Ideas for Difficulty that aren't just "increase enemy health/armor/shields" or "Fix Scaling pl0x"

[Talonflight]

We all know that scaling in Warframe is horrendus when it comes to late-game enemies. Some people love it, other people hate it. That said, I'm NOT proposing things to do with that, because frankly, its above my pay grade and I'm just a dude on the internet.

Here are some NOT-health/armor/shield changes related ideas for each factions enemies to become more difficult, fun, and engaging to fight


ALL FACTIONS

 - Alert Level - One of the best things about Orb Vallis was the addition of Alert Level, where if you allowed the alerts to pile up you could end up with hordes of difficult foes;  but if you weren't ready for it, you could seek out the radio signal drones and take them out before the level raised. Adding a similar function to this to normal tilesets would go a long way. Tying it to the Control Panels that they use to turn on the alarms could work; each panel hacked  raises the alert level, which steadily unleashes higher-level and harder enemy types. In order to counter, players can hack the control panels themselves to lower alert stage by one, until all the alarms are off again. In Infested Tilesets, instead of control panels, players have to seek and destroy active infested Cerebellum, which could simply use the model already in game for the Hive Destruction missions.

 - Squad Deployment - "A grineer patrol has been detected in your area." Instead of randomly spawning enemies willy nilly with seemingly no regard for the enemy typing, coming up with a few "preset" patrol groups could be much more engaging. Tying the makeup of these "patrol groups" that spawn to the alert level of the map also helps; No Alert means that you just have low level Corpus Crewmen and Grineer Lancers wandering on their normal patrol routes; low alerts see the deployment of combat Moa's and heavier Grineer gunmen to help in defense, higher alerts deploy sniper teams and shield-walls and Nullifiers; And so on and so on until we have some of the crazier Bursa's and Manics and the Vallis Corpus  Enemies and Ghouls, etc.
 

- Miniboss's - Changing Eximus units into rare but powerful miniboss type enemies that only spawn at higher alert levels. Each faction already contains enemies that can act as a miniboss; Juggernauts, Manics, Bursas. Adding a few on to these (Heavy Ghouls from PoE that can be released in Tilesets, Orb Vallis axe-wielders with jetpacks, Infested Brood Mothers/New enemies?) with Eximus buffs could go a long way. As another feature, make these enemies the ONLY ones that can initiate a lockdown, both to cut down on random enemies doing lockdowns and as a way to make players actually have to deal with these miniboss's.
 

- Target Acquisition - Currently, if you alert 1 enemy, everyone is alerted, except for enemies in a different chunk of tilesets. Changing the target acquisition so that enemies only target and alert if they actually SEE you could go a long way. Enemies should not be detecting you through walls/cover and should take a moment to realize "Oh S#&$ this is actually a Tenno." This also brings back the idea of Stealth. Once alerts start going off, obviously, all bets are off. 


GRINEER

- Pathfinding - Change the pathfinding of various tilesets. Several Grineer tilesets have people with machine guns sprinting towards you to shoot instead of actually taking cover.

- Formations - Having the Grineer soldiers actually take Tactical movements rather than sprinting mindlessly could go a long way towards alleviating boredom. Lancers should be taking cover, Shieldbearers should be forming Shield Walls when they get in the same area as each other, Heavy Gunners should be hiding behind said Shield Walls and providing covering fire. Butchers and Flameblades should be waiting until you get knocked down before charging in blindly, and Snipers.... well. Snipers just plain need to deal more damage and need to keep their distance. Like. A huge distance. Actually snipe.

- Gustrag 3 Update - When the Gustrag Three were released, they were advertised as an actual threat. Now.... not so much. They've fallen behind with the times. Should fix that. Inceased mobility with grappling hook movement and jetpacks, as well as the aforementioned formations.

 

CORPUS

- Zanuka Update - Similar to the Gustrag Three, the Zanuka has also lagged behind. Hard to believe it was based on Warframes and their tech. An update to this allowing it some bullet jumping and some minor Warframe abilities ripped from Valkyr such as Ripline, give it some claws for her Ulti, and give it more ranged options to keep up with us. If we really wanted to get technical, could always give it abilities similar to Vauban, with laser tripwires to lock down hallways, tesla mines to launch, bounce pads to throw off our parkour, and a Vortex to pull us back should we get too far.

- Troop Insertions - The Corpus don't fight for themselves, they use robots to fight for them. Robot Deployment lockers are already in-place in the game. Using them as continual spawn points that churn out robot after robot is a good way to make things hectic fast, until the players destroy the robots. Using Corpus airships to drop more troops in outdoor tilesets works too.

- Sentient Gear - The Valkyr trailer showed corpus  using sentient gear to lock down a warframe. Utilizing larger, heavier artillery-style pieces such as this that charge up over time and then if they're left alone for long enough deal massive damage, could be useful.

INFESTED

- Wall Swarming - A long-requested feature I've seen on reddit and these forums many times over the years I've been playing is "Give the Infested the ability to climb walls/ceilings. I second this. Nothing would be more terrifying to me than to see a faceless mass swarming towards me, on the ground, walls, and roof, practically consuming the hallway in front of me.

- Visual Update - The Infested are long overdue for a visual update. They look like a plastic, multicolored mess. Nuff Said.

- More Fodder, less Bosses? - One of the strengths of the infested is the hivemind ability to simply throw raw material at the enemy. Leaning slightly into the "Squad deployment" feature, increasing the amount of Runners and Chargers while slightly lessening the amount of special infested would go a long way in the horror feel. I have very distinct memories of years and years ago when the tilesets were entirely random and lasted forever, of springing away from a nameless horde of Chargers  that seemingly had no end, because I knew if they caught me that I'd be swarmed to death. Lets bring that feeling of the Horde back!

