Infested "horror" buff (by horror, I mostly mean *difficulty)

[Maka.Bones]

Edit: I'm not looking for them to be the ultimate "endgame" enemy, but the infested scared the orokin, the dax, the corpus, and the grineer... Not just normal people.

The infested faction felt scary when I started playing--even though it also felt fun to smash them when I fought a horde. It reminded me of the savagely intimidating "flood" from the first Halo game. But after reaching "endgame" or becoming more proficient with my gear/warframes/builds, the infested faction now feels like the weakest faction in the game. Whenever we have any missions with infestation, it's a breath of fresh air. Currently the corpus feel like the strongest, most intimidating faction, mainly thanks to their many stagger, freeze,nullifying effects, and their many versatile tanky robots. Don't get me wrong, I love the new corpus enemies (but i have absolute hate for the spammification of nullifying bubbles) but the infested don't currently feel anywhere near as intimidating as the game lore would suggest. 

I believe it would add to the game experience, if you made the infestation feel like a more serious threat than it currently does. Halo's "flood" weren't nearly as versatile as the infestation in warframe. They were very basic, and repetitive enemies and yet they were able to make them a staple of a very noticeable & menacing threat by following a very simple formula. 

1) The average Infested flood, were hard to kill-- the only thing harder to kill were the super "elites" or brutes.

2) Even their smallest flood, dealt a good significant amount of damage--Currently they're the weakest damaging faction, easily outpaced by the oneshotting "bombards" or "corrupted corpus crewmen" (the ones with the shotgun, that are also squishy AF) or really, almost any other enemy does more damage than the infestation

3) If they explode near you, they hurt--similar to the ghouls you guys created... Tbh, the ghouls remind me more of the flood, than the infested, when it comes to "scare" or "brute strength" factors

4) They always appeared in waves of hordes (I think you guys are currently doing a good job with this one... except in maps where the infested are just ALWAYS spawning)

5) The lights were usually dark, or flickering. Everything was eerily abandoned, and whenever you saw them fight an enemy faction the flood was almost guaranteed to win (you guys already do the lighting pretty well on some maps)

Whether you do this by dimming the lights in infested maps, or making the light seem more black & white whenever special enemies appear, or make some infested enemies take temporary control over our warframes, or introduce new special infected enemies.... or just buff their stats at higher levels, I think this would make the infested more exciting to fight.

Also, please remove nerf the spam hook" mechanic from the ancients... Just make them harder to kill, and make them hit harder with their tendrils. I want to see  something akin to a spawn of c'thulu sucking the life-force from my warframe, or flaying my warframe/allies, and any other enemy factions.  (the only reason i'm using c'thulu for example, is because that's what the ancients remind me of)

And nerf/remove the parasitic eximus units. That's one really annoying mechanic, which we have little strategy to defend ourselves against.

- A special identifying marker for them would be helpful, or if they also dropped energy orbs after stealing our energy. 

- require them to have LoS, to drain our energy...or..  JUST ATTACK US WITH HENTAI TENDRILS OF DEATH

Edited July 10, 2019 by Maka.Bones

[MJ12]

The game lore suggests Infested are intimidating for normal people, sure. But Tenno aren't normal people, or even Master Chief. They have better mobility, better melee attacks, better weapons, better survivability, and void powers. Tenno are explicitly immune to infestation, which is the thing that concerns everyone else. That's basically DE telling you to your face that the Infested aren't supposed to be any scarier for Tenno than anyone else.

But Tenno are deliberately out of scale compared to the vast majority of enemies, and this disparity is pretty clearly deliberate if you look at the Warframe trailers, where Tenno basically are shown to annihilate masses of enemies with zero difficulty. Fundamentally, the core of "horror" is disempowerment. This goes against the idea of Warframe as a horde shooter. You're not supposed to be running away from the enemy. You're not really supposed to be intimidated by them. This works well because it means when you deal with enemies who are intimidating, it sells those enemies as really badass.

