What we can have for difficulty?

[TheKazz91]

Alright there is a lot I want to cover with this sorry if this goes on a bit long. 

So you brought up a bunch of different options about potential solutions that DE has tried in various ways to try to deliver more challenging content and basically said they are all sh** but what I think it is very important to understand why they are sh**. This comes down to difference between "challenging" and "oppressive" difficulty design or as someone else mentioned "pure difficulty vs FAIR difficulty". So first lets focus on what NOT to do when trying to design difficult game play. For this I like to think there are basically 5 deadly sins that will push your game play toward oppressive and away from challenging.

5 Deadly Sins of Game Play Design

1. Removing player agency and/or choice.
2. Isolating mechanics and removing interactions between it and the rest of the game system.
3. Creating unsolvable problems or obstacles which have no counter.
4. Creating problems which do not require a solution that deviates from the norm.
5. Adding unnecessary time and/or tedium to mundane tasks.

So with those in mind lets analyze the "common solutions" 

On 2019-09-29 at 8:14 AM, Kaotyke said:

Enemies with a Sh*BLEEP*ton of health would be the dreaded bullet sponges. Sin 4 & 5

Enemies that can CC you around are annoying. Sin 1

Enemies that disrupt your powers are cheesy. Sin 1

Enemies that can OHK you are dairy products. Sin 3

Enemies that are too mobile are a nuisense. OKAY * borderline Sin 4

Enemies that have invincibility phases are spoiled milk. Sin 3 & 5

Enemies with weakspots are aiming tests. GOOD **

Enemies that ignore powers are fake difficulty. Sin 1 & 2

*: As long as it actually feels like movement and not like Lag cuz the host is playing on a potato AKA the guys that teleport around the Index or manics which randomly teleport every 3 seconds. The Hyena pack is actually a half decent example of mobility = difficulty though it has other issues. 

**: The problem Warframe has with weak spots and aim tests is that they are almost always combined with invincibility such as with Kril, Ruk, and Hek. Their weakpoints can't always be targeted and they are so small and obscured that even when they are able to be hit their unpredictable and erratic movement and animations often make it impossible to hit unless you are at a perfect angle which is basically random chance if you're in the right place at the right time. Eidolons and Exploiter both have weak points and nobody complains about them because they don't have the same issues as weakpoints on Kril, Ruk, and Hek.

Now lets look at some of your other suggestions in the OP.

On 2019-09-29 at 8:14 AM, Kaotyke said:

Enemy level is drastically increased (begin at 300 on EARTH), but their damage is capped. This means certian enemies on Earth will ALWAYS deal, say: 30 damage to you. Enemies on venus will deal 35, on Pluto is 70... You catch my drift. BUT they also deals a small % of your HP as damage as well, like... 1% for fast firing enemies and 10-20% to the likes of Bombards and snipers and melee enemies. I'd give this a C-. I think it would be far better to introduce fewer nodes that are scaled much higher than standard nodes but do not unlock until after you've completed the star chart just like Arbitrations. These new nodes could also have cycling or even random mission types or maybe always be endless but string together multiple mission types together for example starting with a spy then once complete Lotus or who ever says "that data vault gave us information that what's his face is going to attack so and so! We can extract now or we can strike now against the assault force" then you can either extract or move to a different part of the map potentially even a new map kinda like data conduits in ESO and do an exterminate mission, rinse repeat. 

The reason I don't like toggling a "hard mode" is that it fractures the player base and could have negative impacts on match making Halo 3 and 360 era CoD games with map pack DLC are a good example of why you do not want to segment your player base. 

All abilities of CC have diminishing returns, with a cap of lasting 70% less, enemies have Ability damage resitence of 90%. YES! Solid A. I have no idea why every game doesn't have this but also diminishing returns for CC should also effect players (addressing a core part of Sin 1 that Warframe can struggle with at times) World of Warcraft implemented diminishing returns on CC like 10 years ago for a reason and it was probably one of the best changes they've ever made. 

Status is resisted, enemies with shields wont get proc'd by status unless the shields are depleted first, toxin doesnt by-pass the shields. Gonna go a B on this one. Though I do like the idea of status resistance and even status immunity I am not sure it should be tied to shields as that solves at best 1/3 of the problem but I have my own idea on how this could be a more general solution I'll get to later.