- Combat Infestation - giving the infestation the ability to raise dead corpses that we create (or they create) in the tileset as chargers/runners would make them a legit threat, especially in crossfire and invasion missions.

- Infested Hunter - The infested need an Assassin. Warframe already contains lore about an Infested-worshipping cult of humans known as The Black Seed. The assassin itself could be literally anything for all that I care, but a quick concept I threw together in about five minutes could be a sniper character who uses Pherliac Pods to summon infested to fight us in non-infested missions, with the legs of a Mutalist Moa grafted to him to let him leap around the map, and poison cloud gas canisters to keep us from bull-rushing him.

[Arcira]

A good collection of ideas however most of them don´t  work in warframes current state and as redundant as is sounds fix scaling is actually the real solution.

Simple Example for eximus units. Stat wise they are already something like a miniboss. At least compared to the regular enemies. Some of them even have unique mechnics. But before our insane weapon damage scaling they become something like a slightly more durable enemy. Sometimes you don´t even notice that you just killed an eximus.

How would you makes them more dangerous? I can think of two ways to increase there strength without affecting other gameplay mechanics:

1.) Add unique mechanics for those encounters that ignores scaling in general. Nox, Eidolon, Juggernauts or Exploiter orb do that to some degree. They arn´t really that strong rather than introducing some sort of time gating mechanic or often simply ignore something that work on regular units (cc, imunities, damage reduction). This isn´t necessarily a bad thing for pure action games but it defeats the whole purpose of rpg/scaling elements.

2.) Raise there stats further. Just a temporary solution if power creep ramains consistent.

Of cause Eximus could be better but In my opinion they arn´t the main problem atm. In my opinion the huge gap of possible dps needs to be adjusted. You can take amalgan Wolf for an extrem example. He is almost impossible to defeat in a reasonable amount of time with certain (maximized) loadouts but there are settings that allow you to kill him in seconds.

Similar thing for the other suggestions like pathfinding improvements, formations or wall swarming. Those sound awesome and I´d love to see this in warframe at some point but as long as you can kill entire tilesets in seconds all this effort becomes meaningless with the press of a button.

Long story short the damage system needs a complete overhaul first. And by damage system I mean everything including weapons abilities, status, enemy scaling, etc.

Edited April 23, 2019 by Arcira

[Talonflight]

42 minutes ago, Arcira said:

-snip-

 

4 hours ago, Talonflight said:

We all know that scaling in Warframe is horrendus when it comes to late-game enemies. Some people love it, other people hate it. That said, I'm NOT proposing things to do with that, because frankly, its above my pay grade and I'm just a dude on the internet.

Here are some NOT-health/armor/shield changes related ideas for each factions enemies to become more difficult, fun, and engaging to fight.

 

[Femuru]

good ideas most of em are basically ai improvements but a problem that will still occur is that ppl are still just going to nuke/lock the entire map and im still thinking we need more enemies that can block/negate/counter different abilities types to work around for of actual combat focus that require aiming, agility, and thinking rather than cheesing. usually ppl are gonna complain about them so this would need some system that divides the hardened and casual players cuz i mean ppl somehow complained about nullies.

[AshenHaze]

It's more of the damage system that needs to be squished.Where people are doing 10k damage, they should honestly be doing 1k. Enemy health scaling becomes much, much easier when the damage cap is more 'fair'. Once damage gets fixed you can actually add mechanics and make enemy bosses "bosses" instead of just "bullet sponges". I hate to use it as an example, but world of warcraft hit the same issue in a few of their expansions where players were doing so much damage that having them scale after that would mean they'd be doing billions of damage now.

 

I'd rather do 100 damage but have it mean something and allow for mechanics in enemies than 10000 damage and leave nothing but bulletsponge/invul exploit bosses.

[Talonflight]

1 hour ago, AshenHaze said:

It's more of the damage system that needs to be squished.Where people are doing 10k damage, they should honestly be doing 1k. Enemy health scaling becomes much, much easier when the damage cap is more 'fair'. Once damage gets fixed you can actually add mechanics and make enemy bosses "bosses" instead of just "bullet sponges". I hate to use it as an example, but world of warcraft hit the same issue in a few of their expansions where players were doing so much damage that having them scale after that would mean they'd be doing billions of damage now.

 

I'd rather do 100 damage but have it mean something and allow for mechanics in enemies than 10000 damage and leave nothing but bulletsponge/invul exploit bosses.

While quite frankly I honestly agree with you and you tottally make a great point...

10 hours ago, Talonflight said:

We all know that scaling in Warframe is horrendus when it comes to late-game enemies. Some people love it, other people hate it. That said, I'm NOT proposing things to do with that, because frankly, its above my pay grade and I'm just a dude on the internet.

As much as I'd like to post that, every time it does get posted we get people who scream to high heaven about both sides of it. So, I'm avoiding that topic.

[Teridax68]

So small aside, I do think one of the reasons why the question of scaling, whether on enemies or players, comes up so often is because it is very difficult in the current state of the game to suggest any more interesting form of difficulty without it getting trivialized in some way: want a cool new enemy type with special moves? Better make them immune to basically everything, because otherwise here are ten different warframes who'll wipe the floor with them in a literal fraction of a second. Want to give an enemy this really punishing attack that will deal a lot of damage to the player if they don't react to it? Well it's either going to do nothing to tank frames, or one-shot the rest (and sometimes both). And by the way, if this enemy type isn't marked as a special miniboss, prepare to have it swarm in missions to such a degree that players will get chunked without having the opportunity to even realize where that damage came from. Many of Warframe's systems just aren't very conducive to nuance, challenge, or general balance, and until those get fixed, any changes to enemies will certainly have a chance of making them feel a bit more diverse, but would be unlikely to make them challenging without some really annoying mechanics like damage capping, ability immunity, and so on.

