The New Nullifier Paradigm = Unfun

[FatherGrimm]

I like to characterize gaming design decisions as one of two choices:  fun or unfun.  Oversimplifcation?  Sure, but it's efficient, and not necessarily directed at the short-term fix.  Some things that are a big challenge, or a grind, may be short-term frustrating, but the sense of accomplishment that comes from overcoming these obstacles might be an overall positive (i.e., fun).

With all the Corpus content in recent months (Fortuna, Gas City) there's been a huge increase in the frequency of nullifying mobs/traps/etc.  Disruption missions are the latest (and worst) implementation of this phenomenon, including melee nullifiers that pop frequently and run right into you.  Doing any Orb Vallis content for an extended period of time (e.g., toroid runs) will pop tons of nullifer and scrambus/comba mobs.

I didn't have issues with the spawn rate/prevalence of nullifer mobs in corpus/corrupted missions before.  Now, it's a big part of what's keeping me and my regular group of RL gaming buddies from getting invested into all the new WF content. 

Having to constantly recast abilities, check on other buffs on group members, and simply being prohibited from using any abilities takes away from all the unique fun of the frames.  This game might as well be a generic FPS shooter if the uptime on our WF abilities is completely tanked. 

Yesterday, for example, I was solo farming toroids, allowing 1-2 alert beacons up, as I didn't want a crazy mess of mobs.  I ended up having my buffs nullified so often I just gave up on recasting them and relied solely on my weapons.  Unfun.

DE, find another way to make your game challenging.  Its no secret that constantly making new frames, with new frame abilities, is a big part of your business model.  More nullifiers and their variants defeats this selling point.  It's a big reason why out of my 4 group members, 3 of us gave up on Fortuna progression, and why none of us are going to ever do another disruption mission again.

 

 

[Chewarette]

Yeah, I personally reached that point where I avoid Corpus missions like the plague. Grineer > Corrupted (a few Nullifiers but not a ton) > Infested (a bit too unchallenging) >>>> Corpus in terms of fun.

And I think DE can see that quite efficiently. The most played Warframe in the Disruption event was probably Inaros, that says it all

[Paradoxity]

1 hour ago, Chewarette said:

Yeah, I personally reached that point where I avoid Corpus missions like the plague. Grineer > Corrupted (a few Nullifiers but not a ton) > Infested (a bit too unchallenging) >>>> Corpus in terms of fun.

And I think DE can see that quite efficiently. The most played Warframe in the Disruption event was probably Inaros, that says it all

Do they though? We've been talking about how Nullifiers and immune enemies are garbage and unfun design from day 1 of their appearance, and they... add more of them. Either they don't see that nullifiers are unfun, they don't care and think it provides necessary challenge (Which, to be fair, yes, nullifiers are harder to kill if only by dint of the fact that the bubble is also a shield), they don't agree that they're unfun, or they don't care that we, as players, dislike them and find them unfun.

 

 

 

 

[Kylo.]

How are Melee Nullifiers annoying? They can't shoot you, you need to watch out for them a bit and can't just mindlessly play but other than that they can't do anything.

[Chewarette]

1 minute ago, Paradoxity said:

Do they though? We've been talking about how Nullifiers and immune enemies are garbage and unfun design from day 1 of their appearance, and they... add more of them. Either they don't see that nullifiers are unfun, they don't care and think it provides necessary challenge (Which, to be fair, yes, nullifiers are harder to kill if only by dint of the fact that the bubble is also a shield), they don't agree that they're unfun, or they don't care that we, as players, dislike them and find them unfun.

I'm still having hope since they added the Drone on the Nullifier field to disrupt the entire field in one shot. But since, they've added the nullifier bubbles in the Vallis and now these abominations of Demolysts so I don't really know what's their point on this whole thing.

[trst]

Or you could just, y'know, shoot down the bubble. If you're weapons are bad at shooting the bubble then aim for the bubble drone. If you're still unable to do so then use your amp to shoot them down.

Before nullifiers Corpus were arguable easier to kill and farm than even infested were. If making frame abilities balanced isn't an option (as people begin shouting from the rooftops once the word "nerf" is mentioned) then ability resistance and immunity is the necessary response to that.

[Wrum]

personally i dont see the issue with nullies. they are pretty easy to deal with if you have something like the tenora, soma, ignis and other weapons that have rapid fire. it pops the bubbles almost instantly. the only times i run into trouble with them is when im running melee only which is rare.

[Lazarow]

I dont do corpus mission I extremely avoid doing them cause of nullifiers(Unless im running inaros+adaptation for some reason).