But it also means that you can't have a faction whose very role is to scare you whenever it shows up. The Infested have some horror aesthetics, but that doesn't mean that DE should "buff" the Infested to make them horror antagonists.

[Maka.Bones]

The lore doesn't say they're intimidating for normal people. It says they took over orokin bases. Super-demi human beings, genetically modified and enhanced beyond the scope of human capacity.  They're far from "normal people". 

The infestation was a last-resort desperate weapon that the orokin created, and ended up going out of their control. The orokin were the peak of all powers, and we're super-genetically enhanced immortals. You saw how Ballas was in the quest? Imagine worse than that. 

 

The infestation caused those people trouble. So yes, they're supposed to be able to overpower "old" warframes. They should be well above our capacity to combat. 

 

When I say horror, I'm not only speaking of aesthetics. I'm saying that they should be something we're even scared to confront. 

Edited June 27, 2019 by Maka.Bones

[(PSN)AyinDygra]

Spoilers
 

Spoiler

 

From the gist of the lore that I've encountered so far, including things the operator has said, the infestation is like a messy problem that the Tenno were sent in to mop up once in a while - routine missions, after the old war, but before the Orokin were taken out. And for all intents and purposes, the Tenno did wipe it out of the Origin System.

Only recently, after however many centuries passed while the Tenno were in cryosleep, have we seen the danger of the Ancients (mainly gaining power through survival this long) and the arrival of Lephantis and the Jordas Golem thing... and the infestation starting to talk to us during the Infested Salvage mission/invasions. Apparently, from early quests, as far as I recall, even the infestation's re-emergence as a threat in the Origin system only really became a thing again after the Grineer stumbled on a pocket of it on a derelict ship somewhere (possibly the same one Konzu's uncle was on?)

There is certainly room for stronger infestation units (Behemoths - who do get a proper dangerous introduction, Phorids, Lephantis, Jordas), but they're more of an infection that we have to keep wiping out like the good white blood cells we are.

The next Nightwave series is supposed to involve the infested and some sort of "Emmisary" that may be a messenger from the Infested. We may see new infested power from that, and likely an infested open world at some point down the line (they didn't want their big Tennocon news for 3 years in a row to be open world announcements, but we all know one is coming at some point, maybe after the Orokin-like Plains of Duviri, or the infested occupants of said plains.)

 

I do not claim to be an expert on Warframe lore at this point, but that's my impression of the infested as presented in the game.

 

 

[MJ12]

5 minutes ago, Maka.Bones said:

The lore doesn't say there intimidating for normal people. 

The infestation was a last-resort desperate weapon that the orokin created, and ended up going out of their control. 

The orokin were the peak of all powers, and we're super-genetically enhanced immortals. You saw how Ballas was in the quest?

No, the lore says that the Infestation is intimidating for normal people. The lore never implies that they're somehow some fearsome superweapon that the Tenno should be scared of, and in fact the lore says that the Infestation are scared of Tenno. Let me repeat that. The infested are scared of you, not the other way around.

Quote

The infestation caused those people trouble. So yes, they're supposed to be able to overpower "old" warframes

The militarized Grineer also caused "those people trouble" and were a last-resort desperate weapon that the orokin created, and ended up going out of their control. So why do the infested, who are explicitly more scared of Tenno and Warframes than the Grineer are, be given a "horror buff?"

Edited June 27, 2019 by MJ12

[Maka.Bones]

1 minute ago, (PS4)AyinDygra said:

Spoilers
 

  Hide contents

 

From the gist of the lore that I've encountered so far, including things the operator has said, the infestation is like a messy problem that the Tenno were sent in to mop up once in a while - routine missions, after the old war, but before the Orokin were taken out. And for all intents and purposes, the Tenno did wipe it out of the Origin System.

Only recently, after however many centuries passed while the Tenno were in cryosleep, have we seen the danger of the Ancients (mainly gaining power through survival this long) and the arrival of Lephantis and the Jordas Golem thing... and the infestation starting to talk to us during the Infested Salvage mission/invasions. Apparently, from early quests, as far as I recall, even the infestation's re-emergence as a threat in the Origin system only really became a thing again after the Grineer stumbled on a pocket of it on a derelict ship somewhere (possibly the same one Konzu's uncle was on?)