Assuming an ideal world where players and all of their tools are Healthy and Balanced^TM, however:

On 2019-04-23 at 9:12 PM, Talonflight said:

 - Alert Level - 

This is arguably enemy scaling under a different name, but I can agree that letting players choose how much heat they want to take, and having alert levels potentially unleash new and more powerful units, would certainly be a flexible way to let players find the difficulty level that suits them. My one addition would be for there to be a faster way of increasing alert levels than waiting for enemies to raise it themselves, which could have as simple a fix as intentionally failing alert panel hacks to raise the alert level each time.

On 2019-04-23 at 9:12 PM, Talonflight said:

 - Squad Deployment - 

I agree with the criticism; the Lotus alerting the player of incoming enemies gives zero valuable information when levels are randomly peppered with enemies each doing their own thing. I think this applies to the Grineer more than anyone else, but this game is in dire need of enemy squads and squad tactics (though enemies need to die a little less quickly for that sort of AI work to shine).

On 2019-04-23 at 9:12 PM, Talonflight said:

- Miniboss's - Changing Eximus units into rare but powerful miniboss type enemies that only spawn at higher alert levels. 

Agreed 100%. I think Eximus enemies were a great and long-lived feature to add at a game that was once severely lacking in enemy unit diversity, and needed to spice things up quickly, but we're at a point where we can give miniboss-type enemies distinct identities and ability sets, rather than one out of a small pool of generic effects.

On 2019-04-23 at 9:12 PM, Talonflight said:

- Target Acquisition - Currently, if you alert 1 enemy, everyone is alerted, except for enemies in a different chunk of tilesets. Changing the target acquisition so that enemies only target and alert if they actually SEE you could go a long way. Enemies should not be detecting you through walls/cover and should take a moment to realize "Oh S#&$ this is actually a Tenno." This also brings back the idea of Stealth. Once alerts start going off, obviously, all bets are off. 

Agreed with this as well, and I think that stealth really deserves to come back to the forefront as one of the ways of playing Warframe, but that's going to need systemic improvements before we get there. I think it could make sense for the Corrupted, Infested or Sentient to have a hive mind, but I think Grineer and Corpus units at the very least should only be able to communicate information via sound, i.e. by shouting out a warning or a command. Not only would this add a level of depth by having players shoot enemies who spotted them before they can warn the others, it could also synergize with certain sound-modifying effects like Banshee's Silence, as well as open up more opportunities for gameplay in the future (if we're implementing squad-based gameplay, for example, disabling or killing the squad leader could prevent them from issuing out commands, leaving their units disorganized or even scared).

On 2019-04-23 at 9:12 PM, Talonflight said:

GRINEER

- Pathfinding - Change the pathfinding of various tilesets. Several Grineer tilesets have people with machine guns sprinting towards you to shoot instead of actually taking cover.

Agreed, and I think most AI in Warframe needs some retooling. In this particular case, it makes sense for shock troops like Butchers, Troopers, and Nox units to rush the player, but absolutely none for ranged units like Lancers or especially Ballistas. In fact, making some enemies run away to better ground when approached by the player could add a tad more depth to combat situations that currently boil down to waves of enemies running blindly into a meat grinder.

On 2019-04-23 at 9:12 PM, Talonflight said:

- Formations -

Agreed fully with all of this. In fact, I think the Grineer should be the squad-based faction more than any other, as they are highly militaristic and obedient by nature. As mentioned above, having Grineer squads led by a squad leader, who'd coordinate in ways described in the OP, would add much more depth to fights than the current situation of each enemy mostly just doing their own thing.

On 2019-04-23 at 9:12 PM, Talonflight said:

- Gustrag 3 Update - When the Gustrag Three were released, they were advertised as an actual threat. Now.... not so much. They've fallen behind with the times. Should fix that. Inceased mobility with grappling hook movement and jetpacks, as well as the aforementioned formations.

I think the main problem here is that the G3 are affected by abilities, which means they can get killed without a chance of interacting with the player, but assuming abilities become balanced, more mobility and a more diverse toolset could certainly make them a more formidable threat.

On 2019-04-23 at 9:12 PM, Talonflight said:

CORPUS

- Zanuka Update -

Agreed to giving it access to Warframe abilities. As with G3, I think one of the Zanuka Hunter's main problems right now is its vulnerability to abilities, but assuming abilities get fixed (whenever that happens), it would make much more sense if Zanuka moved a lot more and acted more like the franken-warframe it's supposed to be.

On 2019-04-23 at 9:12 PM, Talonflight said:

- Troop Insertions - The Corpus don't fight for themselves, they use robots to fight for them. Robot Deployment lockers are already in-place in the game. Using them as continual spawn points that churn out robot after robot is a good way to make things hectic fast, until the players destroy the robots. Using Corpus airships to drop more troops in outdoor tilesets works too.

This is definitely one way to generate a constant stream of Corpus enemies. Personally, I'd like to reduce the overall density of Corpus units per map and instead focus on making them as individually strong and complex but they need, but even then that may not necessarily exclude the ability for the Corpus to summon forth an endless army of proxies (and the main Corpus units should be proxies, not people, to the extent where human Corpus units should be fairly rare imo).

