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

[Talonflight]

12 hours ago, Loza03 said:

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.

I fully agree on this topic. Which is why, again, for the millionth time in this thread, I will repeat....


I am not someone who can competently talk about scaling.

Does it need fixing? Yes. I know it does. We all know it does. We've been asking for it for YEARS. However, I myself cannot offer suggestions or solutions on that topic besides the generall broad idea of "we need to be nerfed, or enemies need to be buffed." Therefore, I am not seeking that kind of conversation, because there are far, far, FAR better people than me at it who have already discussed it a million times on the forums. This post was for ideas that would, ideally, go alongside such a thing. You are not the first person who has brought it up in this post.
 

Ergo....

 

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
 

 

[Unagi604]

Just something for consideration I wanted to say. We're too fast / mobile. We used to have to take cover and clear paths back when wall running was still a thing. Like those grineer maps where we wanted to get on the upper platform for a vantage point? Had to take the elevator or a slow wall run up a pillar.

Now what I mean by this being a problem is for example hypothetically, a difficult enemy would be maybe a 100+ bombard or the Wolf right? As an extreme case for scale, what if every enemy in a mission was one? In the current state, with how mobile we are, most people probably wouldn't have any issues just bullet jumping and dodge rolling past an entire map of them, not to mention the problems it causes with groups not sticking together. With how much freedom of movement we've been given, I believe it means the scaling of enemies isn't actually the source of the problem because no matter what the scale is, and whatever the solution ends up being, it may not improve the situation if DE just makes changes to enemies that we can still skip past anyways.

Edited May 1, 2019 by Unagi604

[Talonflight]

Glad that we at least agree on some points. I agree with you 100% on making special units visually distinct with unique voice lines, as well as animations.

 

20 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

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.

On this I actually disagree once more. Players SHOULD have to think about what they do. At the current state of Warframe, there are barely any enemies that we even have to mildly think about. It is physically possible to play the game with your left foot as you read a book and eat a snack with your hands; just keep your big toe on the 4 key. The enemies might have unique secondary effects, however, their primary directive is "Run directly at the enemy and attack." and that mode of attack is so easy, while players have so many tools, that players can even survive in Multi-Hour survival missions where getting hit even once means instant death.

However, I don't believe Warframe should be satisfied with that. I honestly don't. At the moment, the players have SO many options at their disposal to avoid damage, avoid enemies, and annihilate their prey that there isn't an enemy in the game that even with a difficulty scaling mechanic that the players need to be afraid of. I think that shouldn't be the case. Even if Grineer Troopers made formations, and even if Infested could climb walls, and even if Corpus Snipers actually sniped, players could bullet jump, aim glide, slash-dash and shoot their way through it because of the sheer wealth of player mobility, variation available in damage typing, vast array of different weapons/warframes available. And plus, there is the greatest asset of all; working as a team. I think a large chunk of the playerbase seems to forget that Warframe is a team game. We've been powerful for so long, TOO powerful, really, that players are accustomed to annihilating whole armies on their own with little to no effort, when in the olden days, such a thing wasn't really the case, and while I think the game has improved significantly since I started, I can say I have a lot less "fun" with it now than I used to.

 

20 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

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.

This is easily fixable. The spawn rate could be tied to the Alert Level and sorted via the Patrol Group systems I proposed, with lower levels seeing those lower spawn rates. On the other hand, as the alerts get higher, these limits begin slowly increasing until we get back to the whole "wall to wall ancients and shield walls." 
On the other hand, the players in Warframe have considerably more tools at their disposal than the players in L4D. These tools that we can use also would sway it in our favor, even without limits on Specials. Games such as Killing Floor that can mob you with multiple beasts of different types prove this, and even in Killing Floor it is far more similar to L4D than warframe is, from a  horde shooter perspective.

 

 

23 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

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.

I believe you and I agree on this point. You can even see it on my original point of "Turning Eximus into miniboss type characters". However, the lack of distinct visual disparity between troops is something which I feel has plagued Warframe for YEARS on end. Reusing the same model with a different pallete swap is a lazy way out of it, tbh. 

[Talonflight]

1 hour ago, Unagi604 said:

Just something for consideration I wanted to say. We're too fast / mobile. We used to have to take cover and clear paths back when wall running was still a thing. Like those grineer maps where we wanted to get on the upper platform for a vantage point? Had to take the elevator or a slow wall run up a pillar.