There is certainly room for stronger infestation units (Behemoths - who do get a proper dangerous introduction, Phorids, Lephantis, Jordas), but they're more of an infection that we have to keep wiping out like the good white blood cells we are.

The next Nightwave series is supposed to involve the infested and some sort of "Emmisary" that may be a messenger from the Infested. We may see new infested power from that, and likely an infested open world at some point down the line (they didn't want their big Tennocon news for 3 years in a row to be open world announcements, but we all know one is coming at some point, maybe after the Orokin-like Plains of Duviri, or the infested occupants of said plains.)

 

I do not claim to be an expert on Warframe lore at this point, but that's my impression of the infested as presented in the game.

 

 

I would be very satisfied by that... I still want them to be something that can wreck out ASSets though. 

[Maka.Bones]

1 minute ago, MJ12 said:

The infested are scared of you, not the other way around.

There's a lore reason for this, which I'm not going to go into. 

 

But no, it doesn't only limit it to "only normal people. The orokin were definitely scared of them 

[MJ12]

Just now, Maka.Bones said:

There's a lore reason for this, which I'm not going to go into. 

Yes, the lore reason is that Tenno are way better than Infested and should be carving through them like a hot knife through butter, because they're not only far superior in combat capability, they're also completely immune to infestation.

Just now, Maka.Bones said:

But no, it doesn't only limit it to "only normal people. The orokin were definitely scared of them 

The Orokin weren't immune to Infested infestation. The orokin being scared of being infested, and hoping that the Infestation could somehow corrupt the Sentient, doesn't mean that Infested thralls should be 'scary' to things which are explicitly immune to the reason the Infested are scary in the first place.

[Maka.Bones]

4 minutes ago, MJ12 said:

The militarized Grineer also caused "those people trouble" and were a last-resort desperate weapon that the orokin created, and ended up going out of their control. So why do the infested, who are explicitly more scared of Tenno and Warframes than the Grineer are, be given a "horror buff?"

The grineer are already a pain in the ass; that's why they don't need a buff. They're also not evolved creatures of horror... They're just deformed due to overcloning. Meanwhile the infestation is just a joke, When they used to be the system's biggest threat.

The grineer are de-evolving, from years of mass cloning. So no they shouldn't be one of the stronger factions. It would make more sense for them to be the weakest ones. 

[Maka.Bones]

15 minutes ago, MJ12 said:

Yes, the lore reason is that Tenno are way better than Infested and should be carving through them like a hot knife through butter, because they're not only far superior in combat capability, they're also completely immune to infestation.

The Orokin weren't immune to Infested infestation. The orokin being scared of being infested, and hoping that the Infestation could somehow corrupt the Sentient, doesn't mean that Infested thralls should be 'scary' to things which are explicitly immune to the reason the Infested are scary in the first place.

Just because they're "far superior" to some infested creatures, doesn't mean they'll be superior to everything... Or that they should be. 

 

The infestation is constantly evolving; that's the point behind them, and the reason they went out of control. 

Moreso, what's the point of a game, if you're always going to be "vastly superior" to every enemy you fight? That's boring. In mid-lower levels this makes sense, but near the peak of player progression, the infestation should've evolved enough to pose a threat to us. Just because we're bio-mechanically/organically superior to the infestation, doesn't mean they're incapable of simple brute strength. They just need to hit us harder, than we can hit them... That's a basic thing in physics, or game concepts. 

Besides, I'm not sure if I've already said this but they evolve. 

 

P.S. the point of "high tier content" is that it should be challenging, not easy to kill. 

Edit: of course warframes are "superior" in some ways... That's why we'll be able to kill them. I'm just saying that they we should have a better indication as to why they used to be such a huge threat, and a clear reminder as to why we need to erradicate them with severe prejudice. Endgame it would make more sense for them to be severely more menacing, and more threatening; They shouldn't be this easy to kill. 

