has direct control over left in their control. The stats come in for things like defining how strong your character is, which can't be expressed by simply pressing the button harder.

2 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

You're arguing against player psychology here, and making a common engineering mistake of trying to design around an "ideal user." Surely if we give players enough choice, they'll pick what they enjoy the most, right? Except most players' desire paths are informed by performance more so than by anything else. What "feels good" is what work, and what works is the meta. Sure, there's some leeway to that, but people by and large are pretty good at pattern recognition. Even going in completely blind, most of them will eventually stumble onto something that "works" and trivialises a particular problem they're having, then stick to it even if it's not exactly what they like using. I certainly don't like the design of Adaptation and feel it completely breaks the game's combat system, but I'm still using it because it's just that powerful.

Yes, in a theoretical system where everything is equal and all choices are meaningful, people will probably pick by choice, but I've yet to see such a system - in games or proposed here. The closest we've come is Dark Souls, and I honestly don't even like that game or its systems. And while I might like Lords of the Fallen and The Surge, it certainly isn't for their systems or balance. And I furthermore don't see how Dark Souls is applicable to Warframe.

You're continuingly overlooking the underlying approach, which is to minimize the meta.

I don't care about making every player behave like the 'ideal player.' If players wantn to slave themselves to the meta, LET THEM. But make the meta provide a small enough advantage that anyone who doesn't can ignore it and still be effective.

It's not about forcing an ideal; it's about supporting it as an option in the first place.

2 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

To wit:

While, yes, you can let all weapons score critical hits with every headshot, that doesn't make every weapon a "crit gun." Inaccurate scatterguns like shotguns and LMGs, explosives, flamethrowers, slow arcing projectile weapons, etc. just aren't going to be very good for that.

Then if you really want to, add accuracy and projectile speed.

Flamethrowers and explosives are entirely different animals, though. They should bring unique characteristics not available to other weapons to the table in exchange for reduced flexibility in other areas.

2 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

This is the exact same issue Payday 2 had prior to the introduction of Body Expertise and the CrimeFest 2015 ammo pick-up changes. In theory all weapons could score headshots, but players gravitated towards the ones which could score headshots RELIABLY and simply ignored those which couldn't by their basic design. Volume of fire meant nothing with these weapons because headshots still killed faster and at longer ranges. The only reason that's not the case today is - again - Body Expertise dealing partial headshot damage on a bodyshot, and you STILL don't see the old scatterguns being built for precision. In fact, Overkill had to TRIPLE LMG damage (from 40 to 80 and 120) before people started actually using them consistently.

I don't think that modding system is comparable. Obviously if weapon performance is mostly static players will gravitate to the "best pick," but Warframe gives players an entirely different set of tools to approach this problem.

Don't look at the flaw in a vacuum and assume that it can't be fixed. You literally listed how the game addressed the problem; why can't Warframe do something to address it too?

2 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

The long and short of it is that just because a system allows players to do something doesn't mean players are going to want to do it. Just because you CAN have a crit shotgun or a crit LMG, doesn't mean you're going to do it.

Right, it's more about letting players do what they WANT to than what they NEED to.

2 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

And sure, YOU might as you seem to come from a Darks Souls mentality of meeting challenges head-on, but most won't.

Ugh, no. I already explicitly stated that I am not looking for Warframe to be hardcore or difficult. Take that assumption and discard it.

2 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

Most won't build an inherently inaccurate, hard-to-control weapon for precision fire. Inversely, I don't see most people building slow-firing precision weapons for a stacking stat for the same reason you don't tend to see a lot of Corrosive on sniper rifles right now. The number of times you need to proc Corrosive vs. the number of shots you need to kill most things just isn't worth it.

And that's their choice, which they are free to make. Though for the record I'd expect to adjust procs for ROF, especially for stacking effects.

2 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

I just don't see how all weapons can be vciable for damage OR crits OR status without undermining their core design, or why people would want to build them against type for anything other than a self-imposed challenge.

Undermining the core design? How so? Also why would it need to be a challenge? If I want to make my Rubico into a shotgun-style pellet-sprayer with a higher magazine capacity, how does it harm the game to let me do that?

2 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

Which, as you've noted, isn't applicable to Warframe as a core mechanic.

... But...

2 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

Frankly, I'm of the opinion that a Dark Souls style resource with a small pool but rapid regeneration could be useful for some Warframes, particularly the likes of Nidus and Atlas. It's a good way to prevent ability spam while still allowing for both rapid-cast abilities and sustained-cast abilities. It's the "one size fits all" generic energy system of Warframe that I take issue with.

That's pretty much exactly what I just said, though?

True, it's not directly transferrable currently, but there are useful lessons to take away from it.