Certian Melee enemies will rush you while pulsing a Nullifer Disruption field like the Demolishers to get rid of your pesky Iron Skin, Instead of Explosive granades, the grandes will do Nulifier pulses after detonating. Doing no damage, but also getting rid of your pesky Link and Blessing Combo, those granades and enemies will ALSO reset your Adaptation, so keep your ass moving. Another A. I love the idea of adding difficulty by simply adding more enemy variation and forcing you to prioritize and focus target. This is something else I'll get in and address with my ideas of adding mini bosses to high level missions. Also the nullifier grenades would be great IF they  are something that is easily visible and can be avoided as to make sure it isn't committing Sin 3 by being unavoidable. You also mention resetting adaptation but I'd also extend that to include enemies that act as the inverse of adaptation meaning the more they attack and hit you the more damage you take from their attacks as a stacking debuff. 

Snipers will have a rough idea on where your Invisible Warframe is and shoot that place. They will have less 50% Accuracy, but you will need to keep your ass moving. F: Sin 1 & 2. This is just hamstringing stealth frames by removing the standard interaction that their ability has with enemy attacks. these frames also rely on stealth as a means of survival and this basically removes them from the list of viable options for this content as their survival is basically a coin flip any time one of these enemies shows up. Now I would not be opposed to a special enemy types which are easily identifiable that are able to detect stealth frames and mark them that then allows other enemies to attack those frames while they are in stealth assuming this is is properly conveyed to that player to let them know they are about to be revealed which gives them a second or two to react to that again difficulty through variety is good and this also makes it seem like enemies are actual half intelligent beings that can work together. 

Headshot multiplier is 2,5x instead of 2x. Umm... meh? why? does seem like that is significant and as mentioned before weak points aren't a bad thing.

Corrosive proc is now temporary: lasting 5 seconds. B on this one. I do like the idea of regenerating armor but realistically not sure it really maters if you are shooting at something long enough to strip a significant amount of armor off chances are it's already dead well before that would have regenerated anyway so Not sure how big of an effect this would actually have. So it's good but not a great solution. 

Power that strip Armor last longer: 10s, but they restore armor after that time. Same as above ^

Corrosive Projection is 1/4 as effective. B on this as well. In a vacuum with no other changes I would actually rate this lower as it is currently the only solution to an otherwise unsolvable problem so its at best trading Sin 1 for Sin 3 however I am going to go over some ideas later that would couple with this quite nicely IMO. 

Covert Lethality now deals 50% of enemy HP instead of fatal. C on this. Personally I think it would actually be better if there was a cool down on it instead so that lets say it would only deal lethal damage to an enemy once every 10 seconds and you must be channeling to trigger the effect this limits its finisher spam potential and forces you to pick and choose your targets wisely. I also think having more enemy types which are immune to finishers such as the mini boss type enemies I mention above would be good.     

Mods and powers that deal % enemy HP as damage are now capped at 50;5 at most. Not sure how many abilities do % damage? seems like a individual balance issue with those abilities/mods not a general difficulty thing

Magus Lockdown doesnt tether enemies so they can get out of the radius if they move. Max number of 1 mine per enemy so no spamming. Trying to use it again will make the enemy shrug it off and take no damage. Same as Magus Overload. Same as above ^ specific balance issue not general gameplay

Enemy numbers are DRASTICALLY decreased*. D not sure how this makes the game more challenging I think the overall numbers can stay the same if not be slightly increased. Though as I've mentioned a few times now it would be cool to see a small number of mini boss style enemies which are actual credible threats that force you prioritize them so it feels more like a small number of enemies and their horde of minions rather than just a horde of minions with no leader or particular rhyme or reason for doing half of the things they do.

Alright I am going to take a minute to respond to some other points that have been brought up so far before I dive into my own suggestions. 

On 2019-09-29 at 9:27 AM, CarrotSalad said:

I thought hard mode is nightmare missions.

Nightmare missions are crap and every modifier has an easy and obvious counter they are hard for the first 40 hours of the game before you have options that let you deal with every modifier like it wasn't even there.