Mid-game, they're plenty of fun as a horde that's just easy/fun to slay in Mass quantities. 

Edited June 27, 2019 by Maka.Bones

[Ham_Grenabe]

46 minutes ago, MJ12 said:

You're not supposed to be running away from the enemy. You're not really supposed to be intimidated by them. This works well because it means when you deal with enemies who are intimidating, it sells those enemies as really badass.

This may be true, but runs squarely into the problem that there are no truly intimidating enemies. As a result, regardless of lore, there's no real problem with elevating the Infested to that level - there's a job opening, after all. 

(I mean, the Planes of Demerol or whatever the next thing is might be it, but...I kinda doubt that faction will be any more intimidating than the Infested, or the Grineer). 

Edited June 27, 2019 by Ham_Grenabe

[Maka.Bones]

3 minutes ago, Ham_Grenabe said:

This may be true, but runs squarely into the problem that there are no truly intimidating enemies. As a result, regardless of lore, there's no real problem with elevating the Infested to that level - there's a job opening, after all. 

^this... That's basically what "endgame" is supposed to be.  

And it doesn't mean that "there should only be one" badass enemy/faction. They could all be menacing, for different reasons. 

Edited June 27, 2019 by Maka.Bones

[MJ12]

20 minutes ago, Maka.Bones said:

The grineer are already a pain in the ass; that's why they don't need a buff. They're also not evolved creatures of horror... They're just deformed due to overcloning. Meanwhile the infestation is just a joke, When they used to be the system's biggest threat.

The grineer are de-evolving, from years of mass cloning. So no they shouldn't be one of the stronger factions. It would make more sense for them to be the weakest ones. 

Shockingly, the Infestation is the "system's biggest threat" because of its disease-like qualities. It literally needs zero combat effectiveness to be the "system's biggest threat," it just has things to fight because this is Warframe, not Space Hospital Simulator. And the fact is that those things you fight don't actually need buffs because they're not supposed to be horror movie antagonists that Tenno can't fight. This isn't Left 4 Dead (and I'll note that even L4D didn't make zombies 'intimidating' outside of a very small number of specials, it was just that they infinitely respawned and you weren't particularly powerful).

17 minutes ago, Maka.Bones said:

Just because they're "far superior" to some infested creatures, doesn't mean they'll be superior to everything... Or that they should be. 

No, just because they're far superior to the Infested means that they're far superior to the everything the Infested has, kind of by definition.

Quote

The infestation is constantly evolving; that's the point behind them, and the reason they went out of control. 

Moreso, what's the point of a game, if you're always going to be "vastly superior" to every enemy you fight? That's boring. In mid-lower levels this makes sense, but near the peak of player progression, the infestation should've evolved enough to pose a threat to us. Just because we're bio-mechanically/organically superior to the infestation, doesn't mean they're incapable of simple brute strength. They just need to hit us harder, than we can hit them... That's a basic thing in physics

The infestation is "constantly evolving," but that doesn't mean they have no limits to what they can accomplish. You're seeing "these space zombies look awful" and then concluding "they must also be extremely dangerous" for... no particular reason, especially since the lore makes it clear that it's not the Infested's incredibly powerful singular combatants that make them scary. It's the fact that most people in the Warframe universe aren't Tenno, who are both immune to the infestation and ridiculously out of scale with the rest of the universe. And the lore kind of makes that clear. The Infested get driven off by the other factions all the time. In fact, they're the only invasion force which can never take over a node, and the only faction in the game which can never threaten a Tenno relay.

Quote

P.S. the point of "high tier content" is that it should be challenging, not easy to kill. 

Yes, and the Infested raid was challenging because it showed you what the Infested needed to actually fight a team of Tenno on even footing, and it was a massive warship-sized enemy millions of times bigger than any Warframe. In fact, the Infested bosses tend to suggest that . Alad V relies basically entirely on his augmented control collar and is pathetic when he doesn't have it on. Lephantis is literally a thousand times bigger than the Tenno. Jordas Golem is even larger and you can still 1v1 him in the Atlas missions. Meanwhile, everyone else's bosses don't need to be millions of times bigger than a Warframe, probably because the other factions are supposed to be more martially capable than the Infested.

