Feedback on Wolf of Saturn Six

[KennBone]

Woh.. how do you guys meet him many times? im still dont see him never.

[(PSN)deathwolfclaw666]

To answer your question.

Wolf, Who is that?

[LSG501]

I've felt the operatives AND the wolf have been on a downward trend, especially the operatives. 

When nightwave started I could pretty much see an operative every other mission at worst, since wolfie gained his 3 operative companions I now hardly see them.  I wouldn't mind the reduced spawning on operatives, likely to balance out the extra standing from fighting the three with wolfie, IF wolfie spawned enough to make up the difference.

Issue is Wolfie has such a stupidly low spawn rate it makes it hard to judge if he's had a frequency buff but in all honesty it doesn't feel like it.

[ace1868]

Well after a 9hr 38min of running missions my day ended with 6 syndicate, 1 stalker, 1 wolf and 8 prisoners encountered. 

[MonsterOfMyOwn]

the wolftard appeared once again while soloing derelict with 4 vault keys. this time he didn't killed me, but he disappeared after my smeeta died.

for those who haven't encountered him, my advice is to solo derelict extermination with 4 keys... (4 times in 2 weeks)

[paul5473]

3 hours ago, GnarlsDarkley said:

I have seen him 9 times in the last 2 weeks. Zero Parts, only Mods

At least you've seen him I haven't seen him since episode 2

[(PSN)General_May-Ham]

I fought the wolf a number of times before he got Aladified.

He was a chonky boi who was kinda fun to spar with.

Then the invincible smol bois were added. That reduced the fun because depending on their level and your choice of frame they can practically one-shot your frame with a barrage of their flame grenade things and can only be crowd controlled, not killed. My suggestion would be that they can be downed but a howl from the wolf can bring them back up and they can only be captured once the Wolf is driven off. Or they can be downed and captured but he can call in more of them.

 

Now the wolf has added crowd control effects and I hated fighting him so much because of it for a number of reasons. First off, if you are aiming at him it makes it difficult to keep your gun trained on him because of the way his moveset now drags your frame around. Melee is more effective against the Wolf, but that leads me to point two which is that he telegraphs his attacks with wind-ups, but rolling to dodge him does nothing. You just get sucked back in anyway. You have to bullet just away from his attacks and then close back into melee range and its awkward. If we are going to have enemies that can CC us with stuns, pulls, knockdowns and knockbacks moving forward the roll and backflip within a certain window should allow us to avoid the effect and stay in melee range.

 

He was always a little difficult to track when he performs his hammer charge move. It helped to put a marker on him, but even that is slightly visually confusing when trying to figure out where he went. Where he goes when he hammer-charges frequently seems to be having slid around level geometry around the corner of a large crate-like object out of line of sight or alternatively into a corner near a staircase where he is clipping into things and hiding with his silhouette and colors blending him into the shadows. Glowy weak points would help to visually identify him and make the fight less of a slog if they either caused him to be stunned temporarily, lowered his damage reduction temporarily, or took a fixed chunk off of his health bar. Could be two birds with one stone.

 

Also now that he has sentient bits shouldn't void blasts be a little more effective against him? It feels like my amp is now doing less to him but that could just be the lack of a kavat stripping his armor since I'm using a sahasa at the moment instead of my smeeta.

I don't need the Wolf to be easy but un-dodgeable attacks while doing melee combat, insta-death grenade barrages, and not hitting him because I'm sliding around in a random direction because he can crowd control me, combined with unreasonably scaled damage reduction seems to be making him tedious instead of hard.

 

I know that there are lots of conversations going on in the DE office about "challenge" right now. Soulsbourne and DMC's ilk are challenging, but reward well-timed dodges and attacking from certain angles. Games like monster hunter have foes telegraphing attacks, and then going into rage modes where the attacks are still telegraphed but the wind up on them is shorter. If we are going to have attacks against us that let enemies juggle us, I strongly recommend including a window to where a well-timed dodge or well-executed parry is going to stop them from juggling us.