On 2019-04-23 at 9:12 PM, Talonflight said:

- Sentient Gear - The Valkyr trailer showed corpus  using sentient gear to lock down a warframe. Utilizing larger, heavier artillery-style pieces such as this that charge up over time and then if they're left alone for long enough deal massive damage, could be useful.

Agreed, and I think that would kinda fit what I mentioned above about Corpus units being individually stronger and more complex. The way I see it, in terms of lore the Corpus are supposed to be the tech freaks who use robots and wacky gadgets to fight, and in practice this should translates to Corpus units each presenting some sort of puzzle for the player to figure out, i.e. by outplaying their powerful technology.

On 2019-04-23 at 9:12 PM, Talonflight said:

INFESTED

- Wall Swarming - 

Fully agreed: I think the Infested as a faction actually are probably in the biggest need of a rework right now, after all the love the Grineer, Corpus and even Sentient received, because currently the Infested look boring, don't play too interestingly, and generally fail to convey the threat and creepiness of a flesh-bending, all-consuming horde (plus the whole themes of assimilation and alien sentience have kind of been hijacked by the Sentient, so the Infested also need a lore touch-up to make sure they're distinct, and a legitimate threat). With particular regards to wall swarming, I find it particularly ridiculous that instead of climbing up to reach the player, ground-based Infested currently only just spit out some crappy toxin projectile that looks and feels out of place.

On 2019-04-23 at 9:12 PM, Talonflight said:

- Visual Update - The Infested are long overdue for a visual update. They look like a plastic, multicolored mess. Nuff Said.

Agreed. Some units look better than others (I think the Boiler and Broodmother are a bit more interesting), but overall the faction was designed largely when Warframe was far less pretty, and I imagine there's so much more that could be done now to bring all of the boils and pus and gore to life, much like the recent Resident Evil 2 remake did compared to its previous iterations.

On 2019-04-23 at 9:12 PM, Talonflight said:

- More Fodder, less Bosses? -

Agreed completely; unlike other factions, I think the Infested should be purely made up of super-simple, cannon fodder enemies whose strength comes from swarming the player and overwhelming those too slow to react to them, rather than a more complex array of units and elites with a whole lot of special abilities to watch out for.

On 2019-04-23 at 9:12 PM, Talonflight said:

- Combat Infestation - giving the infestation the ability to raise dead corpses that we create (or they create) in the tileset as chargers/runners would make them a legit threat, especially in crossfire and invasion missions.

Agreed, particularly since there's already this mechanic in Defection. For all that's told and implied about the Infested twisting flesh and even machinery into monstrous forms, we don't get to see it in action, so it'd be cool if the mangled corpses of allies or non-Infested enemies could animate to transform into live Infested units.

On 2019-04-23 at 9:12 PM, Talonflight said:

- Infested Hunter - The infested need an Assassin. Warframe already contains lore about an Infested-worshipping cult of humans known as The Black Seed. The assassin itself could be literally anything for all that I care, but a quick concept I threw together in about five minutes could be a sniper character who uses Pherliac Pods to summon infested to fight us in non-infested missions, with the legs of a Mutalist Moa grafted to him to let him leap around the map, and poison cloud gas canisters to keep us from bull-rushing him.

 This sounds like an excellent concept. There's also a lot of different ways to go about it, I think, as you could go with an elite fighter type, or something much more alien, like the Xenomorph as implemented in Alien: Isolation, who'd be this terrifying unit that'd hunt down the player, and possibly greatly encourage them to hide before it goes somewhere else due to its sheer killing power.

TL;DR: The OP's proposals I think are sound, and while many of them don't really bring up difficulty scaling so much as suggest improvements to the game's three main factions, that still contributes positively, particularly as a diverse set of factions and enemies I think is essential to building challenge from them. I was looking for a thread like this, as while I agree that the game's scaling currently needs a fix, it's refreshing to have a different take that suggests valuable gameplay that most of us currently seem to be overlooking.

[Aldain]

Sorry but the system is so out of whack that there is only one thing I can say.

Fix Scaling Pl0x, then figure out where to go from there.

[SECURATYYY]

We need more enemies. Harder ones spawn the longer you go. This is already in place, but we need something more than Bombards and Nox.  More variety, and something challenging. Ghouls are cool, but we only see them on PoE. Give us a tough enemy that will take some teamwork to take down, or is enough of a threat to push us back. (Not as tough as the wolf though cause he is a beefy boi who eats his wheaties.)

I like the Nox because it has the condition of 'shoot the weak spot', and is a threat. Maybe a heavy juggernaut(not infested) type that you have to cripple. Shoot the legs, break the armor like the Nox helmet, etc.

Fortuna brought some new enemies as well, and that was a nice breath of fresh air. All the mission where we are inside a corpus ship, you're telling me they don't have bigger threats aboard? I figured these rich bucketheads would be pulling out the big guns. Where are the deathbots and BFG's?

Right now the variety is pretty stale. This game is what, 6 years old now? There are way too few types of enemies.

 

Quote

 - Squad Deployment - "A grineer patrol has been detected in your area." Instead of randomly spawning enemies willy nilly with seemingly no regard for the enemy typing, coming up with a few "preset" patrol groups could be much more engaging. Tying the makeup of these "patrol groups" that spawn to the alert level of the map also helps; No Alert means that you just have low level Corpus Crewmen and Grineer Lancers wandering on their normal patrol routes; low alerts see the deployment of combat Moa's and heavier Grineer gunmen to help in defense, higher alerts deploy sniper teams and shield-walls and Nullifiers; And so on and so on until we have some of the crazier Bursa's and Manics and the Vallis Corpus  Enemies and Ghouls, etc.