2 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

I wouldn't hold the Terra Corpus faction as an example of good enemy design. They're a smorgasbord of pretty much every mechanic in the game, meaning there's no real point in trying to be clever about your builds with them. They have health, armour, shields, barriers, mobility, range, control, numbers, bosses, all of it rolled into the same encounter. At that point, it's simpler to just build for game-breaking stats and not bother with the complexity because there are no right answers. It's a faction comprised almost entirely of priority targets, which I personally feel is a direct indictment of this game's state of balance. The only way to make something "challenging" is to just throw everything at the player, including the kitchen sink. The Orb Heist is probably the worst example of this approach, as the game both throws literally everything at you while simultaneously over-indulging on invulnerability phases AND barring you from using your Archwing via constant AA missiles.

Yes, I agree that mixed faction design can be done poorly. That doesn't mean it HAS to be, though.

There is no semblance of thoughtful distribution or moderation applied to Terra Corpus; as you said, they're just "everything at once." That's not what I suggested, though.

2 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

The Terra Corpus is precisely what I want to AVOID by narrowing the spread of resistances within the same enemy group, and preferably narrowing the spread of "abilities" they have, as well. To me, a well-designed enemy faction would have distinct strengths and distinct weaknesses - things they're really good at punishing the player for, but also things they're really terrible at responding against. Again, I feel compelled to bring up Helldivers and the differentiation between the game's three factions of Cyborgs, Bugs and Illuminate. Cyborgs are heavily armed and heavily armoured but slow, bugs are tough and numerous but mostly melee, Illuminate have no armour or melee to speak of but are overloaded on long-range artillery and control effects. Even down to simple anti-armour weapons, they differ. You HAVE to bring some against the Cyborgs, you don't need any against the Illuminate and it's optional against the Bugs, depending on the situation.

Great, I want to avoid things like Terra Corpus too. My approach is different, though, because "X build for Grineer, Y build for Corpus, Z build for Infested" really sucks when those builds aren't really that different.

I agree that faction behavior and overall strengths/weaknesses should be important. For example, I'd want Grineer to emphasize aggressive pressure and cooperation between troops, whereas Corpus would consist of a handful of Crewmen attacking from range while throwing walls of disposable proxies in the player's general direction.

Yes, Corrosive would be broadly useful against the Grineer the same way Magnetic would be useful against the Corpus, but there should be ways for the player to actively bridge those gaps if they so choose.

2 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

And yeah, I get that the Orokin/Corrupted faction has filled that "all of the things" role since before I started playing, but I'm pretty opposed to THAT, too. The more enemy types you throw at the player at the same time, the more they - and the tactics/weapons/builds used to fight them - blend together and iron over the complexity of the game's combat system.

Corrupted are a wasted opportunity that really deserve to get touched up with more thoughtful mixes of inter-faction units. They currrently just have the most annoying enemies available from each faction, but that's more a symptom of the factions all behaving mostly the same.

With better faction diversity and *hopefully* more distinct "personalities," the Corrupted would be a great opportunity to force players to mix things up while constituting a rather "eerie and unsettling" battlefield presence.

[Steel_Rook]

22 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

... But...

I have no idea what to even do with your posts at this point, I'm sorry. You're giving me sentence fragments addressing sentence fragments and having 11 different conversations at once that I simply don't remember from two days ago. Not only have I completely lost track of what we're even talking about at this point, I've no idea what you're proposing any more. I keep seeing references to some kind of system that you're envisioning, but I simply have no idea what it is, or indeed what it could be as the requirements you're setting for it are mutually exclusive to my eyes. The reason I keep going back to Dark Souls is that's the single fixed point you've given me and the only thing I'm actually able to address. Pretty much everything else is either individual sentences I can't follow or vague allusions to changes you haven't explained. Unless we can go back to discussing some kind of defined thing, then I have nothing further to add.

What problems do you see? What causes these problems? What solutions would you propose? In what way would those solutions address those problems? Give me SOMETHING to work with that isn't just a fractal pattern of semantics, word choice and sidebars.

 

23 hours ago, LightZodiac said:

So you basically just want all guns to work the same against everything or what?

No, not even remotely, nor does the post fragment you quoted suggests such a thing. I want factions to have an explicit player-facing design with distinct strengths and weaknesses. "Everything" is not a design, it's the lack of one. The Terra Corpus have all of the strengths of all of the other factions and none of the weaknesses of any of them, broadly speaking. There's no clever way to fight them, no smart way to build against them, no meaningful target priority to approach them from. The only meaningful approach, then, is to disregard their design entirely and simply bring enough numbers for gameplay mechanics to stop mattering. Whenever developers resort to this sort of "difficulty," it's indicative of fundamental problems with the core systems which prevent them from challenging the player in any other way. "Everything" is one of a few last resorts developers reach for when no actually good choices are available. That's why I claim that the Terra Corpus is a tacit admission that players are far too powerful to challenge in a meaningful fashion.

Long story short, I consider the Terra Corpus to be by far the worst faction in the game and a direct example of what not to do moving forward. Not because they're difficult, but because they're they railroad players into the exact kind of "meta" that we're criticising here.

[LightZodiac]

1 hour ago, Steel_Rook said:

No, not even remotely, nor does the post fragment you quoted suggests such a thing.

It was a genuine question.