 

Currently, enemies that juggle us with CC, apart from things such as stomping shockwaves, don't really feel fair or challenging. I don't mind getting CC'd to death if I feel like I ignored the cues the game gave me and or missed a dodge or got caught during a long animation. When that happens I think "oh, well I can get better and this won't happen" but currently it feels like when I get CC'd to death is more the case that some group of enemies off frame did something I don't really understand and or did something I couldn't have avoided and it just feels bad. The change to the enemies during Profit Taker was a step in the right direction. I feel that could be applied to higher alert levels as well. Make one type of super enemy that can CC you and that unit's back up appear and I would be pretty happy. Heck, I would be happy if all enemy scaling was replaced by super units and their back up showing up instead of having higher levels enemies with armor scaling. I would accept that replacement to armor scaling even if it came with a damage nerf.

 

Another thing to think about is rather than making bosses immune to status procs, status procs could have a different effect on bosses than regular enemies. For example, I would recommend that the stun from a bludgeoning proc or a Warframe ability like Accelerant or Miasma could cancel a boss attack that is in its wind up animation. Procs that usually include crowd control effects could also provide a brief stagger animation from the boss with a cooldown on applying another stagger from the same source. So an Ember and a Saryn working together could each try to time their attacks to order to create more openings against a boss, weaving in electric procs, fire procs, blast procs and bludgeoning procs between their Warframe stun abilities to parry bosses during wind up attacks. However, bosses could have proc-armor preventing these created openings during the follow-through of their attacks and during other animations. That way we would have to figure out when we can parry with procs and when we can't. I feel that would make boss fights a lot more challenging and open up the possibility to bring new frames to boss encounters and break the Chroma meta. I have a fully geared out Chroma for profit taker and eidolon fights but I'd prefer to bring a frame that was more than just big numbers. I think that having CC play a bigger part in fights and big damage numbers play a smaller part is important. Capping damage output per hit and making things immune to Warframe abilities is just creating an automatic-weapon-and-tank-Warframe meta and damage reduction/capping is a bandaid. We really need seem to need a Damage 3.0 that comes paired with armor-and-animation/dodging/parrying 2.0.

 

I know that Damage 3.0 got some strong negative feedback last time but that is by and large because of how scaling armor and EHP of enemies works. The discussion was about making IPS procs more about CC when CC is bad because of the way that armor enemy and enemy abilities work. You can't interrupt an enemy ability with CC. There are no doubt going to be people who threaten to quit if the meta of big numbers is changed to make CC viable as well but change is inevitable. As long as the game becomes more fun, more fair, more challenging in a rewarding way the game is only going to get healthier and bring more people in and keep them playing because that sort of thing is fun. I'm already salivating imagining Warframe but with us knocking enemies skyward and juggling them with aerial melee and gun combos while dynamic music and particle effects get more intense for combo sustaining. That's my schpiel, thanks for listening.

[-Dabi]

15 hours ago, (PS4)BattleCry1791 said:

If that is the case...my bad for being a bad community member.  

 

13 hours ago, (XB1)KiryuStark said:

From what I've seen of this community, even going apenards over some bug is ok because we all do it at some point and people understand how fast you can get frustrated. 

1

Yep. It's natural to get frustrated; mainly at Wolf when he drops parts (not silver mods 😡) and not get it as game bugged out. 

[NezuHimeSama]

Sure seems that way to me.

[Teridax68]

Issues with the Wolf re: skill testing and challenge:

• Typically, when bosses use a move in games intended to provide a challenge, that move is designed to be countered in some form, e.g. by dodging, blocking, interrupting, etc. This isn't really the case for the Wolf, whose uninterruptable moves either have little to no telegraphing, or forcibly suck the player in from a distance even if they move out of the way.
• As mentioned by the OP, the Wolf is completely immune to all crowd control, status effects, and Warframe abilities. While this can be somewhat understandable due to how OP many of our abilities are, this effectively prevents a huge number of weapons and warframes from working properly. The fact that the Wolf is but one of many recent enemies with similar traits (Coolant Raknoids are ability-immune, for some reason, Thumpers have similar immunities plus localized damage immunity, Exploiter obviously has the same immunities and her own invulnerability, etc.) suggests that whichever mode of "difficulty" DE is trying to apply in recent times is fundamentally misaligned with the game's other core combat systems, due to forcibly avoiding any interaction with them.
• The damage-immune minions add little to the fight, precisely because they are damage-immune: they can't be dealt with while the Wolf is up, so they mostly just add damage to the mix, without providing much room for interaction or tactical alternatives (e.g. killing the adds before the boss).