This is something I've wanted for a long time. Whenever the Lotus pipes up with something similar, spawn some kind of 'hit squad'. 3 nox, 2 bombards, 4 shield dudes, and like 10 lancers. Give us a good "oh sh!t" moment. Make it happen every so often.

I'm not sure if the tiles could handle the corpus Jackals, but perhaps something similar to above. Corpus hit squads.

Same goes for the infested. Speaking of which, they REALLY need some new units. Crawler, charger, flying thing, moa things, ancient, juggernaut... That's about it. We have Lemphantis but he is more of a boss, and isn't going to fly in the tile sets. Infested Nox, bombards, bursas? What about something that jumps at you and clings on? It would slow you down and make you vulnerable. Perhaps the maggots?

Quote

Agreed, particularly since there's already this mechanic in Defection. For all that's told and implied about the Infested twisting flesh and even machinery into monstrous forms, we don't get to see it in action, so it'd be cool if the mangled corpses of allies or non-Infested enemies could animate to transform into live Infested units.

Great idea! Perhaps a new enemy that doesn't directly attack the play, but instead scavenges dead infested/anything and makes new troops. You would have to manage the horde and take these out before they pop out new threats.

Also pseudo-related, make solo survivals have more enemies. Perhaps make it optional like 'hack this computer to raise the alert level' or something similar. That way it wouldn't hurt new players and would provide a better experience for others. (Really need a survival rework imo)

Edited April 24, 2019 by SECURATYYY

[Talonflight]

Its encouraging to see others actually reading the post and points and responding to them!
THank you all for the ideas/feedback!

[Talonflight]

On 2019-04-24 at 6:48 PM, Aldain said:

Sorry but the system is so out of whack that there is only one thing I can say.

Fix Scaling Pl0x, then figure out where to go from there.

 

On 2019-04-23 at 4:12 PM, Talonflight said:

We all know that scaling in Warframe is horrendus when it comes to late-game enemies. Some people love it, other people hate it. That said, I'm NOT proposing things to do with that, because frankly, its above my pay grade and I'm just a dude on the internet.

Here are some NOT-health/armor/shield changes related ideas for each factions enemies to become more difficult, fun, and engaging to fight

 

[Aldain]

41 minutes ago, Talonflight said:

We all know that scaling in Warframe is horrendus when it comes to late-game enemies. Some people love it, other people hate it. That said, I'm NOT proposing things to do with that, because frankly, its above my pay grade and I'm just a dude on the internet.

I'm aware, I just figured if I said it, nobody else would.

Difficulty discussion is above my pay grade too T_T.

[Talonflight]

2 hours ago, Aldain said:

I'm aware, I just figured if I said it, nobody else would.

Difficulty discussion is above my pay grade too T_T.

I love you, brave soul.

But you are the fourth person so far to say it xD 
Not that I don't appreciate it. I fully agree with you, in fact. I just figure that that particular horse has been beaten to death in these forums more times than I can count, so I want to avoid that particular topic and instead focus on other options, if you will.

[InfestDylan]

I absolutely agree, with the current powerset the players have and with the way that endgame damage mods work; no amount of scaling changes or buff/nerfs will actually help.

I've outlined a lot of this on a post I made with a list of suggestions for changes to be used as a base for a hypothetical model.

At the end I have a list of some changes that I feel would improve overall game health and balance of the player's power with endgame content in mind that also encourages more variety in the use of damage types.

Edited April 26, 2019 by InfestDylan

[Talonflight]

Bummp,

[ikkabotz]

Good on OP for making suggestions with some backing; however, I would be lying if I haven't seen something along the same lines requested over and over with absolutely no results from DE. Despite it being a pretty strong "User Story" from the community as product owners, I've seen nothing to materialize in development and it's super frustrating which solely lies on the developer acknowledging absolutely nothing. We can keep making the requests, until development makes it priority massive improvements to AI will be a theory driven by the player base over and over.

I don't know if there's too much risk involved in losing the existing players by changing the game, or if they don't see enough benefit to improving the otherwise stagnant combat— there's really no response from the dev on the topic so it's anybody's guess. It would be a dream come true to see suggestions like yours manifest and would be exactly what pulls me back into the game.  

If I sound like a bitter critter, I am a bit. It's frustrating to see a pretty dominant topic with continued requests spanning years within forums take no priority in conversation to the players from development. I think what gets under the skin the most is when very dominant topics driving requests for change get zero acknowledgement from Dev while they stroke the flames of honoring the community involvement. We don't get a reason why it's bypassed, or what was considered. What I'm emphasizing is a discussion doesn't even launch to work out from in maybe aligning what product owners want with strategic goals pushed internally.  

They have an obvious successful model, but it starts to get old when the most heavily requests for change are in demand and we get something developed and implemented that had absolutely no drive by the community whatsoever. Those aren't bad too sometimes, but I think people can see where I'm coming from. I just know there's been too many topics discussed in full weight of needed conversation or consideration that just get bypassed in the next Devstream and topics are sort of just pushed to the devs with a canned statement approach. That worked for a long time for me, but it's time to see a little more commitment to what's really being batted around the community radar. I checked out a long time ago though. 

