What about the infested?...

[TezeretFoxtrot]

What about them you say?

They are quite uninteresting, or is it just me? I don't really recall when's the last time I intentionally went out of my way to kill some infested.
As of now, I go against infested only in a few specific instances, and never because they are fun to battle, specific instances being: random alert against infested with a reward I want, invasions for a quick Mutagen Mass, Sorties when they happen to be on the infested side, whenever an Onslaught zones me to a room infested by... well infested units (sad pun intended, sadly)

They've come a long way since the time ancients were just scaled up leapers and runners, but they also are far behind when it comes to variety compared to grinner and corpus factions!
Of course some of that has to do with the fact that other main factions already received an open world map of their own.
Here a few points to be considered and a few wild suggestions to maybe make them more engaging

• Infestation do not feel like something dangerously on the verge of consuming the Origin system, at all.
  We need them to be more ever present. During every mission there could be a chance for a blob of infested to hit the spaceship/rain down on the planet surface (not that we need to see it, just an alert from our virtual mom saying all hell is breaking loose and infested are coming) and have us fend off against infested enemies as well. This might need some limitations as it may disrupt certain mission types but still, infested spend too much time on their own planets and derelict instead of trying to spread around. Infested invasions are not enough, as they can be completely ignored.
• Infestation counts slightly fewer bosses compared to grineer and corpus, and nearly all of them are sealed off behind something (Salad V and Lephantis require keys, Behemoth and Jolem require a quest, Phorid has to spawn into an invasion, the Hemocyte is part of an event), while most other faction bosses are just freely accessible from the starchart.
• Infested only have but one miniboss or field boss, the Juggernaut, which is even easly avoidable (just run around for 20/30 sec until everything is back to normal). Time for the infested to step up their hive mind game and become at least able to pursue you with a special unit like the Zanuka Hunter or the Grustrag Three.
• There is no orokin sabotage with infested... how actually intelligent infested are? Are they going to completely ignore most of the most interesting things in this stellar system and just be a mindless horde? I hope not (but I'm also not that big on infested-related lore, so you tell me)
• There is no infested tactical alert after a set amount of infested invations have been fought
• Talking about special units, it's great that they were able to get MOAs and ospreys to spice up their game a bit, but it's been a long time now with no additions and it has maybe come the time for them to get up close and personal with other factions and consume some of their newer technology. Have it just get in contact and consume new units, have a new strain able to do new tricks, whatever as long as they get something new. What about infested hyenas for starters, or infested bursas, lynx, raptors, or, god forbid, infested raknoids already (too soon? probably). What would happen if the infested were to find a dormant warframe in the Orokin Derelict? Or capture a lone warframe after a failed mission on Eris? Wouldn't that be a great chance to produce an incredibly powerful new unit? Maybe a miniboss or hunter...
• What about 'unaffiliated' units? Apparently there's plenty of wild life on some planets, what would happen if the infestation could get to desert skates or any of the Vallis fauna?
• Or what about some actually anthropomorphic units? Are infested ever going to evolve into something that can wield a rifle (or have a 'rifle' arm)?

There it goes... thoughts?

[(PSN)M1ST3R_NUTS]

Infested would feel more threatening if they mobbed you in groups of a 100+ but it would probably cause consoles to implode please god don’t anyone suggest a nullifier infested they are annoying enough in the other factions. The small numbers make them less lol.

[(PSN)M1ST3R_NUTS]

3 minutes ago, (PS4)M1ST3R_NUTS said:

Infested would feel more threatening if they mobbed you in groups of a 100+ but it would probably cause consoles to implode please god don’t anyone suggest a nullifier infested they are annoying enough in the other factions. The small numbers make them less lol.

I know the ancients can drain you already but it can be avoided.  A infested smtjat charges you with a bubble would be evil

[(PSN)M1ST3R_NUTS]

One more:  I’d like to see a hulking brute kind of Miniboss.  One that is not announced just out of nowhere something twice the size of a boiler or brood mother just full sprint berserker level attacks your party. It would have high damage and health but low/no armor.  (Maybe can change it up but berserker level enemies you’d think wouldn’t have armor just hit hard.)

[Neo3602]

I really have to  agree, The Infested are overdue for an update. Despite being one "main" 3 factions they have barely played a role in any of the recent quests, have no recurring characters, have the lowest variety of units (IMO they should have the highest), and as you mentioned not received any new faction wide units in a very long time.

[Cephalycion]

The only time infestation comes into the "I really want to play it" territory is when plague star drops. Plague Kripath, brothers. Plague. Kripath.

*Sounds of a thousand tenno squads rushing hemocyte ensue*

[(XBOX)huhsaywhat]

I personally have 900k+ kills on Infested just because Im trying to keep their numbers down, everyone's killing Grineer on Hydron, XD.

No real reason other than its fun for me, but I'm making my own end game story at this point so its more of a role play for me. The Grineer just want to fix their genes and the Corpus just want their religious freedom, the Infestation only wants Biomass so I guess their my real enemy.

I feel that as a "spreading plague" they are a bigger threat to the Tenno, Grineer and Corpus together and need to be eradicated in a joint effort of spectacular fashion but I think I'm mixing in Halo now.

Infested really are bland though compared to other factions or at least feel neglected where they're at. Totally agree with the need for variety and relevance, and OMG I didnt know I wanted an Infested assassin after me until you said it, add this immediately please and thank you ;)

In addition, Infested crossfire missions could roam around affecting different planets like the Kuva Fortress, possibly the occasional coop with the enemy to push back the infested like Invasions but anything other than the fantasy Im sustaining in my head would be a great change to the Health faction.

I guess for now Im just a Plague Doctor without a cause.

[TezeretFoxtrot]

On 2019-01-02 at 9:51 PM, (PS4)M1ST3R_NUTS said:

One more:  I’d like to see a hulking brute kind of Miniboss.  One that is not announced just out of nowhere something twice the size of a boiler or brood mother just full sprint berserker level attacks your party. It would have high damage and health but low/no armor.  (Maybe can change it up but berserker level enemies you’d think wouldn’t have armor just hit hard.)

Ah yes, L4D style and the like
Though warframes are way too mobile and do not stick together at all for a single big unit to be of any concern to more than one player at a time.
Big units randomly popping up would be cool though, maybe not just bullet sponges (we pack enough firepower that no bullet sponge is a problem for us tennos)
In the warframe spirit, they would probably have a few tens of seconds of invulnerability upon getting a warframe into line of sight, but then again, we could just run for a bit and wait for the invulnerability window to expire... damn creating a hunter in this game is quite tricky I see that now...
Don't Stalker, Zanuka Hunter and Grustrag Three teleport you to them if you try to run? Do they still do that? Is there a believable explanation for that in-game? Could an infested hunter do that? That would be problem solved, even though giving so much power to a random spawn with no headsup might be a little too much...

On 2019-01-03 at 10:56 AM, (XB1)huhsaywhat said:

In addition, Infested crossfire missions could roam around affecting different planets like the Kuva Fortress, possibly the occasional coop with the enemy to push back the infested like Invasions but anything other than the fantasy Im sustaining in my head would be a great change to the Health faction.

Oh that I like! An infested asteroid roaming the system and spawning some sort of encounter on random nodes just like the Kuva Fortress does, that does sound nice! That's going to need to bring in new units though (did I say that already? uhm...)