1 hour ago, Steel_Rook said:

I want factions to have an explicit player-facing design with distinct strengths and weaknesses. "Everything" is not a design, it's the lack of one. The Terra Corpus have all of the strengths of all of the other factions and none of the weaknesses of any of them, broadly speaking. There's no clever way to fight them, no smart way to build against them, no meaningful target priority to approach them from. The only meaningful approach, then, is to disregard their design entirely and simply bring enough numbers for gameplay mechanics to stop mattering. Whenever developers resort to this sort of "difficulty," it's indicative of fundamental problems with the core systems which prevent them from challenging the player in any other way. "Everything" is one of a few last resorts developers reach for when no actually good choices are available. That's why I claim that the Terra Corpus is a tacit admission that players are far too powerful to challenge in a meaningful fashion.

Long story short, I consider the Terra Corpus to be by far the worst faction in the game and a direct example of what not to do moving forward. Not because they're difficult, but because they're they railroad players into the exact kind of "meta" that we're criticising here.

I actually fully agree except for one thing, Terra Corpus are actually the best faction in this game because they do provide a meaningful challenge, I mean everything else can be easily cheezed.

The fact that faction has to become like this to provide a meaningful challenge is a testament in itself that the game had reached a point where core mechanics need to be changed.

[Shockwave-]

De missed the boat with the shield/health mechanic. It's that simple. In a horde shooter the mechanic should be you are super strong, they are many. Many little hits can overwhelm you, while you slaughter lots of them. One grineer is not as strong as you, thus a grineer that one shots you is dumb. Why don't they all have that weapon? Problem is we only really die to one shots and such. That's wrong.

DE should have done a dual health pool like they did -Shields and Health. But health should be UNHEALABLE. Shields should not recharge automatically, or do so very slowly. Healing should be for shields only (trinity, Oberon, operators etc). All the ways you heal health now should be healing shields. When they pepper you enough that they get through your shield, you take health damage (this is bad) and perhaps you retreat/drop a shield  restore (should be limited) etc. Oops, you just lost some health. Back to fighting, wash, rinse, repeat. When you accumulate enough "pecks" at your health (because you played badly and made mistakes) you die.

Balance should be around this type of damage mechanic - "accumulated losses" instead of One-shots (team-mate raising would need a rethink but could end up being you only get so many "downs" and raising just means you come back with more health/shield than if not helped by a team mate for instance).

No one shots, slower shield and health drain so you can see it getting hit and do something about it, etc. One shots are just not fun. and Yes, they limit frames to just the meta frames.

[(XBOX)Avant Solace]

I'd also just like to point out that enemy factions in this game also suffer horribly from a lack of "tactical niche". Basically what I'm saying is all factions follow the same general formula:

1) Get a bigger gun/blade. 2) Get the best element combo 3) Shoot/stab them.

The overall gameplay differs very little between the factions. Truly the factions should behave more defined like this:

• Grineer: The second least technologically advanced (only beating Infested). Their weaponry is mainly crude ballistics, and thus should be largely ineffective against Tenno defenses. That said, their extensive use of armor and numbers makes them collectively a threat. Essentially they should personify the "turtle" archetype.
• Corpus: Technologically advanced, but not particularly militaristic. Their obsession with profit limits the amount of organic crew, with only the most essential locations possessing a sizable defense force. Their relatively few numbers and lack of proper defenses are compensated by their weaponry being extremely advanced, with each crewman capable of dishing out a decent bit of damage. Essentially they should personify the "glass canon" archetype.
• Infested: Simple but deadly. A mutant horde that only thinks to consume. They should possess deceptively high natural resilience, but lack much in terms of ranged combat. The Infested should (and does) represent the "hoard" archetype.
• Sentient (Tau): Living thinking machines. Their stemmed numbers mean little when they can absorb the technology around them and actively adapt to even the harshest environments. They represent the "UBER-UNIT" archetype.

That is at least how they should ideally perform. Currently they are mostly stuck in a gray area where individual encounters lack any sort of personality.

[Chaemyerelis]

On 2018-12-19 at 12:16 AM, Tellakey said:

The Profit-Taker fight, as any high-level mission, belies the game's biggest flaw: horde-shooting. Where other games call for calculated movement, an ebb and flow between defense and offense, and just generally using your smarts, Warframe is a mess reliant on statistics. The bigger your number the longer you persist, skills be damned.

This both mitigates the sense of satisfaction a player earns for overcoming a hurdle like the Profit-Taker, at least in my case, and significantly relegates the pool of viable Warframes at high-level missions to a handful. Vauban's being the least played Warframe nails this on the head - players can't use strategy, it is useless in this game. Players only use big numbers - frames like Saryn, Nidus, Mesa, Volt for offense, frames like Rhino, Limbo, Nyx, Inaros for defense. A niche frame built around tactics creates an impediment in a game where booms and bwaaazzz are where it's at, and even these prove fragile in missions where enemies can 1-shot your entire shield and health pools absent a buff.