Edited April 27, 2019 by ikkabotz

[Talonflight]

5 hours ago, ikkabotz said:

Good on OP for making suggestions with some backing; however, I would be lying if I haven't seen something along the same lines requested over and over with absolutely no results from DE. Despite it being a pretty strong "User Story" from the community as product owners, I've seen nothing to materialize in development and it's super frustrating which solely lies on the developer acknowledging absolutely nothing. We can keep making the requests, until development makes it priority massive improvements to AI will be a theory driven by the player base over and over.

On one level.... I probably agree with you. I've been playing this game for YEARS. Coulda been a Founder if I'd had the money at the time. Its been fun seeing the game evolve, but the enemies themselves.... haven't.

Still, its people like me who sit here and keep hoping. Here's hoping that someday DE will read this thread and maybe drop a reply, or even leave a "seen" tag on it or something.  I'm here in the forums complaining endlessly and throwing out new ideas because ultimately I care about the game and want it to succeed.

Any thoughts on the individual topics themselves?

[Steel_Rook]

The problem with AI complexity as suggested in the OP is... It honestly doesn't matter. Even if deliberately ignore the game's point of balance where most enemies don't live long enough to have any sort of behaviour worth noting, complex AI isn't necessarily good AI. I've seen this story told many times over across many games. Shields should form lines, soldiers should hide behind shields, flankers should flank, etc. Except when that does actually happen, nobody ends up noticing. There's this push to make AI smarter, more complex, closer to real people and the simple truth of the matter is that none of that makes for good AI.

Game Maker's Toolkit has a pretty good video on what makes good AI that I'd like to cite to avoid belabouring the point. However, the long and short of it is that good AI is consistent, predictable and well-telegraphed. Moreover, something I noticed from Payday 2's various issues with getting their AI to... Actually work was that in a lot of cases it's far more important that AI is simply responsive than how it ends up responding. FEAR gets brought up as having amazing AI, but a lot of the reasons for that are canned animations and a wealth of conditional voice lines. They APPEAR smarter without actually BEING smarter to the degree that gets touted online.

When you're designing AI for a horde shooter - which is what Warframe is, let's not pretend - you rarely benefit from complex interactions. There's no point in making individual enemies or even groups of enemies complex when the fight inevitably boils down to a mosh pit anyway. Any complexity you add gets lost in the shuffle and will at best inspire people to look for stronger gear and ignore it anyway. If you want to make combat itself more involving... Well, for one it can't be "press 4 to win," but besides that... If you want to make combat more involving, you benefit from throwing fewer varieties of more distinct enemies, each with their own role, their own distinct silhouette and their own distinct sound package. Left 4 Dead figured this out 10 years ago, and consequently created not just an enduring game despite offering no real post-launch support, but also created a design framework altogether.

Complex enemy behaviour that's hard to track, hard to predict and hard to memorise simply encourages people to not even bother. Simple, formulaic, predictable AI which creates challenge not by individual behaviour but by the way mechanics interact is the way to go. Horde shooters benefit from hordes of simple enemies. The more complex you make them, the more annoying they become to fight.

[(PSN)BJwobbleDix]

The 2 biggies that I would like implemented are the Alert Style that you came up with and the minibosses (ie Eximus evolved).  Eximus are long due for an upgrade visually and mechanically.  I believe they can be made more unique and more menacing yet balanced.

For example, I'm not a fan of how Parasites were implemented.  I understand their concept and I agree with that but were not put into play very well imo.  One idea I had was altering them to a 'pulse' mechanic vs a per second which visually looks a lot like Hildryn's Pillage.  Every 5 seconds, the Parasite would pulsate and consume 20 energy from nearby Tenno.  You would visually see the stream of energy being sucked.  This gives you a brief moment to better react to these energy suckers and this can be a lot more controlled and balanced.  On top of it, the energy consumed can be converted to something like additional damage for those directly surrounding the Parasite.

Along with it, Eximus with aura abilities need a much better visual distinction to the rest of the group.  When there are 10 enemies and they all have the same visual aura because of the eximus, it's not very fun.  They could keep the same simple auras now but expand on the miniboss to be more distinct.

[Talonflight]

2 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

The problem with AI complexity as suggested in the OP is... It honestly doesn't matter. Even if deliberately ignore the game's point of balance where most enemies don't live long enough to have any sort of behaviour worth noting, complex AI isn't necessarily good AI. I've seen this story told many times over across many games. Shields should form lines, soldiers should hide behind shields, flankers should flank, etc. Except when that does actually happen, nobody ends up noticing.

 

On 2019-04-23 at 4:12 PM, Talonflight said:

We all know that scaling in Warframe is horrendus when it comes to late-game enemies. Some people love it, other people hate it. That said, I'm NOT proposing things to do with that, because frankly, its above my pay grade and I'm just a dude on the internet.

Here are some NOT-health/armor/shield changes related ideas for each factions enemies to become more difficult, fun, and engaging to fight

 

[Steel_Rook]

You know, it's funny that you chide me for not reading your post, when you didn't read mine. In fact, what you quoted itself deliberately sidesteps the issue you're criticising here.

[Talonflight]

11 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

You know, it's funny that you chide me for not reading your post, when you didn't read mine. In fact, what you quoted itself deliberately sidesteps the issue you're criticising here.

Since it seems that you wanted a more in depth reply to your post, I'll reply here.
 

On 2019-04-28 at 1:04 PM, Steel_Rook said:

The problem with AI complexity as suggested in the OP is... It honestly doesn't matter. Even if deliberately ignore the game's point of balance where most enemies don't live long enough to have any sort of behaviour worth noting, complex AI isn't necessarily good AI. I've seen this story told many times over across many games. Shields should form lines, soldiers should hide behind shields, flankers should flank, etc. Except when that does actually happen, nobody ends up noticing. There's this push to make AI smarter, more complex, closer to real people and the simple truth of the matter is that none of that makes for good AI.