4 minutes ago, Kylo. said:

How are Melee Nullifiers annoying? They can't shoot you, you need to watch out for them a bit and can't just mindlessly play but other than that they can't do anything.

they run at you and in disruption you have to watch out for them and dozens of other enemies at once, some places can be tight and due to the corpus map design with a lot of platform levels if you are on the top floor and they come up the stairs you cant see them, and thats another reason why I dont like corpus, but it may be just me

[Kylo.]

3 minutes ago, AwkwardLazarow said:

they run at you and in disruption you have to watch out for them and dozens of other enemies at once, some places can be tight and due to the corpus map design with a lot of platform levels if you are on the top floor and they come up the stairs you cant see them, and thats another reason why I dont like corpus, but it may be just me

So the conclusion is, watch out for them and they are not a threat. Gotcha!

[3rdpig]

I like the new melee Nullifiers and I disagree with the change that made them slow. They were fine how they were. But yea, sometimes the numbers of Nullifiers gets a bit tedious.

[DeadVoid118]

4 minutes ago, Kylo. said:

How are Melee Nullifiers annoying? They can't shoot you, you need to watch out for them a bit and can't just mindlessly play but other than that they can't do anything.

Other than, you know, cancel and prevent all your abilities which is kind of the point of warframes in a game called Warframe. Sure, you can run away and attempt to dodge, but that gets real dicey real quick in a full squad surrounded by level 100+ nullifiers.

4 minutes ago, trst said:

Or you could just, y'know, shoot down the bubble. If you're weapons are bad at shooting the bubble then aim for the bubble drone. If you're still unable to do so then use your amp to shoot them down.

Before nullifiers Corpus were arguable easier to kill and farm than even infested were. If making frame abilities balanced isn't an option (as people begin shouting from the rooftops once the word "nerf" is mentioned) then ability resistance and immunity is the necessary response to that.

Just because nullifiers make the Corpus harder does not mean they make the Corpus better in terms of gameplay. Resistance I can handle. Outright immunity and disabling (which effectively makes them energy sinks as well) is gonna be a no from me. And making frame abilities balanced isn't an option moreso due to scaling issues than anything else (as making them work properly for X-Y level range makes them terrible/overpowered for A-B level range.

Just now, Kylo. said:

So the conclusion is, watch out for them and they are not a threat. Gotcha!

Watch out properly and effectively enough for any enemy and they are not a threat. The problem is splitting your focus between a dozen things at once in a fast-paced game like Warframe. I'm constantly having to be reminded to activate X ability or use Y weapon against this enemy or use my amp because this guy is my enemy and immune to basic damage or I'm out of energy so I need to use energizing dash or I'm moving too slow and getting hit too much so focus on moving faster or there's a nearby energy leech you need to find or you need to switch weapons because you're running out of ammo and need to conserve it for a specific enemy or you need to check your minimap for an objective/enemy locations/loot or etc.. It gets real draining real quick, and nullifiers just add to the pile. I'm not saying all these things are bad, but when I'm focusing on all these things it feels real cheap to see that bubble suddenly disable all my abilities from behind.

[lukinu_u]

I think changing the way nullifier affect some abilities would solve the problem.
The main problem is not how it disable abilities but the fact it turn them off and force you to recast, which is even more a problem when it come to buff cast on allies.

Additionnaly to the inability to cast, how running abilities are affected should be split in 3 categories :

• Turned off : The ability is diabled and need to be recasted.
  Work this way for most of abilities that consume energy per second, such as exalted weapons, or Absorb.
   
• Nullified : The ability temporarily disabled but still running, it will start back working after a 3-5 seconds penality once leaving the nullifying area. If the ability isn't already recastable, it can be recasted during the penality to avoid the wait.
  Work this way for most active abilities on duration such as Vex Armor, Toxic Lash, or abilities that consume energy depending your actions like Desecrate or Prowl.
   
• Placed : This one is for abilities that are placed on map/enemies such as Vauban traps, Spores, or abilities casted that act on big area like Molecular Prime or Chaos. The one work the same as the "Nullified" category but doesn't have time penality.

[Kylo.]

2 minutes ago, Keylan118 said:

Other than, you know, cancel and prevent all your abilities which is kind of the point of warframes in a game called Warframe. Sure, you can run away and attempt to dodge, but that gets real dicey real quick in a full squad surrounded by level 100+ nullifiers.

What are they gonna do? Throw their melee weapon at you?