Now what I mean by this being a problem is for example hypothetically, a difficult enemy would be maybe a 100+ bombard or the Wolf right? As an extreme case for scale, what if every enemy in a mission was one? In the current state, with how mobile we are, most people probably wouldn't have any issues just bullet jumping and dodge rolling past an entire map of them, not to mention the problems it causes with groups not sticking together. With how much freedom of movement we've been given, I believe it means the scaling of enemies isn't actually the source of the problem because no matter what the scale is, and whatever the solution ends up being, it may not improve the situation if DE just makes changes to enemies that we can still skip past anyways.

On this I can actually agree with. We are a bit too mobile for our own good; there isn't something in the game currently that can even remotely keep pace with even a newbie player when they want to get somewhere fast. 

THere are several ideas to counter this, from bringing back the Stamina bar (I personally miss it, but that would probably make a lot of other people angry and rage about it.) to buffing mobility for Manics/Bursas.

[Steel_Rook]

10 hours ago, Talonflight said:

This is easily fixable. The spawn rate could be tied to the Alert Level and sorted via the Patrol Group systems I proposed, with lower levels seeing those lower spawn rates. On the other hand, as the alerts get higher, these limits begin slowly increasing until we get back to the whole "wall to wall ancients and shield walls." 

Yeah, but that's not good, though. "Wall to wall ancients and shield walls" is in itself a problem. You can't have a game with complex, difficult enemies AND spawn lots of them, because the latter overrides the former. The moment I see wall-to-wall anything, any difficulty or complexity it might present ceases to matter. I'm going to pull out the biggest gun I have and shoot it into the crowd. If that doesn't work then I'm out of ideas. Complex encounter design requires clarity of information. If you're going to have 12 of anything, it CANNOT be difficult or complex. If it's going to be difficult and complex, you can't have 12 of them. The moment you start creating encounters like this is the moment players stop trying to engage with the game systems and simply look for a solution that's going to make said complexity irrelevant.

Even at its most absurd over-the-top horde mode, Payday 2 never threw more than maybe two Tasers, a Cloakers and a Bulldozer or two at the player, and that's a game with literally 100+ enemies on the map and easily 30+ on-screen shooting at you at all times. And even THAT many Specials ended up devaluing them significantly, often reducing them to glorified Commons. Consequently, Tasers, Cloakers Shields and Medics would simply end up getting cut down with all the Commons usually without realising they were even there, either mowed down by machinegun fire or blown up by grenade launchers. If you want Specials they need to be special, or else you might as well not even bother. 12 Specials stacked on top of each other is not special and should not be happening regardless of difficulty, alert level or whatever else.

You cannot have it both ways. An enemy can either be complex or it can be numerous. These two things are incompatible.

 

10 hours ago, Talonflight said:

The enemies might have unique secondary effects, however, their primary directive is "Run directly at the enemy and attack." and that mode of attack is so easy, while players have so many tools, that players can even survive in Multi-Hour survival missions where getting hit even once means instant death.

You're conflating a bunch of things here and breaking your own rule. Enemy behaviour isn't the issue you're bringing up here. Stats and scaling is, which I thought you wanted to not talk about. Individual enemy behaviour does not need to be terribly complex for enemies to be interesting or challenging. The majority of L4D zombies just run forward and attack, occasionally running in a serpentine to make them slightly harder to hit. Specials behave slightly differently, but their behaviour isn't all that much more complex, either. Boomers and Spitters will run to effective range and spit, Hunters will crouch until they see the player and then pounce, the Tank will constantly walk towards the player, swing and throw rocks whenever that ability is off cooldown, etc. Similarly, Payday 2 enemies are dirt simple. Commons will look for line of sight then shoot, so will most Specials, Cloakers might walk around and find a predetermined hiding spot.