6 minutes ago, Ham_Grenabe said:

This may be true, but runs squarely into the problem that there are no truly intimidating enemies. As a result, regardless of lore, there's no real problem with elevating the Infested to that level - there's a job opening, after all. 

Hunhow? The Orbs? Hell, even the Eidolons are sold as pretty dangerous given their towering size, visual spectacle, and the storytelling around them. Yes, you end up farming them eventually in the endgame but that's literally how MMOs go. Your bosses start off intimidating but then you have to kill them again and again and they lose their luster. The Infested, as the only faction that's explicitly scared of the Tenno on a basic level, probably have the absolute least claim to be the "truly intimidating enemies" of Warframe.

And even if the Infested are given some powerful bosses, that doesn't mean the faction itself should be 'scary.'

Edited June 27, 2019 by MJ12

[Ham_Grenabe]

 

Just now, Maka.Bones said:

^this... That's basically what "endgame" is supposed to be.  

And it doesn't mean that "there should only be one" badass enemy/faction. 

Absolutel. Frankly, there should be no trivial missions, no trivial fights, and that does not mean "enemies with infinite HP that can one-shot you." However, Warframe labors under two burdens: one, it's a game of farming, and if there are no trivial missions or fights, there's no farming. Two, they've been painting themselves into a corner forever on this, to the point where I think a new game is better than trying to overturn this one. 

[Maka.Bones]

1 minute ago, MJ12 said:

And even if the Infested are given some powerful bosses, that doesn't mean the faction itself should be 'scary.'

I'm not only talking about powerful bosses. I'm talking about powerful normal mobs, in less quantities. 

And why exactly shouldn't they be? Give us a good reason. 

[Maka.Bones]

4 minutes ago, Ham_Grenabe said:

 

Absolutel. Frankly, there should be no trivial missions, no trivial fights, and that does not mean "enemies with infinite HP that can one-shot you." However, Warframe labors under two burdens: one, it's a game of farming, and if there are no trivial missions or fights, there's no farming. Two, they've been painting themselves into a corner forever on this, to the point where I think a new game is better than trying to overturn this one. 

I'm fine with the "hordes" gameplay, or the farming. But they could also introduce new "high level missions" that are less about hordes, and more about careful gameplay choices. 

 

Fewer enemies, with more impact, and more consequences. (For high-tier/high level content)

Edited June 27, 2019 by Maka.Bones

[MJ12]

5 minutes ago, Maka.Bones said:

I'm not only talking about powerful bosses. I'm talking about powerful normal mobs, in less quantities. 

And why exactly shouldn't they be? Give us a good reason. 

The Infested are the horde faction, beyond every other faction. This is why their primary unique mechanic isn't durable anchors (the Grineer with Noxes, Bombards, Heavy Gunners) or complex combined-arms forces (the Corpus with support Ospreys, Nullifiers, and a variety of units with various different mechanics), but in-field enemy spawning and low-end, expendable hordes that wear you down. Almost all their ranged attacks exist entirely to slow down and harry their enemies so they can be swarmed under by said hordes. 

"Powerful normal mobs, in less quantities" is literally anathema to the Infested aesthetic and theme. If you want the Infested to be more difficult, they should just... spawn more enemies to kill.

The only faction which should have (and does have) "powerful normal mobs, in less quantities" is the Sentient (and to a lesser degree Corpus Amalgams), where literally every enemy they have is tough, adaptable, and heavily defended.

Edited June 27, 2019 by MJ12

[Ham_Grenabe]

18 hours ago, MJ12 said:

Hunhow? The Orbs?

I think we have a difference of perspective on what "intimidating" means. Lore-only badasses don't count (I don't even know who the Orbs are), but even boss fights don't count because there are no substantial penalties for failure. Loss of time, mostly (the most substantial penalty for a farming game, I suppose). 

