if warframe playstyles are all hyper-agressive and extremely mobile...

[Space0ddity]

why don't we have enemies that counter this mobility more？

by 'counter' i'm talking about enemies that：

1。are  as aggressive as the players，literally never stop rushing in and attacking

2。are as mobile as the players，and can catch them，allowing us to get that visceral 'bully breathing down the back of your neck' feeling

3。have extremely high damage，but only as a counter to mindless agression（ie。 an enemy that reacts to immobile players with a rush of melee swipes that forces them to dodge）

4。 are actually bigger than us，allowing them to hit us with their attacks （bigger sword bigger hitbox）

we've tried everything from damage to bullet sponge to dodging like a madman 

but why not have enemies that have tactics actually suited to the enemy they fight？surely more effective than hiding behind a corner and spraying a water pistol

[MagPrime]

Grineer Manic's are pretty close to what you're wanting.

[(PSN)Zero_029]

Haven't done the Orb Mother fight have you?
I'd say the enemies there hard counter player mobility & they are pretty ruthless.

[Pooroldude]

Hard counters can be polarizing to players, imagine arch wing enemy with the slow(?) laser but on ground.

Edited February 20, 2019 by Pooroldude

[Atsia]

The same point as always, what would adding something like this really do when, unless they got mad damage reduction/cc immunity, they'll just be rendered as useless as everything else?

[Etan-gK]

grineer scorpions and ancients have hook shots that drag us close from distance

grineer commanders teleport us into enemy groups from range

flameblades teleport behind us

nox have damage mitigation and a toxic aura and a charge attack

manics pin us down and can intsa kill you if they catch you

fortuna enemies are hard counter to movement with all the knockdown spam

 prosecutors can only be hurt by specific damage types (and slash to a minor degree)

ghouls keep charging you until either you or they are dead

nullifiers

there's probably more

[0_The_F00l]

Hmm, there are enemies that do that, but they are too specialized and don't appear frequently. 

I agree with the OP,

Manic like enemies (that dodge skill and heads at different elevation from other units) need to be more regular, 

Enemies that can wall jump and run around you (and not directly at you in a straight line so you can kill 3 of them with punch through weapons in single shot, which is also a headshot) would be interesting. 

The corpus on venus are kinda on the right track, we need more of that in regular missions. 

I specifically want Kela de thaym like enemies that wall cling and wall run (but with reduced armor cause common sense says they need to be light) with hooks for legs or arms, grinneer scorpions and butchers need a rework! 

Having to check corners for enemies which might drop down on you is gonna keep you on your toes.

[(PSN)watt4hem]

48 minutes ago, Space0ddity said:

why don't we have enemies that counter this mobility more？

by 'counter' i'm talking about enemies that：

1。are  as aggressive as the players，literally never stop rushing in and attacking

2。are as mobile as the players，and can catch them，allowing us to get that visceral 'bully breathing down the back of your neck' feeling

3。have extremely high damage，but only as a counter to mindless agression（ie。 an enemy that reacts to immobile players with a rush of melee swipes that forces them to dodge）

4。 are actually bigger than us，allowing them to hit us with their attacks （bigger sword bigger hitbox）

we've tried everything from damage to bullet sponge to dodging like a madman 

5. but why not have enemies that have tactics actually suited to the enemy they fight？surely more effective than hiding behind a corner and spraying a water pistol

1. This game sends enemies in hoards. I think a relentless attack like so would just make it unfun

2. 1 word, manics. 2 words, manic #*!%ing bombards.

3. Nox and the sentients are pretty much this. Tau should be infested with sentients, lorewise anyways. So, soon?

4. It's probably a limitation to the corridor-esque map building this game has. We have things like lephantis, orbs, eidolons, hunhow, but they probably would be very cheeseable in a corridor setting.

 

5. Formation bravo, anyone? Jk, warframe needs an ai overhaul/revisit to do this at this point.

 

But sure, more manics and hyena kinda enemies would always be fun. Just pointing out we do have some like those and why we don't see them as often as grineer foot soldiers and the likes.

Edited February 20, 2019 by (PS4)watt4hem

[Gamma745]

4 minutes ago, (PS4)watt4hem said:

Formation bravo, anyone?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[peterc3]

55 minutes ago, MagPrime said:

Grineer Manic's are pretty close to what you're wanting.

And look what happened 5 minutes after they were introduced.

[MagPrime]

1 minute ago, peterc3 said:

And look what happened 5 minutes after they were introduced.

I put Magnetize on them and 1 shot them.

[RX-3DR]

The question would be, how do you mechanically implement it? The general problem with creating enemies to counter a certain playstyle is that identifying and coming up with ideas is only a quarter of the solution. An example of this is how Nullifiers are designed to counter Ability spamming. Just look at the results of it, functionally, they do a pretty weak job because they're really only a good counter to a specific scenario, completely blind Ability spam, for only two factions. Meanwhile, their reception was treated as if Satan has summoned into a sheep's pen because people found out that sitting in a corner and pressing 4 wasn't in the design manifesto.

Aggression doesn't mean anything if they are dead before the doors even open. They need to be resistant or immune to CC and ability nukes before aggression takes place.

Mobility is hard to properly implement as it is very difficult to route enemies to hop from wall to wall to chase us down. The Manic is essentially the most viable mobile enemy to implement and improving it is either a coding and clipping nightmare as it flies through walls, floors and doors to chase you down, or is literally just running the enemy on a higher playback speed.

