Enemy Diversity

[S.Dust]

Do you guys think warframe has a diverse cast of enemies and I mean move wise cause it feels like most things are kinda just re skin.

[Walkampf]

Well, mechanical diversity is being shot down but other parts of the community pretty hard.

Just seach for Arbitration Drones or Nullifiers and look at how many people still complain about those instead of figuring out how to beat the new enemies.

[Genitive]

I think there is variety, especially with the latest Corpus units. The problem is that things die so quickly we don't feel any differences between them.

[40PE]

26 minutes ago, S.Dust said:

Do you guys think warframe has a diverse cast of enemies and I mean move wise cause it feels like most things are kinda just re skin.

That's because the AI is nonexistent for the enemies. If they would have some actual mechanics and different types of "thinking" how they move, where they move, etc. We would be fine "diversity wise" IMHO.

[Loza03]

Enemy diversity isn't gained through what they do to you, but what you can't do to them.

 

You can't fight a Pinky head-on in Doom because they're armoured up front and charge you down.

You can't jump on a Spiny or the Lakitu that throw them because they'll damage you  and they fly respectively.

You can't melee Bloodgoyles in DMC3 because they'll split and make more bloodgoyles.

 

Enemies in Warframe need ways to counter our powers organically (Not nullifiers or flat immunities, at least not primarily) so that powers aren't one-size-fits-all solutions anymore. After all, what matters in balance isn't how powerful something is, it's how often and in how many situations it is that powerful. For frames it's 'all the time in every situation except when enemies are immune'. Not really all that fun or conducive to interesting strategies.

[(PSN)Final_Dragon01]

2 minutes ago, Walkampf said:

Well, mechanical diversity is being shot down but other parts of the community pretty hard.

Just seach for Arbitration Drones or Nullifiers and look at how many people still complain about those instead of figuring out how to beat the new enemies.

That's because people want to play Warframe, and blanket ability nullification is lame.  The edilons, thumpers, orbs and newer bosses have been fairly well received baring a few issues.

I don't think many would mind if warframe moved away from mass hordes of pointless enemies to fewer enemies that were more rewarding and difficult to kill.

Needing to give a standard horde trash enemies any consideration at all just feels bad.  It's feels more like a chore than a challenge.  Click the box to prove your human kind of chore.  There is no sense of victory in killing a nullifies or arbitration drones because they are standard horde trash, so there is nothing to gain from killing them.  However, they can on occasion cause you to die because you were not paying attention which can be annoying.  This makes such enemies a net negative.

But to the question of enemy diversity, any meaningful changes would require a massive rework since while there is significant difference in attack style and look there is very little difference in how to actually kill them.  I always liked the idea that gunners for example had gun belts and significant damage resistance unless you hit them in the head or blew up their belt which removed the damage resistance.  If most enemies had such strengths and weaknesses then I think the meta would shift and more niche frames and weapons would get more use as different people would want advantages over different enemies.

[NinjaKitsune56]

45 minutes ago, S.Dust said:

Do you guys think warframe has a diverse cast of enemies and I mean move wise cause it feels like most things are kinda just re skin.

Most of them may as well be reskins. The main exceptions are the Sentient units (Lua) and Corpus Amalgams (Jupiter).

Even the Kuva divisions are just mildly buffed Grineer forces with new toys. (I mean, yeah, facing thirty Kohm-armed Kuva Lancers solo isn't something to sneeze at, but they're still using Lancer AI in the end.)

[DeadVoid118]

28 minutes ago, Walkampf said:

Well, mechanical diversity is being shot down but other parts of the community pretty hard.

Just seach for Arbitration Drones or Nullifiers and look at how many people still complain about those instead of figuring out how to beat the new enemies.

Not all diversity is good if that diversity comes with poorly-designed units or units that aren't fun to play against. Since that's the argument of most people who dislike the drones and nullifiers, you can't say people are shooting down mechanical diversity. The entire argument on nullifiers and arbitration drones has nothing to do with diversity and bringing it into this discussion isn't conducive to the discussion.

13 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

Enemy diversity isn't gained through what they do to you, but what you can't do to them.

 

You can't fight a Pinky head-on in Doom because they're armoured up front and charge you down.

You can't jump on a Spiny or the Lakitu that throw them because they'll damage you  and they fly respectively.

You can't melee Bloodgoyles in DMC3 because they'll split and make more bloodgoyles.

 

Enemies in Warframe need ways to counter our powers organically (Not nullifiers or flat immunities, at least not primarily) so that powers aren't one-size-fits-all solutions anymore. After all, what matters in balance isn't how powerful something is, it's how often and in how many situations it is that powerful. For frames it's 'all the time in every situation except when enemies are immune'. Not really all that fun or conducive to interesting strategies.

I agree, but the problem with that is how diverse warframe abilities are and how the elemental system works. If you make X that can't be countered by Y tactic, you either invalidate an element or a specific warframe. This would be fine if we started with diversity, so each warframe had their own counters that you would need to deal with using weapons. Unfortunately, abilities are not reliable enough without Zenurik for that, and Zenurik is already the meta. Additionally, there'd be tons of outcry for the first warframe (or frames) to get countered. It might help if DE explained the plan before doing it, but people would still be outraged.