The horde in 'horde-shooter' is also an impediment to progress. One cannot feasibly hope to handle a throng of mobs all shooting at you 360, all while setting up traps, hampering your abilities, draining your shields, health and energy. The only way one may last in such conditions entails a spasm of disjointed hopping around while shooting randomly with AoE weapons, spamming your stronger ability. The Profit-Taker is a perfect showcase of this phenomenon.

The combat system is fundamentally flawed. DE, you must move away from horde-shooting into calculated, smart combat a la Mass Effect. Take inspirations from the likes of Dark Souls, For Honor, Monster Hunter - games that demand the player to think - and forego the Diablos and Skyrims of the gaming industry. No, I am not saying become those games - that would be ridiculous - I am saying learn from them.

Melee 3.0, on the surface, appears to be a step in the right direction. Gone are the mindless combos locking you into an inflexible state. Now you can choose which exact maneuver to employ. Clap clap, more of this, less of damage mods.

I love this game and want it to evolve. It pains me to see all of your creativity bogged down by a flawed foundation.

Best of luck.

Well said. After a while you just go into autopilot with horde based shooters a more systematic combat system would breathe a whole new life into WF.

[Tellakey]

4 minutes ago, Chaemyerelis said:

Well said. After a while you just go into autopilot with horde based shooters a more systematic combat system would breathe a whole new life into WF.

Based on the latest Devstream, it would seem DE has heard our cries in regards to challenging gameplay! Hurray!

Edited January 18, 2019 by Tellakey

[Steel_Rook]

3 hours ago, LightZodiac said:

I actually fully agree except for one thing, Terra Corpus are actually the best faction in this game because they do provide a meaningful challenge, I mean everything else can be easily cheezed. 

I don't see it. They provided "a meaningful challenge" the first time I fought them. Then I went to the Wiki to figure out their resistances and made a dedicated Fortuna build. The Terra Corpus haven't been an issue since. In fact, I spaced out a little bit farming for Torioids and ended up fighting level 100 Terra Corpus before I knew it - still not TOO much of an issue. And I don't say that to brag, I'm saying that to point out a simple fact about these guys: They're a gear check. They're hard if you bring the wrong gear or gear to level up, but they're not much of an issue once you prepare properly. In practice, the Terra Corpus aren't substantially harder than any other faction, so much as they disqualify a larger number of options that I can typically use in most other missions.

In effect, the Terra Corpus cast out the majority of this game's design complexity in search for "challenge" and didn't end up finding it anyway. I'd certainly hate for that faction to go down in history as a success and form the template for future factions down the road, because it represents the complete opposite of how I'd personally like to see the game evolve over time.

3 hours ago, Shockwave- said:

DE should have done a dual health pool like they did -Shields and Health. But health should be UNHEALABLE. Shields should not recharge automatically, or do so very slowly. Healing should be for shields only (trinity, Oberon, operators etc). All the ways you heal health now should be healing shields. When they pepper you enough that they get through your shield, you take health damage (this is bad) and perhaps you retreat/drop a shield  restore (should be limited) etc. Oops, you just lost some health. Back to fighting, wash, rinse, repeat. When you accumulate enough "pecks" at your health (because you played badly and made mistakes) you die.

Meh. That's basically what Payday 2 was at release, and I can tell you from experience that that makes for a pretty dull game. I'm sure fans of Payday: The Heist will yell at me for it, but I find that design to be oppressive and unsatisfying. As far as I'm concerned, attrition damage belongs in PvP and horror games, not in power fantasy action games. I've been through exactly what you're describing recently. Back when I first started, I had no access to health or energy regeneration and my shield regeneration was - and still is, because shields are generally pointless - too slow to matter. I remember being close to giving up on the game entirely because most of the action bogged down into hiding in corners waiting for my shields to recover, not using my abilities much at all and dying because I had no means of recovering from mistakes.

Warframe is not Dark Souls, and I'd rather we didn't move any closer to that game's mechanics.

[DiabolusUrsus]

10 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

I have no idea what to even do with your posts at this point, I'm sorry. You're giving me sentence fragments addressing sentence fragments and having 11 different conversations at once that I simply don't remember from two days ago. Not only have I completely lost track of what we're even talking about at this point, I've no idea what you're proposing any more. I keep seeing references to some kind of system that you're envisioning, but I simply have no idea what it is, or indeed what it could be as the requirements you're setting for it are mutually exclusive to my eyes. The reason I keep going back to Dark Souls is that's the single fixed point you've given me and the only thing I'm actually able to address. Pretty much everything else is either individual sentences I can't follow or vague allusions to changes you haven't explained. Unless we can go back to discussing some kind of defined thing, then I have nothing further to add.

That's fine, but I think this illustrates a communicative difficulty that I'm not really sure how to approach. The 'fragment' you quoted followed an - I thought - fairly simple logical progression:

You said "Stamina is not applicable to Warframe as a core mechanic," and then went through your own entirely separate logic chain to reach the exact same conclusion I did in the preceding post, which was that it could be useful as a replenishable energy pool for Warframe powers. So, I responded with:

"...But... > quote of your identical conclusion > Isn't that what I just said?"