Complexity in horde shooters comes not from the complexity of individual units or from specific scripted tactics. It comes from the simple interplay of different units with different behaviour patterns merely existing on the map together. Hell, Payday 2 actually has a bunch of "clever" AI tactics, such as cops trying to avoid firefights and approach an area from a different side, or running away when suppressed, or being easier to intimidate when their squad has been wiped out... And nobody ever notices. I had to read the Long Guide just to figure out that Suppression even EXISTS, much less how it works. Intuitively, I knew that using machineguns felt "safer," but it wasn't until I read up on the mechanic that I realised it was because said machineguns actively debuffed enemies near where I was shooting. In almost every aspect of game development, complexity matters very little. What actually matters is simple, intuitive player feedback.

"Run at the player and shoot" is absolutely sufficient for a game like Warframe. The more enemies you have on-screen, the simpler their behaviour needs to be in order for players to even care in the first place.

 

11 hours ago, Talonflight said:

And plus, there is the greatest asset of all; working as a team. I think a large chunk of the playerbase seems to forget that Warframe is a team game.

That's because a lot of us play Warframe solo. I personally only ever team with friends of mine, and even then spend the vast majority of my time playing by myself. While Warframe has the option to play with a team, building that as a core aspect of combat would be a mistake and alienating to a not insignificant number of players. That's part of why I'm opposed to Anthem-style "steup/execute" dynamis, Thumper-style fast-rotating enemies with weak points on their backs and Profit-Taker-Style excessively aggressive gear checks. I understand that DE want to design SOME content for organised team play and don't necessarily oppose it. Just wish it weren't the sole source of specific kinds of loot like how Tridolons are.

Far as I'm concerned, co-op games do better when they DON'T push player interactions to the forefront. Sure, stuff like Portal Co-Op is fun for the puzzle design which simply wouldn't work with just one player, but being unable to play the game alone cuts out the majority of my play time, personally. That and it creates a "meta" all its own. Maybe we all want to bring tanks or we all want to bring DPS. When the team aspect requires a "balanced" team, somebody has to give and play a role they might not be interested in. That's one of the problems of Overwatch, specifically that nobody wants to play tank.

Long story short, I'm perfectly happy that Warframe allows us to work as a team without requiring it.

[Xzorn]

Scaling plays a key roll in presenting Difficulty for an RPG-style game.

The only way to create difficulty is to increase stats and therefor increase the chance of failure. Challenge on the other hand is a task or objective that must be overcome. One cannot work without the other however which is what Warframe is doing in it's current state. Challenges without Difficulty which in turn feel like chores instead of challenges.

A team willing to cooperate and manage their frame picks can easy eat lvl 9,999 Bombard rockets to the face. That existing means Difficulty in Warframe on it's own can only be achieved when a team isn't trying and thus you have to layer both Difficulty and Challenge in order to deter perfect storm group comps.

We know the mission so we can prepare. That's a HUGE advantage in itself. A lot of your ideas are similar to my own I posted. It's a bit of a read but similar in concept with mini bosses, giving players control over difficulty and having challenges be optional with compounding conditions against players and rewarding accordingly.

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Aldain]

2 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

Challenges without Difficulty which in turn feel like chores instead of challenges.

Very true, though the inverse is also true as well.

Difficulty without challenge causes issues like the complaints about the Wolf being an ineffectual damage sponge who isn't a threat but rather an invading gear check. It can be difficult to take the Wolf down in a reasonable amount of time depending on what you have on hand, but even when you do have the right tools he's just as boring as when you don't because there's no challenge in how you deal with him.

Balance is key in developing any form of challenge or difficulty.

[Xzorn]

7 minutes ago, Aldain said:

Very true, though the inverse is also true as well.

Difficulty without challenge causes issues like the complaints about the Wolf being an ineffectual damage sponge who isn't a threat but rather an invading gear check. It can be difficult to take the Wolf down in a reasonable amount of time depending on what you have on hand, but even when you do have the right tools he's just as boring as when you don't because there's no challenge in how you deal with him.

Balance is key in developing any form of challenge or difficulty.

 

I would say the Wolf is just awful design. He's a damage sponge yet also doesn't deal threatening damage.

If he were to deal harmful damage then he would present Difficulty but I don't think he represents the concept in his current state.

Adding Challenge to the Wolf encounter would be to add new mechanics with consequences. As example I used in a design concept was allowing him to be shot in the eye with no damage reduction but at every 20% of health he takes he will stagger grasping his eye then increase in attack and move speed by 25%.