 @SutomuDrgn Nailed good job you get a gold star: ⭐

On 2019-09-29 at 5:22 PM, Miyabi-sama said:

Dude, just play long endurance survivals. Challenge yourself. In the end of the day many players would like to test their strength even without a meaningful reward.

^ this is a trash garbage argument I got a life homie, I got stuff to do other than play Warframe... Ok that's a lie but some people do and they shouldn't be forced to sit around with their thumb up their you-know-what for 3 hours before they are allowed to have fun.  

And if you implement separate hard gamemode with more/better rewards then everyone will be playing this aside of people who haven't took a bait and playing with their own pace. And there will be someone who will say "ooh this is so hard, i can't make it but I want the reward, DE fixitplz".

^ I actually kinda agree with this which I addressed above about not segregating your play.er base

Look at the Conclave. It is already good several years separate gamemode, but people still cherish a though of getting those damn exclusive skins. Without actually getting good and earning it. I literally stopped reading this line after the C-word. Just No!

@Arcira You also get a gold star: ⭐

On 2019-09-30 at 4:42 PM, DeMonkey said:

Have you tried closing your eyes and playing with your toes? 10/10 perfect response.

 

On 2019-10-01 at 3:26 AM, Teridax68 said:

Part of the reason why the problem of difficulty and challenge in Warframe seems intractable is because we often only look at one aspect of it at a time, when in reality the problem is a combination of many different factors. So much this! DE tends to try to balance things in a vacuum which doesn't work if they want to deliver truly satisfying and challenging content they are going to need to start looking at the bigger picture make a plan of what they think the end result should look like and then break it down into smaller bite sided chunks that can be implemented one step at a time in an order that doesn't cause more issues than if fixes during the longer implementation cycle which will result in player backlash which will just sent them back to the drawing board. 

 

On 2019-10-01 at 7:58 AM, Zero-Tres said:

I believe the Eidolons from Plains are a step in the right direction.
We'll call it a half step.

Ok now that I've responded to pretty much every comment on this post and my OCD is satisfied with pretty colors I am going to get into some of my own suggestions which will vary from minor tweaks of existing features to major overhauls of core systems. 

I am going to start in the middle of the scale with something I've already mentioned like half a dozen times in this post and that is: ⭐ VARIETY! ⭐ So I am putting this in the middle of the scale of how hard it is to implement simply because it is just adding things to the game. Specifically new enemy types some of these could just me more fodder type enemies kinda like when nullifiers were added to the game or the new amalgam enemies like they are cool they add a bit of variety though I don't know if they necessarily make things any harder but there is a certain challenge in having to adapt to new enemy types especially if they are for example lobbing nullifying grenades from a big-fk-off grenade launcher. But what I'd really like to see in higher level more endgame style content is more mini-boss style enemies Something that takes the idea of eximius units and turns it up to 11. These could be more mobile deal more damage have more HP but they should be credible threats especially if you are not paying attention to them and they should feel like they are a step above the droves of enemies we slaughter by the thousands. Good example of this is hunters from the Halo series like they are not particularly anything super special but they are certainly a stark contrast to grunts, jackles, and elites that are the norm and they require you to either deal with them or at the very least be aware of them or they are going to kill you that said they don't kill you instantly they are big, noisy, and slow and you can see them coming form a mile away that is what these mini-bosses should be like, obvious, in your face and easy to keep a eye on. 

Next suggestion: Health, armor, and damage type weaknesses and resistances. So most average players don't know this but Warfame not only has a whole bunch of damage types but it also has a whole bunch of health and armor types that each have their own weaknesses and resistances to those many damage types. The reason that most players don't know this is because the weaknesses and resistances are so insignificant that they do not even remotely matter when your average weapon deals enough damage to one shot what ever you happen to point it at several times over in most cases. I would love to see an expansion of this system to include multiple tiers for each health and armor type and ideally adding in different shield types as well which I guess we already sorta have two shield types but sentient shields are kinda their own special unicorn so I don't really count those. But basically this idea boils down to increasing those resistances across the board for higher tiers of those different health and armor types and including things like status and crit chance reduction of those resisted damage types while at the same time making those weaknesses more extreme. Instead of capping those weaknesses and resistances at +/-75% make them go up to resisting 99% if not even completely immune to certain damage types while making them take 1000% more from the damage types they are weak too. This then becomes a knowledge check at higher levels you need to know what health and armor types the enemies you're going to face on that mission will have and take weapons that are modded appropriately to deal with that and actively switch between weapons to make sure you're dealing the right types to the right enemies. Obviously this synergies well with the suggestion above to add a wider variety of enemies as well. 