I understand that we're touching on a lot of different topics, but if you're at the point where you're too frustrated to  link consecutive statements in context I don't know that I can compensate for that through a text medium. Nevertheless, I'll try to re-frame the conversation.

10 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

What problems do you see?

Nonexistent practical customization, palette-swapped enemy factions with minor mechanical differences (hitscan/projectile), and a meaninglessly complex tangle of arbitrary weaknesses and resistances generating a mind-numbingly shallow combat experience.

10 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

What causes these problems?

• Mods have no depth. They are a simplistic game of matching bonuses to innate advantages to amplify them, with no real variation or mechanical differences.
• Enemies are all more-or-less independent mooks serving no greater strategy or complementary roles within their respective factions, only capable of attacking the player and moving around to present them with moving targets.
• Elements are differentiated almost exclusively by damage multipliers and useful/not-useful proc effects, whilst all filling the exact same function within their respective builds. Radiation is the same as Corrosive is the same as Viral is the same as Magnetic, with the only difference being some of them are useful and others are mostly not.

10 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

What solutions would you propose? In what way would those solutions address those problems?

Mods

• Adding trade-offs to all mods, which changes them from "gimme" stackable bonuses into tools for specialization.
• Shrinking mod bonuses and weighting trade-offs proportionally, to reduce the overall impact of the meta and prevent players from creating "literally unplayable" builds.
• Implementing (as you suggested) mutual exclusivity and diminishing returns where applicable to encourage varied loadouts over multiple stacks of the same bonuses.
• Adding "aggro" and "suppression" statistics to give players foundations for cooperative play, and differentiate weapon roles better. For example, a high-damage LMG build which suppresses enemies and draws lots of aggro might be great for a tank build keeping hordes in check, and a stealthy crit pistol might be great for a support/assassin-type build dedicated to hunting down heavier targets behind enemy lines and exploiting their weak-points.
  • This would also tie into making "lighter" Warframe builds more viable through evasion-based enemy accuracy debuffs and i-frame actions (parkour) instead of every Frame needing to spec into straight-up tanking or DPS to survive. For example, Loki could subsist more on managing enemy aggro and distracting them with Decoy in place of near-permanent Invisibility.

Enemies

• Splitting enemies into disposable mooks, less common elites with supportive powers, rare champions more capable of going toe-to-toe with Warframes, and bosses, which allows for different specialized builds (e.g., imprecise raw damage vs. precision multiplied damage) to be variably effective within the same faction instead of universally "the best."
• Changing faction-specific behaviors to produce more unique "personalities": Grineer use aggressive squad-based pressure, Corpus use disposable Proxies to support long-range snipers/marksmen, and Infested rush forward from all directions as a loosely-directed swarm.

Elements & Damage

• Reducing elemental multipliers and differentiating procs, while ensuring those procs can be applied effectively to the different factions. For example, I would make Heat a short stacking DOT and make Toxin a progressive debuff to target reload speed/attack rate and accuracy. The end-goal of this would be making different elements contribute to different "playstyles" and allowing players to pick a playstyle they like and develop strategies for approaching the different factions.
• Implementing proc interactions (e.g., Gas creating a lingering gas cloud which detonates when hit by Heat or Blast damage) to support combination attacks, further enabling the aforementioned playstyles.
• Limiting builds to 1 dominant physical status effect and 1 elemental damage type to prevent the typical bonus stacking and require specialization of some sort.

Miscellaneous

• Through testing and community behavior (i.e., developing meta builds), actively nerfing the meta where necessary to ensure it confers some benefit but doesn't massively outperform the rest of the "average" builds.
• Changing armor from a flat % damage reduction to a penetrable "health buffer," and making shielding its more fragile but easier-to-restore counterpart. This ensures players always have a sort of "safety net" regardless of build; they can destroy armor they can't penetrate and shields are more or less the same (but not bypassed and made useless by specific damage types).

10 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

Give me SOMETHING to work with that isn't just a fractal pattern of semantics, word choice and sidebars.

I've given you varying degrees of specifics short of actual statistical values, and you've brushed over all of them without becoming any less confused (as far as I can tell). I really don't understand how you can call the above concepts a "fractal pattern of semantics," as they strike me as rather concrete and easy to understand. As I've asked before, what exactly do you want to know? Can you ask any specific questions regarding details which are unclear or confusing to you?

"I don't get it" doesn't really help me when trying to answer your questions. What don't you understand? What do you understand? What qualifies as something concrete enough for your purposes?

Based on the examples you've been using, I'm getting the distinct impression that you are - inadvertently - perpetrating a bit of a Nirvana fallacy where you're throwing the entirety of a concept out the window because it isn't meticulously perfect or comprehensive. For example, you have repeatedly brought up examples of things other games have done wrong (e.g., City of Heroes' labyrinth of resistances, Payday 2's overuse of Bulldozers, etc.) as evidence that specific design choices don't work while seemingly failing to realize that just because some other game makes a mistake that doesn't mean the mistake is a necessary consequence of a similar design decision.