[Kaotyke]

51 minutes ago, 40PE said:

That's because the AI is nonexistent for the enemies. If they would have some actual mechanics and different types of "thinking" how they move, where they move, etc. We would be fine "diversity wise" IMHO.

No, that would NOT help at all. They would have to SURVIVE long enough to employ such tactics.

Grineer puts themseves behind Shield Lancers, but wer have explosives and punch through.

Ospreys dodge when your reticule is on them, but there is unpunished spray an' pray.

Helions can stay in the air and send missiels to you, but they die before they can even hop from one place to another.

Bursas knockdown and can CC an area, but you just need to BJ up or behind them or explosive weapon.

Nox can rush you to knock you down and make you easy picking if you are not ready, but they die if you can aim at their head.

Maniacs, the moment they get out of their invulnerability phase they can be damaged back into stealth and just becomes a waiting game.

The only units that employ such "actual mechanics" are the tankier units like the higher level Scrambus, Hyenas, Nullifiers.

The enemies in the Valis are the ones that are always having time to do anything: You see Moas jumping around, kicking you, staying in the air to shoot you with a continous beam, deploy more units (Raptor and Hyena), Jackals, Raknoids. You are always on your toes in the Valis if you are going to stay a while and keep fighting.

But... when it happens? "Its too hard", "Its not hard, its annoying", "Fake difficulty". While others that are fine with the things can only mentaly count down untill the nerf happens.

We need to remember the type of game this is: HORDE-Looter shooter, you, the player are meant to kill hundreds of enemies on your own. Every horde game I remember playing is like this: amping up the difficulty was just the enemy doing more damaged and their "special" attacks charging quicker.

DE has said they will take a look at difficulty this year, but if you want those "actual mechanics" to work, they must make the enemy survive long enough against the power of the players to actually employ them.

[YazMatazO]

Not diverse enough, if you ask me. 

[Loza03]

5 hours ago, Kaotyke said:

But... when it happens? "Its too hard", "Its not hard, its annoying", "Fake difficulty". While others that are fine with the things can only mentaly count down untill the nerf happens.

We need to remember the type of game this is: HORDE-Looter shooter, you, the player are meant to kill hundreds of enemies on your own. Every horde game I remember playing is like this: amping up the difficulty was just the enemy doing more damaged and their "special" attacks charging quicker.

Indeed. I think a big part of this is how much information a player has to keep track of in these situations.

I'd suggest any changes to be fairly broad, or easy to remember. Kind of like Pokémon, where you can usually figure out what won't work intuitively. Flying enemies can deal with stomp, the Mass Vitrify wall and whatnot or powers that levitate them, but powers that involve being slammed down (like reckoning) or blown away affect them more because they have nothing to brace themselves against.

5 hours ago, Keylan118 said:

I agree, but the problem with that is how diverse warframe abilities are and how the elemental system works. If you make X that can't be countered by Y tactic, you either invalidate an element or a specific warframe. This would be fine if we started with diversity, so each warframe had their own counters that you would need to deal with using weapons. Unfortunately, abilities are not reliable enough without Zenurik for that, and Zenurik is already the meta. Additionally, there'd be tons of outcry for the first warframe (or frames) to get countered. It might help if DE explained the plan before doing it, but people would still be outraged.

It needn't work with the elemental system - I'd think it could be done more on a case-by-case basis. That'd avoid certain frames being invalidated by damage resistances. An example is something like Mesa's Peacemaker having its attention drawn by Shield Lancer shields, and its bullets blocked. This creates a weakness that prevents it from being universally effective (at least against Grineer), but since Shield Lancers can be dealt with fairly easily. That way, Grineer have a proper defence against Mesa, but she's not completely screwed. That wouldn't be all I'd do with her (I'd lean more in on her vulnerability to Melee enemies as well) but you get the idea.

As implied above, I think something that could also help are enemy weaknesses - some enemies get more harshly affected by certain powers, or get added effects. These would probably be relegated to powers that are considered 'weaker' by default, or powers that would be rendered as such by this change or even to create synergies. For example - I'd give Volt and Saryn a weakness to Corpus via Moas and other robots. Saryn's spores spread less well across Moas and deal less damage to them and Volt's discharge is grounded by them (and their corpses), protecting nearby crewmen whilst more heavily damaging the Moas. But this means that they synergise - Volt is an excellent Moa killer whereas Saryn is good at killing Crewmen.

Edited June 4, 2019 by Loza03
What Mesa/Saryn mixup I see no mixup.