Next up and still going along with the idea if Mini-boss enemies is unique abilities that are devastating and telegraphed which are either avoidable or have gameplay counters. I mentioned above that One-Hit-KO's commit Sin 3 but that is actually a lie. OHKO's are only a problem when the player isn't given a proper warning or chance to react to those OHKO's which is the case with pretty much any enemy at level 300+ if they hit you then you will die and whether or not they hit you is almost entirely RNG dependent unless you cheese some mechanic that allows you to never be hit. OHKO's are find if they are properly telegraphed and give the player a chance to avoid, prevent, or mitigate that damage. Believe it or not some of these sorts of things do already exist in Warframe a good example is actually the lightning bolts created by the hydrolyst. They have a big green bubble that gradually gets bigger before the lighting strikes and while some frames can take multiple strikes before they go down some will actually just get one shot by these lighting bolts and that is perfectly fine because at that point is was the player's fault they stood in lightning and then they died more enemies need to do this sort of thing and it doesn't just need to be avoidance based another example of this is the Rapololyst when it grabs people on the platform and gives their team mates about 5-6 seconds to stagger it before delivering a OHKO to the target it picked up. Now there are some issues with this grab as it can grab someone immediately after dropping them which is kinda messed up and it doesn't allow the player that is about to be killed to do anything about it if those two things were not an issue it would be fine. But this idea could be expanded to more enemy types that appear in high level missions again going back to those mini-boss enemies. 

For now I am going to call that good though I do have a few more ideas I'd like to share which I'll break out into a different post. 

Edited October 2, 2019 by TheKazz91

[Femuru]

I think i want to add more to the conversation by giving op a general idea of walking towards a good difficulty system as @TheKazz91 excellently explained the do not do of game design. all they had to do was follow literally the most basic concepts of combat in gaming such as aiming, dodging, blocking, timing, awareness, and on some cases would be special interaction. 

aiming - so far we probly made it clear that aiming is a good thing especially when nox is considered a good enemy type by ppl. however it important to note down that nox is given multiple ways that they can be handled by cc, headshot, but they still take some form of dmg on body shots despite reduced dmg, while drones adds in invincibility which ruin the concept and chasing around a tiny unit isnt considered combat compared to an enemy using actual mechanics trying to kill me. even tho physical/appearance designs is usually preference sometimes, but in warframe it can feel off that it actually effect gameplay which they should take into consideration more often.

dodging - now this can go two ways which is both for the player and the enemy. mobile enemies can be borderline a sin because if its handled wrong can be considered a sin because as i said they need clear animations but since there are many bad effects/design cluttering the screen most of the time makes mobility units harder to have a place, if there were a reduced amount of this cluttering with a purposeful to their mechanic then itll work which is why you dont really see ppl complaining about manics but dont really praise them either. giving a enemy with abilities that makes the player required to dodge is also good which is why i personally love the artillery bursa in fortuna but also gives a some what more clear effect of its ability unlike eximus units. 

blocking - many games have a good shield unit and is considered good difficulty most the time because they can be handled multiple ways but still give a incentive challenge because you can use abilities, aim for poking out head, or flank its position. warframes case gives a little lancer with no incentive of really doing any of that for its size, ai, lack of functionality on opposing said warframes kit which pretty much applies to most enemies and why we keep cheesing everything aside from other factors such properly scaling our gear and abuses such as nuking or other cheesy mechanics where we just abuse cuz enemies are too dumb that scale insanely so cheesing is all we know. 