[Zelmen]

For me its Grineer > Infested / corrupted > Corpus

My first issue is I think they need to cap the number of bubbles and find a way to stop clipping through the walls. It can get too crazy that there is no place to stand to even try to shoot the bubbles sometimes. Orb Vallis can literally spawn on top of you. To make things worst you back up to a wall and another bubble pops through. Now you got surprised debuffed. With the new mech of Wisp's buffs I would love to see some updates. If to nullifiers are in the same area make it just one bubble. Would be also nice if frosts could buff each others bubbles like how wisp's buffs take the str and dur on the best one you walk through.

Second issue is the complete blocking of skills. For a more clean cut one, Mesa's 4th. They are F-ing guns. Let use shoot at the bubble. Just make it not auto aim at the bubble. Makes more sense to loss auto aim then to just say, hey I know your no where near the bubble but you can't shoot period. Every ability could be hindered in a way that is not just 100% doesn't work.

[BiancaRoughfin]

I dont have trouble with normal Nullifiers, these arent giving me trouble either, they just die so easily.

Current Nullifiers are a spec of Shadow compared to what they used to be when first implemented, their bubbles used to take a lot of damage to shrink and they reflected range attacks which ment you could easily kill your self and were forced to either Melee the Orb or straight up jump inside it and kill the Nullifier wile sacrificing any active skill.

[DeadVoid118]

Just now, Kylo. said:

What are they gonna do? Throw their melee weapon at you?

Well first of all, no, they're going to rush you and disable all your abilities so you instantly get downed by the enemies behind their bubbles. Sure, you might be able to deal with a couple while they run at you, but ten in a row from multiple directions and all it takes is one to instantly vaporize the squad.

 Secondly, see second part of my post (which I admit I oddly split up for some reason):

2 minutes ago, Keylan118 said:

Watch out properly and effectively enough for any enemy and they are not a threat. The problem is splitting your focus between a dozen things at once in a fast-paced game like Warframe. I'm constantly having to be reminded to activate X ability or use Y weapon against this enemy or use my amp because this guy is my enemy and immune to basic damage or I'm out of energy so I need to use energizing dash or I'm moving too slow and getting hit too much so focus on moving faster or there's a nearby energy leech you need to find or you need to switch weapons because you're running out of ammo and need to conserve it for a specific enemy or you need to check your minimap for an objective/enemy locations/loot or etc.. It gets real draining real quick, and nullifiers just add to the pile. I'm not saying all these things are bad, but when I'm focusing on all these things it feels real cheap to see that bubble suddenly disable all my abilities from behind.

 

1 minute ago, Zelmen said:

For me its Grineer > Infested / corrupted > Corpus

My first issue is I think they need to cap the number of bubbles and find a way to stop clipping through the walls. It can get too crazy that there is no place to stand to even try to shoot the bubbles sometimes. Orb Vallis can literally spawn on top of you. To make things worst you back up to a wall and another bubble pops through. Now you got surprised debuffed. With the new mech of Wisp's buffs I would love to see some updates. If to nullifiers are in the same area make it just one bubble. Would be also nice if frosts could buff each others bubbles like how wisp's buffs take the str and dur on the best one you walk through.

Second issue is the complete blocking of skills. For a more clean cut one, Mesa's 4th. They are F-ing guns. Let use shoot at the bubble. Just make it not auto aim at the bubble. Makes more sense to loss auto aim then to just say, hey I know your no where near the bubble but you can't shoot period. Every ability could be hindered in a way that is not just 100% doesn't work.

Yeah, it doesn't make sense that some skills like Mesa's guns are blocked, and that includes Arbitration drones.

[Paradoxity]

1 hour ago, Chewarette said:

I'm still having hope since they added the Drone on the Nullifier field to disrupt the entire field in one shot. But since, they've added the nullifier bubbles in the Vallis and now these abominations of Demolysts so I don't really know what's their point on this whole thing.

Oh, the point is easy. Nullifiers add 'challenge'. Nevermind that they are total garbage from a design and lore standpoint, they add challenge by increasing the ammount of time it takes to kill them. Same concept, in general, as bullet sponges. 

And again, to be fair, they do- nullifiers are unquestionably harder to kill than random mobs for the simple reason that they're immune to powers and they have a shield bubble around them  that will absorb gunfire. Yes, there are weapons that will kill them more easily than others, but that doesn't change the fact that a nullifier is still harder to kill, even if just marginally, than a sniper crewman or whatever. 

The problem is, nullifiers appear, in corpus missions, in enough numbers to turn this into almost a pure shooter game- and, frankly, the rest of the game isn't there for that to work. Warframe is not a game that can exist on it's gunplay alone (Or it's recently neutered Melee system, but that's a whole other topic).  

Nullifiers are the reason I avoid corpus missions  for the most  part. At least the Grineer have the decency to be able to provide some kind of threat without  trying to take better than half my cool toys away. 