[DeadVoid118]

48 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

It needn't work with the elemental system - I'd think it could be done more on a case-by-case basis. That'd avoid certain frames being invalidated by damage resistances. An example is something like Mesa's Peacemaker having its attention drawn by Shield Lancer shields, and its bullets blocked. This creates a weakness that prevents it from being universally effective (at least against Grineer), but since Shield Lancers can be dealt with fairly easily. That way, Grineer have a proper defence against Mesa, but she's not completely screwed. That wouldn't be all I'd do with her (I'd lean more in on her vulnerability to Melee enemies as well) but you get the idea.

As implied above, I think something that could also help are enemy weaknesses - some enemies get more harshly affected by certain powers, or get added effects. These would probably be relegated to powers that are considered 'weaker' by default, or powers that would be rendered as such by this change or even to create synergies. For example - I'd give Volt and Mesa a weakness to Corpus via Moas and other robots. Mesa's spores spread less well across Moas and deal less damage to them and Volt's discharge is grounded by them (and their corpses), protecting nearby crewmen whilst more heavily damaging the Moas. But this means that they synergise - Volt is an excellent Moa killer whereas Saryn is good at killing Crewmen.

First off, I didn't know Mesa had Saryn's spore ability /s

Secondly, I kind of agree with this, but I kind of don't. It still doesn't fix the issue that they're going to have to pick a frame/faction to do first, which means some people are going to be unhappy that their favorite frame got a nerf. You proposed exactly what I was speaking of, and I didn't really mean to say that the elemental system was the only way to do things. Additionally, the game simply spawns too many enemies to handle if we want to make them more intelligent/interesting. Their spawn rates would have to be toned down (without nerfing rewards) to keep things from getting hectic.

[Pooroldude]

I think enemy diversity is sufficient and the issue is the scope of the diversity. 

Units should be spawned in a group and have eximus leaders that perhaps have different influence on their units. Perhaps a leech eximus grants leech to his squad, fire eximus using flamehrower units and other flavorful combinations.

I think it's the most valid next step in meaningful challenge but not overtly complicated change.

[Loza03]

1 minute ago, Keylan118 said:

First off, I didn't know Mesa had Saryn's spore ability /s

What no  no mistakes here what  are you talking about /s

14 minutes ago, Keylan118 said:

Secondly, I kind of agree with this, but I kind of don't. It still doesn't fix the issue that they're going to have to pick a frame/faction to do first, which means some people are going to be unhappy that their favorite frame got a nerf. You proposed exactly what I was speaking of, and I didn't really mean to say that the elemental system was the only way to do things. Additionally, the game simply spawns too many enemies to handle if we want to make them more intelligent/interesting. Their spawn rates would have to be toned down (without nerfing rewards) to keep things from getting hectic.

I suppose so.

At the end of the day though, I think it's a leap worth taking. Warframe could really do with a revamp to its combat loop, and in my mind, the best place to start is to start trying to make the game a bit more balanced overall.

[EmberStar]

11 hours ago, Walkampf said:

Well, mechanical diversity is being shot down but other parts of the community pretty hard.

Just seach for Arbitration Drones or Nullifiers and look at how many people still complain about those instead of figuring out how to beat the new enemies.

That's because Arbitration Drones and Nullifiers are not mechanically diverse.  Their entire function is "You know those space magic powers that set Warframe apart from any other shooter?  Yeah, you can't use those.  Because reasons."  And the drones top that by negating weapons too until you snipe the tiny skittering drones (and then again by exploding so hard that they normally kill everything linked to them.)  People know HOW to fight nullifiers and arbitration drones.  It's just not even slightly *fun* or *interesting* to do so.  Especially when their major gimmick boils down to "Yeah, that Warframe you spent weeks grinding because you liked the look or powers?  Sucks to be you, you may as well be a Grineer with a big stick."

[844448]

You want this?

 

[Troopsie]

The main problem imo, is that we are way too OP for the game. We just continue on gaining more power, to the point where mobs can't really do much unless they're high of a level. What I want to see is that the enemy factions to be stronger, not being determined by level (Higher they are, the stronger they are). We are just running around gunning down enemies like it's nothing. 

[WindigoTG]

 

14 hours ago, S.Dust said:

Do you guys think warframe has a diverse cast of enemies

I don't remember seeing a black grineer, or a trans crewma'am, or a gay infested.

So diversity still has a looooooooooooooooooong road to go here.

Edited June 5, 2019 by WindigoTG

[0_The_F00l]

I had made a similar post with regards to enemy variety. 

I do believe the problem is the AI being too predictable (when I can headshot 5 enemies walking in a line I know they need more brains), 

Good cover, fire and movement actions would be my very first suggestion. The elite lances do not deserve their title, they are probably the most killed units in the game. 

The only enemies I keep notice of :

Bombard - tanks that do aoe knockdown damage

Nullifiers - a real pain, 

Scorpions - whips were maybe one of the interesting/annoying mechanics in an enemy. 

Commander - teleport you in the middle of a cluster fug while you are disoriented. 

Ancients - annoying and need a quick check of what kind they are. 

Eximus - only the parasitic/energy leech take my attention. Others are just more spongy enemies even with all their special abilities. 

Everything else is just a corpse waiting to happen.