I DIDN'T want to even bring up the problem of scaling and the damage gap in Warframe, simply because, it has literally been beaten to death on these forums. Yes, there is a huge disparity with the killing power of the players to the point where enemy behavior doesn't matter. This is a problem, because if you can simply ignore the enemy and spam high damage to trivialize the content, it means of course mechanics don't matter.

Thing is, as I stated in the first post, there are far, FAR better people than me who actually have constructive ideas to fix scaling and good ideas to bridge that power gap, and allow enemies to actually matter. I specifically pointed that that particular topic is not one I wanted to cover here. Using that as a point, thus, is entirely besides the point. Especially since a couple of other posters above you have already brought up the issue.

 

On 2019-04-28 at 1:04 PM, Steel_Rook said:

Game Maker's Toolkit has a pretty good video on what makes good AI that I'd like to cite to avoid belabouring the point. However, the long and short of it is that good AI is consistent, predictable and well-telegraphed. Moreover, something I noticed from Payday 2's various issues with getting their AI to... Actually work was that in a lot of cases it's far more important that AI is simply responsive than how it ends up responding. FEAR gets brought up as having amazing AI, but a lot of the reasons for that are canned animations and a wealth of conditional voice lines. They APPEAR smarter without actually BEING smarter to the degree that gets touted online.

On this we can actually agree. Currently, the AI is not responsive, not telegraphed, not consistent, and the only way that is is predictable is that enemies will always run towards you. Hence, yes, most of the changes and ideas I proposed would require an update to responsiveness. Frankly, at this point, canned animations and conditional voice lines would be an improvement. Obviously I'm hoping for  better, but that's besides the point as well.

 

On 2019-04-28 at 1:04 PM, Steel_Rook said:

When you're designing AI for a horde shooter - which is what Warframe is, let's not pretend - you rarely benefit from complex interactions. There's no point in making individual enemies or even groups of enemies complex when the fight inevitably boils down to a mosh pit anyway. Any complexity you add gets lost in the shuffle and will at best inspire people to look for stronger gear and ignore it anyway. If you want to make combat itself more involving... Well, for one it can't be "press 4 to win," but besides that... If you want to make combat more involving, you benefit from throwing fewer varieties of more distinct enemies, each with their own role, their own distinct silhouette and their own distinct sound package. Left 4 Dead figured this out 10 years ago, and consequently created not just an enduring game despite offering no real post-launch support, but also created a design framework altogether.

For the first part, the "people will just get stronger gear" and "it can't be press 4 to win", that again brings back to scaling. Sorry. You know my thoughts on that. People will always go for the strongest gear around. Either players should be nerfed or enemies need a buff, people have been saying that for a long time, but I am NOT someone who can competently discuss scaling, thus, I am not discussing it, because I cannot hold a conversation on it. I know my limits. Its above my pay grade.

For the second part, as for making combat more involving.... that would ideally be packaged in the "Squad Deployment" feature that I recommended for all factions, as well as the "More Fodder, less Bosses" point I made as well.

 

On 2019-04-28 at 1:04 PM, Steel_Rook said:

Complex enemy behaviour that's hard to track, hard to predict and hard to memorize simply encourages people to not even bother. Simple, formulaic, predictable AI which creates challenge not by individual behavior but by the way mechanics interact is the way to go. Horde shooters benefit from hordes of simple enemies. The more complex you make them, the more annoying they become to fight.

On this, I'm afraid we must disagree. Fodder enemies certainly shouldn't be too complicated. Generic Combat Moa's, Grineer Lancers/Troopers, and Runners/Crawlers all should probably retain their same basic functions. Most of the others, however, could be classified as "special enemies" and thus should have its own roles and AI, similar to how L4D utilizes the Director system to control the special infected seperately from the rest. Unfortunately, I do not know if a system like the Director would be feasable in a game like warframe, and how much excessive coding would it require. Though clearly Warframe Dev's are not above doing extensive coding, as we saw with the introduction of Operator Mode, Archwing, Railjack, K-Drive, Vehicles, etc.

[Steel_Rook]

1 hour ago, Talonflight said:

Since it seems that you wanted a more in depth reply to your post, I'll reply here.

Thank you kindly. That was the reply I was hoping for.

 

1 hour ago, Talonflight said:

On this we can actually agree. Currently, the AI is not responsive, not telegraphed, not consistent, and the only way that is is predictable is that enemies will always run towards you. Hence, yes, most of the changes and ideas I proposed would require an update to responsiveness. Frankly, at this point, canned animations and conditional voice lines would be an improvement. Obviously I'm hoping for  better, but that's besides the point as well.

Honestly, more voice lines and unique sound effects for all units or at least the more important ones would be VERY nice. I'm kind of writing these back-to-front a little bit, but one of the ingenious aspects of L4D was how clearly identifiable Special Infected were just by their sound. The Hunter's growl, the Smoker's cough, the Boomer's dry heaves, etc. That's not really AI, but it's an absolutely vital part of what makes enemies "seem" not just intelligent but also memorable. It's why the Nox stands out so much against an army of pretty much identical-looking Grenier models otherwise. If I've seen one Terminator Armour torso, I've seen them all, and they all share the same set of voice lines. In fact, you know what's a nice touch? Corrupted Grenier and Corpus get different voice lines with a different voice filter. We need more of that.