So the end result is we have a boss enemy who a) negates any effort to skillfully react to his moves, b) negates practically all of the game's range of strategic combat options, save for raw damage, and c) introduces some amount of additional complexity via additional enemies, without those enemies adding any depth to combat. Adding to this the Wolf's ridiculously high health pool, and the end result is a tedious, annoying fight that doesn't feel capable of testing the player's skill in any manner, only their patience and whichever loadout they had at the time along some incredibly narrow metrics (e.g. how tanky the frame is, and how powerful the player's weapons are).

With this in mind, I agree very much with the OP that many of these problems aren't just with the Wolf, but are systemic: challenging enemies can't be made to interact with status effects or our abilities, for example, because it's supremely easy to stunlock any enemy right now. Challenging enemies also typically need to have some damage reducing effects, e.g. damage caps, plus immunity to ability damage and armor/shield-reducing mods, because our damage is so out of control that, without those modifiers, we'd just obliterate most enemies near-instantly, and those who'd survive longer would likely be impossible for newer players to deal with anyway (though that's already the case with the Wolf). Thus, we desperately need an overhaul to some of our combat systems so that the game doesn't have to constantly try to balance around players capable of perma-invincibility/invisibility/stuns, with some of these players dealing literal hundreds to thousands more damage than others, because the end result is that the game can't be balanced, and ends up not trying.

In the meantime, stuff I think could help with making the Wolf feel more interesting to fight:

• Remove the vortex effect to the Wolf's moves. Simply having the Wolf roar then charge forward would be good enough, even if the charge itself dealt more damage.
• As mentioned by the OP, have our CC at least stagger the Wolf briefly, perhaps with a cooldown, and also interrupt some of his moves. While it's understandable that we shouldn't be able to stunlock boss enemies, it would at least be a cool tactical touch if we could use our crowd control to interrupt some of his crucial abilities (and that could justify them dealing more damage).
• Allow us to kill/capture Fugitives mid-fight. Perhaps the Wolf could spawn more periodically, or get enraged as we killed his brothers to gain some kind of speed/damage buff, but at the very least, being able to kill his adds would make the fight feel much less frustrating.

Edited April 14, 2019 by Teridax68

[ErikTheOrange]

Agreed, the fact that his minions are invincible while he's alive is just BS. He's hard enough to kill without getting spammed by molotovs the entire time.

Also not seeing any evidence that DE reduced his tankiness, I remember killing him in hydron early on in nightwave without too much trouble, now it's borderline impossible. Wtf is going on here.

[NotDaijoubu]

All good points brought up in this post. In my short interpretation, Wolf does not reward skill, just very specific builds and cheesing.

I think the concept of weakpoints is a good one - aiming for specific points of his body boosts damage enough to make it a 5min fight whereas missing will result in high damage reduction (not nullification please). 

Taking the recent example of thumpers, I think it's a good direction for future "bosses." 4 weakpoints that need to be targeted, reasonable damage reduction, reasonable hp, doesn't punish "improper" builds too heavily. They take anywhere between 3-10min, and I have never ran into ammo issues even when solo. I just wish you can damage it's body as well at the cost of damage. Would make missing the small panels less frustrating.

 

[(XBOX)CFE KOS MOS]

Lmao you'd quit over that, seriously?

[Soldier1312]

37 minutes ago, (XB1)CFE KOS MOS said:

Lmao you'd quit over that, seriously?

Hunting Wolf can get you burnt down really quick. If he spawns with high level and after some time of mercilessly stuffing him with bullets he often leaves just some uncommon mod. Then finally you get the part and suddenly game's broken, so rewards you've hunted so hard for are gone and you are most likely back to dropping next 50 uncommon mods before you get the part again. It can feel like kick to the crotch.

[Voltage]

2 hours ago, Soldier1312 said:

It can feel like kick to the crotch.

*Molten Impact to the crotch.

[(XBOX)CFE KOS MOS]

2 hours ago, Soldier1312 said:

Hunting Wolf can get you burnt down really quick. If he spawns with high level and after some time of mercilessly stuffing him with bullets he often leaves just some uncommon mod. Then finally you get the part and suddenly game's broken, so rewards you've hunted so hard for are gone and you are most likely back to dropping next 50 uncommon mods before you get the part again. It can feel like kick to the crotch.

Good thing warframe support exists, like Reb said. Getting mad and upset, sure. But flat out quitting the game, that's a dumb reason. 

[(PSN)Tomplexthis]

On 2019-04-13 at 9:03 PM, (PS4)BattleCry1791 said:

Finally get a wolf sledge BP and Helmet and then...