Edit: Duh. After nearly a day, I realized that "orbs" means "Profit Taker" and "Exploiter." I always think of them as the "spiders." 

Edited June 28, 2019 by Ham_Grenabe

[Xzorn]

I do miss the old Infested. The dark atmosphere the game had in general worked really well for them.

The infested used to have more weird unnatural sound effects as well.

I can share one of my fondest memories of Warframe that involved the infested. It was back in 2013. To put in perspective this was during Damage 1.0 when enemies did not take much damage unless you hit their weak points. Chargers on the bottom of their chest, Runners the head, Ancients the head.

I was running through an Infested map with my fully maxed MK-1 Braton (Yea it was a beast back then thanks to 40 accuracy). I came across infested chargers and runners firing controlled shots into the weak points of each as they approached. More started to run at me from behind those as I began to back peddle keeping my controlled aim. Suddenly I hear a roar and a sickly green light in the darkness ahead of me. It was a Toxic Ancient and it was charging me. I put round after round into it's head but it wasn't dropping quick enough. It's Infested allies charging right beside it. I lose control fully back peddling and spraying bullets in panic trying to stop the onslaught of ghoulish creatures.

This was that horrid creature I saw that day.

Some players made clips to show the differences over the past.

You'll notice a near absence of Ancients because they were super units back then. Something to be feared.

Spoiler

 

 

[Maka.Bones]

I'm not saying that the infested should be "the endgame enemy" or should adopt a "classic horror" aesthetic. The old "scary and intimidating" feel they had, already works amazingly. 

 

But either wipe them out from endgame content already, or make them significantly more threatening, and scary to fight if they're still going to exist in higher-lvl content. 

Edit: if we've been trying to wipe out the infestation from the system, then the remaining infested would be forced to rapidly evolve in order to survive. And since their mass-pleriferation tactic hasn't been effective, the next strategy for survival would be to super-enhance/super-evolve whatever infestation strands are left. This would result in less enemies, with more impact... Tankier, harder to kill, harder hitting "regular enemies" but no longer with the same mass amount of hordes we used to see. 

Edited June 27, 2019 by Maka.Bones

[Maka.Bones]

2 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

I do miss the old Infested. The dark atmosphere the game had in general worked really well for them.

The infested used to have more weird unnatural sound effects as well.

I can share one of my fondest memories of Warframe that involved the infested. It was back in 2013. To put in perspective this was during Damage 1.0 when enemies did not take much damage unless you hit their weak points. Chargers on the bottom of their chest, Runners the head, Ancients the head.

I was running through an Infested map with my fully maxed MK-1 Braton (Yea it was a beast back then thanks to 40 accuracy). I came across infested chargers and runners firing controlled shots into the weak points of each as they approached. More started to run at me from behind those as I began to back peddle keeping my controlled aim. Suddenly I hear a roar and a sickly green light in the darkness ahead of me. It was a Toxic Ancient and it was charging me. I put round after round into it's head but it wasn't dropping quick enough. It's Infested allies charging right beside it. I lose control fully back peddling and spraying bullets in panic trying to stop the onslaught of ghoulish creatures.

This was that horrid creature I saw that day.

Some players made clips to show the differences over the past.

You'll notice a near absence of Ancients because they were super units back then. Something to be feared.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

^I don't need to say anymore. 

[Alkhan797]

Other chimeras than Ballas would be nice too. Horror in daylight is pretty good, because it's inescapable

[MJ12]

2 hours ago, Maka.Bones said:

I'm not saying that the infested should be "the endgame enemy" or should adopt a "classic horror" aesthetic. The old "scary and intimidating" feel they had, already works amazingly. 

 

But either wipe them out from endgame content already, or make them significantly more threatening, and scary to fight if they're still going to exist in higher-lvl content. 