timing - a somewhat example would be ancient healers primarily in higher levels, their aura ability giving a need to use radiation procs to counter this, focus fire this unit, or lock down. timing is about learning when to use the mechanical uses given to you in a sense of urgency however if we go back to the cc topic we see where this enemy is still flawed in some way but could has still done better. other games also have timing systems such as parrying a attack at the right moment to reflect a attack back with depending how big that window is changing the difficulty feel or some games that require alot of rolling creating a small window to make sure they dont get hurt from big attacks.

awareness - ai oh boy is it bad not only do enemy have the slowest reaction timing and shoot as bad as a storm trooper while they do basically useless animations, such as trying to dodge without the real incentive of dodging. enemies in other games are aware of your position and act accordingly whether their job is to rush you, flank you, making formations, avoiding abilities, or be backline dmg but enemies in warframe arent even really aware of anything besides running to their death in which they get dumber against stealth frames which doesnt make for the best design. then there is nothing for the player to be aware of besides spamming buttons which made this droll combat loop.

interaction - is a very special case where this is about refining specific scenarios, mechanics, or clashes. invisibility is op without a doubt but the problem is that op doesnt = good design, there is no real reason to use them (backwards sins) as the same can be said about many stuff in the game such as why should we be a tank besides the factor of just being alot more extra lazy of avoiding bullets opposed to the role of a tank being useful against some system (not bad scaling). tho i still believe armor and scaling needs to be fixed, a good example is creating interaction is ash seeking shuriken that penetrates through broken armor scaling is how you create a good need and urgency for a specific interaction.    

warframe overall even with these is a special cases, they need to understand what are the players kit which they basically shot themselves in the foot with creating too many to really fine tune it out or the joke that ppl say DE doesnt truly play their own game to take a step forward in what is truly needed to challenge the player in warframe very special case. they need to know what can fairly challenge each warframe through good mechanics, what kind of cheeses are we using to fight against it, what is bad design in order to properly change/adjust it accordingly cough* nukes cough*(i hate nerfs but u gotta be realistic u think top tier games is about pressing a singular button a hundred times with no skill to map clear like cookie clicker is good then idk, atleast in other games there are skilled based aoe abilities with several factors to why not a lazy answer like DE idea of slapping on self dmg weapons). although im gonna give abit of a negative attitude here so sorry but i said this in a earlier thread but im pretty sure its too late for feedback, to improve the game design, to fix all the rough edges because DE is so set on releases that basically no one asked for in order to make cash and we get it u need cash but chasing it is how many companies fall when all you had to do was refine your game with a clear intent of making your creation in the best form it can be and ppl will follow. enemy design/difficulty alone is already a big topic to truly tackle, dissect, and implement but this is only 1 of several issues within the game that all can be just as a complex topic since even every special enemy mentioned currently feel as if they should of been as common as fodders that run to their death. all while they focus on stuff that isnt even needed instead of core issues that for years ppl had begged them to fix while the community tear at each other with ideas, stances, and ideology. i only at this point leave these ideas cuz i want to imagine what kind of game warframe could had been but more than likely it feels disappointing that we wont see these kind of improvements.  

[Xzorn]

Well, there's two aspects here. Difficulty and Challenge. They play hand in hand but are not the same thing.

A key rule when implementing both is to put most in the hands of players so the feature will appeal to as wide an audience as possible.

A have a long buried concept post on Endless missions / Arbitrations 2.0 which uses both of these functions. This is a comparison chart of Difficulty and Challenge levels indicating how they compound exponentially as you add features and scale each.

To understand fully what each mean you'd have to read the original post which is a bit long but it involved adding new basic abilities to enemies, mini bosses, environmental hazards, rotation based objectives that have consequences and rewards while using a similar scaling method to Vallis alert levels. The most important aspects of this were that is was dynamic and these mini-bosses I called Hunters were smarter and specialized against certain play styles making certain ones harder for certain frames.

Tier 4 was intended for groups only as the hunters would hard counter a specific tactic and players would need to cover for each other.

https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1074549-arbitrations-endless-missions-20-a-continued-passion-project-for-veteran-content/

[0_The_F00l]

I don't really want difficulty

I want to feel satisfied after a fight. 

There can't be any one thing that can do this, there will have to be a mix and match of it.