Warframe doesn't have to make the same mistakes, and should most certainly seek to learn from mistakes made by other games and take measures to avoid making those same mistakes. Yes, there are risks to consider when making changes. No, those risks are not impossible to compensate for.

I'm well aware that my concepts are not comprehensive, and that there are certainly going to be problems with them I haven't considered yet. However, my plan is to address those problems when they crop up, not throw the system out as impossible or infeasible without first being confronted by a truly unsolvable problem.

[Tellakey]

Bumping this thread in light of the recent Devstream.

[Steel_Rook]

12 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

That's fine, but I think this illustrates a communicative difficulty that I'm not really sure how to approach. The 'fragment' you quoted followed an - I thought - fairly simple logical progression:

I picked that at random mostly so I had some kind of quote to signify whom I'm responding to. Rather, my words were addressed towards the entire post. I read it, top-to-bottom, and was left having no idea what we're talking about or how to respond to it. And while I could optionally just not respond at all, I find that would be somewhat disrespectful considering we're having a conversation of sorts. What I was hoping for was a bridging narrative - a thesis which links a statement of issues to proposed solutions through supporting arguments, ideally contained within the same general statement. I'm not "dismissing" things you're saying, I am literally completely lost as to what we're talking about altogether and looking for some kind of fixed point that I can grab onto and go from there.

That said, you HAVE given me something to work with this time around, for which I thank you kindly.

 

12 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Mods

• Adding trade-offs to all mods, which changes them from "gimme" stackable bonuses into tools for specialization.
• Shrinking mod bonuses and weighting trade-offs proportionally, to reduce the overall impact of the meta and prevent players from creating "literally unplayable" builds.
• Implementing (as you suggested) mutual exclusivity and diminishing returns where applicable to encourage varied loadouts over multiple stacks of the same bonuses.
• Adding "aggro" and "suppression" statistics to give players foundations for cooperative play, and differentiate weapon roles better. For example, a high-damage LMG build which suppresses enemies and draws lots of aggro might be great for a tank build keeping hordes in check, and a stealthy crit pistol might be great for a support/assassin-type build dedicated to hunting down heavier targets behind enemy lines and exploiting their weak-points.

Most of this sounds solid, though I worry about the first couple. While more meaningful trade-offs and less significant buffs would indeed reduce the impact of "the meta," the way you're accomplishing this is by generally reducing the impact of modding altogether. With very few exceptions, mods are this game's primary and most extensive source of progression, a major resource sink and - from personal experience - RMT currency sink. Orokin Catalysts and Reactors are probably THE most invasive of the game's F2P mechanics, and their whole purpose is to progress player power by means of increasing item mod capacity. What you're proposing would gut that system all but entirely, and I'm not convinced the benefit is worth the cost. The way you've described it here, it does seem like your proposed system could work as intended, but I feel the culture shock and hit to the game's monetisation might be too severe.

I'm of the opinion that the broad strokes of the current system are fine, and the issues of aggressive meta can be addressed via less substantial changes. A combination of diminishing returns on buff percentages like you've proposed would be a good start. Throw in the merging of some more popular mod combos that almost always go together (damage + multishot, crit damage + crit chance, etc.) as well as rolling some generally unpopular mods into more popular ones (status duration into status chance, magazine size into reload, ammo capacity into ammo pick-up, etc.) and you're most of the way there, I think. The current points-buy system that is Warframe's modding mechanic already has costs built into itself that I feel ought to be worth more. Mod capacity is currently all but meaningless, as there's always going to be enough capacity for most mod combos, provided the player has enough Forma and a Potato on hand, but slot limits are far harsher. If we can successfully de-emphasise stacking the same stat multiple times, I feel that would be good enough without also de-emphasising modding in the first place.

While I haven't worked with a lot of bonus-malus systems in the past, what little experience I've had has been mostly negative. People overwhelmingly risk-averse in general, and systems where they have to take substantial hits rarely end up selling well. That's why so many games try to re-frame the malus as the stable state, as that avoids players feeling like they've given something up. There's that famous example of WoW's XP penalty for playing too long, which they ended up re-framing a "Rested XP" bonus, the latter being far more palatable to the playerbase despite being the exact same system. It's easier to sell people on "opportunity cost" represented as not getting something they didn't have anyway, than it is to sell people on "actual cost" represented as losing something they're already used to having and relying on. I think this is where the source of our disagreement might be.

I have no comment on your proposal for suppression and aggro management, as I'm in general agreement that both of those should be mechanics in the game.

 

12 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Enemies

• Splitting enemies into disposable mooks, less common elites with supportive powers, rare champions more capable of going toe-to-toe with Warframes, and bosses, which allows for different specialized builds (e.g., imprecise raw damage vs. precision multiplied damage) to be variably effective within the same faction instead of universally "the best."
• Changing faction-specific behaviors to produce more unique "personalities": Grineer use aggressive squad-based pressure, Corpus use disposable Proxies to support long-range snipers/marksmen, and Infested rush forward from all directions as a loosely-directed swarm.