ABSOLUTE GARBAGE.  I've been running missions I don't need to run just to try to draw him out so I can get the BP.  I do so and then your game breaks on me.  Fantastic.  Thanks a lot.  'Bout to go find a different game to be my daily.

Great, new index nightwave elite challenge, win 3 wagers without the enemy scoring

it goes like this. 1 it will crash at this part

or 2

the enemy scores, and hosts leaves, kicking you out of the mission

but mostly it just gets bugged and this is all you get. -_-

 

-i was laughing though-

Edited April 15, 2019 by (PS4)Tomplexthis

[Darksouls40k]

Title pretty much self explanatory, given the number of runs we need to get all parts statistically speaking we would never never have the weapon unless we got very lucky by the end of the event like it is right now. (wolf appeared to me 7-8 times total so far)

So when will DE lift the time gate ? Will it be on episode 5 ? Is episode 5=corpus Gas remaster Or it will be after episode 5 ?

I love time gated content :) !!!

[chaotea]

I got the exact same screen after getting the wolf oporator mask. Fortunaly the host left, and then the mission finished and saved my progress. When I relaunched WF I still had it.

[sleepychewbacca]

12 minutes ago, Darksouls40k said:

Title pretty much self explanatory, given the number of runs we need to get all parts statistically speaking we would never never have the weapon unless we got very lucky by the end of the event like it is right now. (wolf appeared to me 7-8 times total so far)

So when will DE lift the time gate ? Will it be on episode 5 ? Is episode 5=corpus Gas remaster Or it will be after episode 5 ?

I love time gated content :) !!!

Don't know. Supposedly it has already increased. 

I was one of the incredibly lucky ones, but to be honest, given how mediocre the weapon is (imo), you're better of getting prime junk / mods and selling it for plat to buy the Wolf Sledge. 

Unless RNG favours you it'll be faster and much more satisfying. Definitely less rage inducing and what I should have done. 

[Kontrollo]

I actually sold the parts I got early on, and I'd do it again. If he doesn't become farmable at some point I'm not interested in that weapon, anyway.

 

But yes, I hope I hope there will be some kind of showdown. If not in episode 5, then maybe when the season concludes?

[(PSN)BattleCry1791]

10 hours ago, (XB1)CFE KOS MOS said:

Lmao you'd quit over that, seriously?

I have over 3600 hours on Warframe.  I always have a PVE co-op game I play as my "main game".  If Daybreak hadn't destroyed DCUO, I'd still be playing that.  The reason I quit playing it is because it started to make me angry.  Games shouldn't make a person angry.  Challenging, frustrating, sure.  Bad players, sure.  But not the game itself.  There isn't a game/dev team out there that is capable of replacing warframe from an enjoyment standpoint for me at this time though I've been thinking about going back to Payday 2 for a bit.  

I've been at warframe for a while far longer than most console players; they tend to move on from game to game.  So it won't take much for me to move on.  It's just the natural order of things.

One of the reasons I stay is because the game generally works (host migrations not withstanding) and it doesn't prevent me from doing what I've set to accomplish.  On that day...it didn't or it looked like it didn't.  

[SirTobe]

He certainly pops up more now than before, but the RNG is still way too low for people to have a chance of getting those blueprints. I killed him about 8 times now and only got the handle, so this much change before it all ends. 

Either sell Wolf Beacons or have him spawn like the Acolytes, if not a specific boss node (unlikely).

[sleepychewbacca]

4 minutes ago, SirTobe said:

He certainly pops up more now than before, but the RNG is still way too low for people to have a chance of getting those blueprints. I killed him about 8 times now and only got the handle, so this much change before it all ends. 

Either sell Wolf Beacons or have him spawn like the Acolytes, if not a specific boss node (unlikely).

Maybe this is what they plan with Salad V and the gas city rework?

Amalgam Wolf is farmable for his jank. 

[SirTobe]

8 minutes ago, sleepychewbacca said:

Maybe this is what they plan with Salad V and the gas city rework?

Amalgam Wolf is farmable for his jank. 

Would be quite bold by DE to set such a deadline for the Gas City update, and assume that the release is working well enough for NW season endgame.

But on the other hand maybe that's why they haven't set a very specific date to when the season ends yet, just a 10-11 week estimation mentioned on a stream (afaik). Would be cool if that is the case, which means the Gas City update will have to be released this or next week.