 

46 minutes ago, Talonflight said:

For the first part, the "people will just get stronger gear" and "it can't be press 4 to win", that again brings back to scaling. Sorry. You know my thoughts on that. People will always go for the strongest gear around. Either players should be nerfed or enemies need a buff, people have been saying that for a long time, but I am NOT someone who can competently discuss scaling, thus, I am not discussing it, because I cannot hold a conversation on it. I know my limits. Its above my pay grade.

Balance wasn't the point here, though. The "people will just get stronger gear" as an argument is analogous to "people are going to disregard complexity" if you make AI too complex. The fewer the variables that people have to keep track of, the more likely it is that they'll even attempt to do so. Part of the problem with Warframe right now is that the game throws a dozen different versions of the same basic enemy at us at the same time. In theory these enemies behave differently, have different strengths and weaknesses and require different strategies to defeat. In practice it's all noise that's more trouble to try and pick apart than it's actually worth. In those situations, most people pull back to a wider perspective and default to whatever broad-spectrum solutions they have access to. "Stronger gear" and "press 4 to win" are just examples, but the broader point is that overly-complex problems almost always breed overly simplistic and inelegant solutions.

Personally, I want to bring AI complexity DOWN as far as possible, so an average player is easily able to make snap decisions with limited information and be reasonably correct most of the time. Dumb, straightforward AI which predominantly moves to its effective range and shoots with little more in the way of depth lends itself better to a horde game than tactical, squad-based AI with complex counterplay.

 

53 minutes ago, Talonflight said:

On this, I'm afraid we must disagree. Fodder enemies certainly shouldn't be too complicated. Generic Combat Moa's, Grineer Lancers/Troopers, and Runners/Crawlers all should probably retain their same basic functions. Most of the others, however, could be classified as "special enemies" and thus should have its own roles and AI, similar to how L4D utilizes the Director system to control the special infected seperately from the rest.

Well, for that to happen you'd also need to be OK with Specials spawning a HELL OF A LOT less frequently. L4D games and their derivatives typically have one of each type of Special on the map at a time, with some buffer in their spawn timers. The Nox is already a rare unit, but Heavy Gunners spawn constantly in large numbers. High-level Infested Survival missions eventually devolve into a rainbow of 12 Ancients jamming hallways wall-to-wall. Even the Corpus end up spawning multiple Combas and Scrambus for overlapping debuff fields, not to mention five Nullifiers stacked on top of each other. I absolutely agree that going the L4D way of "horde of commons, a few specials" would be a positive change. It would allow the Specials to be made stronger and more complex. But that would require putting sane limits on their spawn frequency.

The game would also require several massive changes in the visual design of enemy factions. Games like L4D, Payday 2 and such work on enemies who are immediately visually distinct from each other both in terms of colour and in terms of silhouette. In this regard, the Nox is excellent. It has its own uniquely unmistakable silhouette, its own sound package and its own ability effects. Similarly, Nullfiers are damn well designed, with their slow walk and obvious, distinct bubble... Even if it's a bit easy to mix it up with an Eximus Snow Globe. But a lot of the others? A Bombard looks almost indistinguishable from most Lancers. I'm sure there are visual differences, but it's a bit like trying to spot the gender of a cat at a distance - not easy to do while being shot at. Leech Eximus enemies are even worse, being just a larger version of a REALLY common enemy hidden a among a crowd that the game never warns you about.

Before we even talk AI and mechanics, Specials would need to have their own unique visuals, their own unique sound packages, preferably their own unique icons when marked and potentially even call-outs from our current handler. Commons, similarly, need to be paired down to just one or two enemy types with a fairly uniform look across them. Pick one Lancer type and stick with just that, for instance. And if that disqualifies too many of the existing units, then simply create more "Corps" within each faction. We already have Frontier, Tusk, Drekar and Kuva Grenier. We already have Terra Corpus. We already have enemy variety based on planet (Commanders don't show up everywhere, Bailifs show up only on Ceres, etc.), make it official.

Long story short, you don't necessarily need your AI to be smart, challenging or complex. Far more than that, you need clear presentation, predictable and exploitable behaviour and a low volume of information to process. Rather than trying to make enemies harder to fight as a means of forcing players to play smarter, make the enemies easier to read in the first place as a way of encouraging players to even try and play smart. Sure, players with overpowered trololo builds are always going to ROFLstomp everything, but that's not all or even most of the people. The key is to make people care to begin with, I think.

[(XBOX)Zweimander]

I think we could do with more enemies like the Nox to increase difficulty. I'm not sure what would work for every faction but the Nox is one of the best designed enemies in the game and we should have more like it!

[Loza03]

I'd be really down for a lot of this, especially the infested suggestions. Whilst I do like them being multicoloured (It's pretty unique among zombies, plus it's great for quick identification in the horde) I certainly wouldn't be against giving them more texture to give them something unique. And Infested, particularly light infested, being able to move along walls is something I've wanted for some time now. They're the most linear faction to fight right now, letting them be able to quickly overwhelm you if they're not nipped in the bud of choke points would be excellent.

 

My problem with a lot of this though is that... well, better enemies can't really be implemented without 'fix scaling plox.' The damage system's broken. Players do tons of damage, enemies do tons of damage, both of which render anything but the absolute tankiest enemies being practically worthless in a fight. This alongside player and enemy health and damage being so far removed that spawning minions is worthless and the fact that enemies have no defence against player abilities and so must break through with even more cheese leading to an arms race of 'which side has the most effective single solution to the most situations'. Oh,

Something has to be done about THAT before more interesting enemies can be introduced. Otherwise they just suffer the same fate.