No real disagreement here. Enemy variety in this game is a frikkin' mess (seems to be a common problem in a lot of games), so I'd definitely welcome a more structured hierarchy of enemies split into discrete ranks or types. I'd also welcome LESS enemy variety per mission, with each faction split into individual corps with their own individual unit composition. Ideally, I'd like to avoid having redundant units show up in a mission. If you need a "rifleman," have exactly one rifleman for the corps, and push the other riflemen with the slightly differently coloured armour and different rifle into another corps, instead. Too many different units on the map causes them to blend together.

I'm also a fan of having announced boss type enemies like the Bursa, the Juggernaut and the Prosecutor. Honestly, Noxes should work the same way, and it would be nice if the Lotus would actually announce the Ambulas spawning into the map. I'm fine with these guys not showing up on lower-level missions (20 and below), but I'd like to see a larger presence for them in higher-level missions. All of them. Prosecutors only showing up on Ceres means they may as well not even exist. Not that they're that great of a design, but still.

Again, no real disagreement here. I think it's worth getting into what kind of boss mechanics you'd like to see, though, because the current bosses leave a LOT to be desired.

 

13 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Elements & Damage

• Reducing elemental multipliers and differentiating procs, while ensuring those procs can be applied effectively to the different factions. For example, I would make Heat a short stacking DOT and make Toxin a progressive debuff to target reload speed/attack rate and accuracy. The end-goal of this would be making different elements contribute to different "playstyles" and allowing players to pick a playstyle they like and develop strategies for approaching the different factions.
• Implementing proc interactions (e.g., Gas creating a lingering gas cloud which detonates when hit by Heat or Blast damage) to support combination attacks, further enabling the aforementioned playstyles.
• Limiting builds to 1 dominant physical status effect and 1 elemental damage type to prevent the typical bonus stacking and require specialization of some sort.

I'm not sure I agree with a lot of this. Personally, I've never been a fan of "set up" gimmicks. An incendiary gas cloud that can be set off via Heat is very fiddly, especially if you want to restrict weapons to one dominant damage type. I know this was just an example, but it's an example of a mechanic I don't like. In general, I'm not a fan of multi-step abilities simply because they're cumbersome to pull off in a game this fast-paced and end up occupying multiple "slots" to accomplish a single thing. I'd much rather both elemental damage and status effects operate independently of each other. If you want to enforce interactions, do it like it's done now - via combining damage types on the same weapon.

On the flip side, though - it sounds like what you're proposing is the abolishment of "elemental damage" altogether and shifting it entirely onto their associated status effects, instead. I don't know for sure that that's your goal, but I'd personally be in favour of it. If you recall, I made a similar suggestion earlier in the thread. That way, you can have Heat damage build up a DOT, Gas damage be applied in an area, corrosive not do damage at all but dissolve armour and so on. With the few examples you've given here, I think I finally understand how you meant to make different damage types "behave" differently.

And yes, I'm in absolute agreement with hard-limiting the number of damage types a weapon does. The Orb Heist has already demonstrated how ridiculous the current system is, since a single player can carry enough of most of the damage types to single-handedly circumvent its stupid rotating damage immunity mechanic. Limit players to one physical type and one elemental type, remove the Status effects from elemental types altogether (Slash is the only one worth having anyway) and move all elemental damage onto their respective Status effect with none done directly by the weapon. You can still keep the stagger from Impact by implementing a "stagger" system for enemies where they play a variety of "hurt" animations depending on how fast they're taking damage.

I haven't really thought the above through completely, but I'd still like to hear your thoughts on it.

 

13 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Miscellaneous

• Through testing and community behavior (i.e., developing meta builds), actively nerfing the meta where necessary to ensure it confers some benefit but doesn't massively outperform the rest of the "average" builds.
• Changing armor from a flat % damage reduction to a penetrable "health buffer," and making shielding its more fragile but easier-to-restore counterpart. This ensures players always have a sort of "safety net" regardless of build; they can destroy armor they can't penetrate and shields are more or less the same (but not bypassed and made useless by specific damage types).

I still disagree with changing armour into just bonus health. At that point, you may as well not bother and just increase the enemy's HP. I'm of the opinion that the armour mechanic - for both players and NPCs - is fine and what issues exist are inherent to its amount. I'd like to see both armour and shields act as more than just a differently-coloured bit of the health bar that'll take a different amount of damage from some sources. Not only would I like for armour to keep offering damage resistance, I'd like for enemy shields to recharge at a constant rate with no cooldown. This would force players to either straight-up out-damage their regeneration or else use status effects (magnetic) to block that regeneration temporarily. Similarly, I'd like to see health regen work similarly for the Infested, as well. Though, maybe instead of having them regenerate constantly, give them effective life steal so they heal while attacking but can't heal when engaged at range - which would be fitting for a horde of predominantly melee enemies.