High damage is what Ballistas are supposed to be. Problem is once again, having just damage alone doesn't mean anything as the enemy might not be able to use it. Making them deal that damage quickly and accurately would just create a frustrating experience while having a slow telegraphed melee charge will just result in the enemy dying before it gets to do anything or people just running past them with no ability for them to catch up. It's a very specific balance game to play and some enemies do it right but it's mostly the larger, semi-boss status enemies that do because the expectation on what they can do and the damage they can take is a lot higher.

Bigger enemies doesn't really mean anything besides easier to hit and a corridor nightmare. Having a Butcher that is triple the size of a Bombard is still a Butcher. The only difference is that it would either have to clip his head through every ceiling or get completely stopped by a doorway because he's too tall to fit.

The constant "improve enemy AI" idea is always a pointless one at this stage. Improving the AI will never amount to anything in the current state. Enemies need to do more against us in the first place before they can even devise ways to do it. Just put yourself in the shoes of the AI director for spawning and routing enemies, what would you do to take down a squad of 4 players? If it involves literally revolves around massive amounts 3 specific units, the problem is beyond AI.

Ultimately, enemies need to be able to do things before any design elements can come into play rather than just dying or staying stuck in the other room.

[Hypernaut1]

Our enemies are pretty creative enough. Problem is that people really don't want difficult enemy, they rather bullet fight bullet sponges. 

If you actually break down the mechanics of all of the enemies, they could actually become challenging without depending on scaling

[Genesix6]

2 hours ago, MagPrime said:

Grineer Manic's are pretty close to what you're wanting.

But not fast enough

[(PSN)watt4hem]

3 hours ago, MagPrime said:

I put Magnetize on them and 1 shot them.

Don't they have a damage cap so you can't one shot them?

[SgtHotPepper]

Like many say it's a horde game.

 

And the ennemies are not so dumb.

If you observe carefully they react well. Take covers, move to positions, use equipement.

Par exemple they dont stay at a alarm point if you attack but take cover and try to return set alarm later.

But all this is almost invisible to us because the Warframes are sooo much powerful that the opposition.

It's like a hulk/superman vs highly entrained special forces scene.

Blam! Boom! Zaaap ! Oh a flying tank ! It's over ? Already?...

For short the result is the same that sealclubbingsome puppys.

[ChatNinja]

I would love more Manic style enemies maybe even ones that spawn as a group. Just no damage caps into invincibility for a not very tough enemy.

[Shion963]

I remember a time when a single heavy unit spawning required you and your teammates to focus fire on it to take it down.

Now heavies spawn 2-3 at a time, and we take out bombards with one shot.

These hard-counter enemies are useless unless you rebalance the game to have a flatter power growth.

[Genesix6]

3 hours ago, SgtHotPepper said:

Like many say it's a horde game.

 

And the ennemies are not so dumb.

If you observe carefully they react well. Take covers, move to positions, use equipement.

Par exemple they dont stay at a alarm point if you attack but take cover and try to return set alarm later.

But all this is almost invisible to us because the Warframes are sooo much powerful that the opposition.

It's like a hulk/superman vs highly entrained special forces scene.

Blam! Boom! Zaaap ! Oh a flying tank ! It's over ? Already?...

For short the result is the same that sealclubbingsome puppys.

Eh I would I argue about the enemy are not dumb, cause they are dumb most of the time

I encountered enemies covering even though I am in front of them, they don't really react at all. Most of the Enemies in Warframe don't really take the advantage of "I have the high ground" cause even though the enemies can shoot from a safe distance, they will most likely chase you instead

 

[JackHargreav]

Wouldn't matter really. Players would counter that by choosing frames and builds that are immune to all kinds of CC abilities.

All of this would just change the meta. And annoy a lot of ppl probably.

[Cubewano]

That's pretty much what DE has been trying to do with manics, nullifiers, ability invulnerabilities on bosses, those big gas guys, ghouls, scrambus. We've been casually gaining more and more enemies that exist in an attempt to counter our powers, we're just so immensely over powered at the moment, and so few of these counters are consistently present across the full star chart, to make a real impact on play. 

[(PSN)watt4hem]

24 minutes ago, Shion963 said:

I remember a time when a single heavy unit spawning required you and your teammates to focus fire on it to take it down.

Now heavies spawn 2-3 at a time, and we take out bombards with one shot.

These hard-counter enemies are useless unless you rebalance the game to have a flatter power growth.

Leech eximus chargers were nightmare material back then. Wveryone would spam chat and tag it so everyone can help kill it.

[Space0ddity]

9 hours ago, MagPrime said:

Grineer Manic's are pretty close to what you're wanting.

YES except：

damage not high enough

not tanky enough

easy to dodge anyways

and they spend too much time running around randomly，they should lock on and focus on their target

and even then they're not that common to see

 

it's like comparing ds3 dogs to sulyvahns beasts，both are really mobile and have lots of catch but sulyvahns beasts are infinitely more threatening because above reasons

for a class of fighter who's greatest counter is large attacks with heavy hitboxes we dont face down a lot of those

orbs/sentients are a step very far in the right direction but warframe is maybe more fitting with 90% of enemies being around twice the size of a ghoul

 

[xXIcyBladeXx]

They should just add more Miniboss enemies like Nox and more Enemy variety like in Fortuna.

If something needs better AI its Pets.... Moa Pets in particular

Edited February 20, 2019 by xXIcyBladeXx

[Space0ddity]

4 minutes ago, xXIcyBladeXx said:

They should just add more Miniboss enemies like Nox and more Enemy variety like in Fortuna.

If something need better AI its Pets.... Moa Pets in particular

liked and upvoted

we do need more minibosses，and their attacks should take a page from darksouls's hyperaggresive enemy movesets （lothric knight，pus of man，sully's beasts，NG3 dragonslayer armor）