[trst]

4 minutes ago, Keylan118 said:

Just because nullifiers make the Corpus harder does not mean they make the Corpus better in terms of gameplay. Resistance I can handle. Outright immunity and disabling (which effectively makes them energy sinks as well) is gonna be a no from me. And making frame abilities balanced isn't an option moreso due to scaling issues than anything else (as making them work properly for X-Y level range makes them terrible/overpowered for A-B level range.

Except I just gave three examples on how to deal with them without going anywhere near the bubble.

If they didn't have nullifiers there would be no gameplay to them outside of nuke frames so much as glancing at them. Making them more of a non-threat than infested.

And balancing can work as the only scaling issues there could be in armor which we have ample options to deal with or outright remove with CP. But besides, our weapons are already far more overpowered than most frames.

[Walkampf]

vor 49 Minuten schrieb FatherGrimm:

I like to characterize gaming design decisions as one of two choices:  fun or unfun.

Fun is highly subjective, so using it to jufge a design aimed at a large number of players is literally impoassible, not just oversimplification.

Fact:

Nullifiers are intended with a very clear design goal, beak up gamebreaking combinations like, for example Saryns AoE. They force the player into reacting to the game by confonting him/her with a situations, which cannot be facerolled.

Opinion:

Since I personally don't like to press 1 or 2 buttons and watch Affinity number and loot pop up all over the screen, I like them and I think DE need to implement more high priority enemies, like Nullifiers and Ancients.

vor 7 Minuten schrieb Keylan118:

Yeah, it doesn't make sense that some skills like Mesa's guns are blocked,

This concept is called suspention of disbelieve. It is common as well as needed in games and other media. Also, the 'doesn't make sense' argument is quite weak in a game where children controll robotic space ninja with their mind...

Edited June 3, 2019 by Walkampf

[George_PPS]

Shooting them with a fast fire rate weapon will pop them fast. There are many average primary and secondary weapons that can do the job. Or you can craft an amp with such part to do so as well. 

If you jump into a bubble, you need a powerful melee weapon to quickly take down the Corpus unit. Problem solved. And then you recast your abilities. 

Edited June 3, 2019 by George_PPS

[Ced23Ric]

It's power fantasy vs. challenge. The community is split down the middle, with some wanting to be challenged and do more than lord of the life and death of pixel piles, while others want to be god among mortals, upon waves of enemies crash, without any dent in the shining armor. I for one like the Nullies and the melee Nullies, too. They're sadly a little easy to kill - a two-shot with a high alpha weapon, or a simple hosing down with a fast firing weapon. And if you can spare the ability cast, just jump in and take the fight to them - best way to deal with Arctic Eximus dudes, too.

But, again. Personal preference.

Power Fantasy vs. Challenge.

[Lutesque]

Yep.... this is why I don't bother with Corpus Arbitrations... 

The fact that these enemies even exist is bad enough as it is but the way their AI is programmed to sprint as fast as possible to the Objective is just #*!%ing stupid.

Nullifiers may have been designed to limit Warframe abilities but sadly they do more than just that. They also limit weapon choice to high firerate weapons.... that tiny lil weakspoy they added (yes... apparently it wasn't always there) literally has the most bull S#&$ Hitbox.... I've shot that thing Square in the middle and the game claims I missed and hits the Bubble Instead....

Sigh.... but they're not going away....

[SneakyErvin]

I dont really see the problem with nullifiers.

If the drone is at a good angle I simply pop it with my catchmoon, if it is at a bad angle I just pull out my full-auto and rip the shield plus nulli apart. We have 3 weapon slots per loadout for a reason.

I've used a bunch of different full-auto options but have recently gone over to Fulmin since I rarely use my primary outside of specific like Nullifiers. It has enough RoF and damage to make short work of nullis and you never have to stop in order to reload before tucking it away again. It pairs up perfectly with my Catchmoon since I run that with the rechargable battery mechanic too. So I run around and kill things with that, a nulli pops up, swap to Fulmin, kill null, swap back to Catch which now has full ammo again. And at the next nulli Fulmin is filled up again without me needing to reload.

[MaryoSlayer]

Just shoot the damn thing down...it is supposed to be hard to kill.I see so many snowflakes around here lately demanding enemies nerfs wtf...

[Walkampf]

vor 14 Minuten schrieb Ced23Ric:

Power Fantasy vs. Challenge.

The term 'Power Fantasy' is massivly misunderstood by large parts of the Warframe community. A Power Fantasy is distinctivly NOT being able to kill anything without any effort. A power Fantasy still NEEDS a challenge.