As can be seen on low-level Grenier, armour isn't an issue. As long as it doesn't offer something like 95% damage resistance, players can still deal with it if they brought a big enough gun with the wrong damage type. The issue is that armour scales with level, and it really shouldn't. I'm fine with a level 100 Bombard having in excess of 40 000 health, but he REALLY shouldn't be sporting nearly 7900 armour on top of it. I'd personally argue that Grenier should have 25% to 50% damage resistance, with bosses maybe going up to 75% at most. That's 100 to 300 armour, 600 for bosses and that's it. If you need to make them tougher with level, scale their health, instead. At that point, they're killable with conventional weapons but still benefit from weapons that strip their armour or weapons which hit their unarmoured/less armoured weak points.

Armour itself isn't an issue. The amount thrown around is, and that needs to be drastically reduced across the Grenier faction. Be nice if it were also removed from non-Grenier units, as well.

---

Again, my apologies for frustrating you. It was not my intent, and it wasn't a lot of fun for me either. The above is more or less what I was hoping for as that's plenty to discuss and plenty to work with. Thank you for taking the time to do it.

[Teridax68]

My take on enemy factions:

• Corpus should fight as paired elites: the faction should be made up of a small number of complex and tough enemies, arranged in pairs, such that each unit represents some sort of puzzle piece with multiple different abilities, and any given pair should be enough to contend with a Tenno. The Corpus should therefore:
  • Use advanced technology that provides quirkier forms of utility for the faction's units, in addition to equally tech-y weaponry.
  • Coordinate between pairs to have their abilities synergize with each other, in such a way that the player is faced with a much larger and engaging combination of puzzles on the fly.
  • Push the player to play around each unit's abilities, switch priorities depending on which unit is using which ability, and generally outplay Corpus opponents.
  • Favor bursty, single-target weaponry such as sniper rifles, bows, daggers and rapiers.
• Grineer should fight as squads: the faction should be made up of squads containing a moderate number of simple and weak enemies, plus a complex and tough squad leader, such that each squad functions as a coherent tactical unit, and should be able to contend with a Tenno. The Grineer should therefore:
  • Use more conventional tech and weaponry, with basic units given access to only a simplistic array of tools (maybe even just a weapon), and squad leaders able to use a wider array of abilities on par with a Corpus unit (the tech should be far less advanced, but just as effective).
  • Act as an organized and intelligent unit as the squad leader issues commands, using squad tactics to flank the player and adapt to the player's moves. If the squad leader dies, the surviving squad units should become much less organized.
  • Push the player to anticipate each squad's tactics, choose between focusing the leader or eliminating the weaker units first, and generally outsmart Grineer opponents.
  • Favor weaponry that lets the player switch targets more easily, such as assault rifles, pistols, swords, and whips.
• Infested should fight as a horde: the faction should be made up of a large number of simple and weak enemies, which should all rush the players in numbers proportionate to team size as a continuous wave. The Infested should therefore:
  • Use their bodies and other organic weaponry against the players, such as claws, noxious gas, or bodily mutations (e.g. explosive sacs), any one of which should be exceedingly simple to understand and deal with on its own.
  • Rush the player as a horde, and try to overwhelm the player with sheer numbers and speed.
  • Push the player to constantly move around, manage pressure coming from groups of units, and generally outmaneuver Infested opponents.
  • Favor continuous, multi-target weaponry such as launchers, beam weapons, polearms, and heavy blades.
• Corrupted should fight as a test of mastery: the faction should mix and match enemies from the three main factions intelligently, creating groups of different enemy units balanced against the players, and sending them out under the governance of an overseeing AI. The Corrupted should therefore:
  • Deliberately blend the abilities of different units to create unique synergies between each other, and thus present a vast range of unique puzzles for the player (for example, having a Corpus unit and a Grineer squad leader supplement each other with their special abilities, or throwing a bunch of Grineer troopers alongside Infested units).
  • Fight using a comprehensive AI that allows each unit to act as part of a coherent whole, and dynamically employs the capabilities of different units to work together.
  • Test the player's knowledge of the factions they've fought so far, and thus their mastery over each faction, while also pushing them to adapt to spontaneous combinations of units and abilities.
  • Test any loadout the player brings, and force them to deal with disadvantageous situations in addition to testing their ability to use their weaponry to situational advantage (for example, if the player brings a sniper rifle, they should try to take out elite units first).
• Sentients should fight as duelists: units in the faction should be rare but very strong, such that every single unit each possesses the power and intelligence to take a Tenno head-on. The Sentient should therefore:
  • Possess a large array of abilities and moves that allow each unit to not only pose challenges to the player, but also react and adapt to the player's own abilities and actions, such that both the player and the Sentient get play off of each other and counter each other's moves.
  • Duel the player with an extremely focused AI, capable of rapidly selecting appropriate moves and tactics against the player, and causing any fight to evolve rapidly over time.
  • Test the player's mastery of the game's mechanics through a constant series of skill tests.
  • Favor a varied arsenal and toolset, as the Sentient's ability to adapt should mean that no particular effect would grant an edge against them for long.

Edited January 19, 2019 by Teridax68