There was a little more to it like an alternate method of shooting his armor off in parts to drop his innate mitigation but basically the challenge was if you want him dead quickly then you have to deal with an enraged Wolf. Three different options I presented to killing him. No challenge, Moderate and High.

[Aldain]

1 minute ago, Xzorn said:

 

I would say the Wolf is just awful design. He's a damage sponge yet also doesn't deal threatening damage.

If he were to deal harmful damage then he would present Difficulty but I don't think he represents the concept in his current state.

Adding Challenge to the Wolf encounter would be to add new mechanics with consequences. As example I used in a design concept was allowing him to be shot in the eye with no damage reduction but at every 20% of health he takes he will stagger grasping his eye then increase in attack and move speed by 25%.

There was a little more to it like an alternate method of shooting his armor off in parts to drop his innate mitigation but basically the challenge was if you want him dead quickly then you have to deal with an enraged Wolf. Three different options I presented to killing him. No challenge, Moderate and High.

Hey any idea that moves him away from "soulless bullet sponge" works for me.

The odd thing is the mechanic you listed already somewhat exists in the Nox enemy, where once the headcase is broken they charge at you more and get more agressive but can take more damage.

Overall I think boss design is something DE would have to work on heavily in the future, because there seems to be an over-reliance on Alloy Armor, Damage Reduction and Status/Ability immunity.

[SECURATYYY]

Seems like everyone likes an approves of the Nox. We just need new enemies that are as creative as he is.

 

All the lancers and whatnot are fine, but their numbers should increase. Spawn 10 at a time and whatnot. Their role it to outnumber. It always blew my mind how we can invade a grineer/corpus ship, with all their weaponry and soldiers, and the only thing they throw at us is a handful of enemies at a time.

The specials should be a bigger threat. Grineer are heavily modified clones. Vay Hek is a good example of what can come from their modifications. Why haven't we seen a hulking, walking grineer tank that has guns out the wazoo?  Corpus have robots for days. They're making new ones as well as new weapons. Bursas are cool, but I refuse to believe that is the biggest threat on board a corpus ship. What about the Index crew? Those are proper 'special' enemies IMO.

 

EDIT: Ghouls are a step in the right direction as well IMO, but we only see them in the plains.

Edited May 1, 2019 by SECURATYYY

[MirageKnight]

2 hours ago, SECURATYYY said:

Seems like everyone likes an approves of the Nox. We just need new enemies that are as creative as he is.

And old bosses reworked to function more like Nox as well.

[Talonflight]

>tfw you specifically say "Hey guys, we shouldn't talk about Stats here, because there's already a billion other threads that actually cover stats and have actual arguments for and against changes" but the whole thing turns into stats again xD

[Aldain]

24 minutes ago, Talonflight said:

>tfw you specifically say "Hey guys, we shouldn't talk about Stats here, because there's already a billion other threads that actually cover stats and have actual arguments for and against changes" but the whole thing turns into stats again xD

To be fair, its kinda all we have to work with due to the design of Warframe, which is part of the problem overall.

I mean the best we've got is an agreement that the Nox enemies are good design because their weakpoint and behavior are tied to player actions, which is a start at least.

[SECURATYYY]

Thumpers have the whole weak point thing. Only problem with them is how they rotate so quickly.

[Aldain]

3 minutes ago, SECURATYYY said:

Thumpers have the whole weak point thing. Only problem with them is how they rotate so quickly.

It mostly comes down to the fact that their means of attack don't rotate separately from the body, which in realistic terms would be a bad design for anything that would need a weapon.

Ironically that realistic bad design is something that makes it harder for Tenno to take them down in game, though its still an issue solo I will agree.

[VenomousValentine]

On 2019-04-23 at 1:12 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


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.

I made a post suggesting getting rid of enemy hitscan and making it possible for EVERY attack to be responded to.

[Steel_Rook]

8 hours ago, SECURATYYY said:

Thumpers have the whole weak point thing. Only problem with them is how they rotate so quickly.

That's actually a problem with a lot of bosses in the game, but Wolf is probably the most egregious example. A lot of bosses tend to be both really tanky AND really mobile at the same time. While that's difficult in the dictionary sense, it's also a pain in the ass to deal with. If you're going to make an enemy complex to fight with small weak points all over its body, it'd be nice if it stayed still a little bit more. Make the boss mobile OR tanky, not both at the same time.