Edit: if we've been trying to wipe out the infestation from the system, then the remaining infested would be forced to rapidly evolve in order to survive. And since their mass-pleriferation tactic hasn't been effective, the next strategy for survival would be to super-enhance/super-evolve whatever infestation strands are left. This would result in less enemies, with more impact... Tankier, harder to kill, harder hitting "regular enemies" but no longer with the same mass amount of hordes we used to see. 

The Infested 'feel' came from incredibly crappy lighting that made the game unfun, plus Warframes being limited in their mobility and how people had either totally random mods or very limited access to mods (because Mods 2.0 dropped around then) and thus huge power variances. And it was ruined the moment you used verticality at all because standing on a crate made you invincible to the "scary and intimidating" Infested. Who were annoying because of their crappy maps and crappy enemy design, but hardly 'intimidating' or 'scary.' The Infested are in actuality more dangerous than they have ever been now. People just don't notice because Warframe has transitioned into a horde shooter and therefore Warframes are more powerful and agile, relatively speaking, than they were in 2013 and the game has gotten more unique and overall better for it.

Why should Infested be "scary to fight" if they exist in higher-level content? They gain the same benefits of higher levels that any other faction does-more access to Eximi, higher health and resilience, increased heavy unit spawns. They don't need super secret sauce special buffs simply because they look like space zombies, and it's actually kind of refreshing that Warframe treats a space zombie infestation as a curable, quarantinable disease which happens to have some really awful symptoms, rather than some kind of unstoppable apocalypse. Not every zombie faction has to be a zombie apocalypse. This isn't a PvP RTS, the factions don't have to be balanced to be equally powerful.

 

[Maka.Bones]

2 hours ago, MJ12 said:

~~Snip~~

It just sounds like you disagree with me, and that's fine. I brought up my suggestions because many people complain about lack of challenge, and lack of end-game content... so clearly this game needs something more than just "hordes" missions, when it comes to higher-level content. There's nothing wrong with making content more challenging, as you progress deeper into the game; it's kind of the point of a game (progression and challenge, keep it fun and engaging.. too much of the same thing becomes boring). 

But as far as your take on infested, you're mistaken if you see/treat them as zombies (or if you think that's how I see them). They're a hive-minded micro-organism, that takes over the host body and mutates it--an orokin biological weapon. I'm just going to answer you with in-game lore: 

 TLDR: The infestation has always been meant to be scary, and a force to be reckoned with since the start of the game. The orokin weren't simply scared because they could get infected; they were overpowered. Even their elite "Dax" soldiers became overpowered--and if you've completed "the war within" you'd know that the Dax soldier you fought, could've easily kicked your ass... they're no joke. You can see for yourself below; it's not something that's up for debate or interpretation. My suggestions were just based on in-game descriptions & lore of the infestation.

Spoiler

 

 

Edited June 28, 2019 by Maka.Bones

[Xzorn]

Limited movement did play a large role in what made the Infested formidable.

After all, at the time they were the only "horde" faction and all of them were melee hence you could be overrun.

Besides limitations of the AI and game code at the time the Infested were the 2nd most difficult faction after Grineer who were just aim bots with their hit-scan weapons. Corpus were the most fair in design with projectile based weaponry you could avoid with movement. Parkour 2.0 is what ultimately killed the Infested.

The only thing that makes Infested hard is far beyond the levels most people play and it's due to a change DE made with Energy Drain + Invulnerability in one of their attempts to nerf Valkyr's Hysteria. Ancient Disruptors around lvl 250 will one-shot your energy pool. That's it. That's the only thing that makes them dangerous. All I used to do was lvl 300+ Solo runs and when it comes to Infested there are two outcomes. Either your energy gets one-shot by a hook or you're still killing them past lvl 400.

It comes down to that one enemy unit cheap shot or not. Besides Osprey in Excavation; the rest of the faction is a joke.

...Personally I see the Infested as Dead Space + Starship Troopers and just like the movies Alien & Aliens we can have the same creature produce two vastly different feelings in the player just by changing the pace and setting a little.

Edited June 28, 2019 by Xzorn