More missions like MOT

[Flying_Scorpion]

**update** Idea has been changed in response to other player's feedback. Still give us higher scaling enemies, but give us control over it like how we can control the GTA style wanted stars in the Orb Vallis. Instead of having a cap of 4 "stars" allow it to go unlimited, each star increasing the damage/hit point scaling of the enemies.

 

 

A typical game of Warframe for me is joining a low or mid level mission to farm something like the newest prime, weapon, or cosmetic. I am joined by other over-powered players. The enemies drop like fruit flies released into -40 degree weather. We are practically immortal demigods, we are now playing a racing game - who can make it to the next group of enemies and delete them fastest, and who can make it to extraction first.

 

This is boring. 

 

The difference between a good action game and a boring one is whether or not there's any risk of failure.

I would like to fail 10% of my missions.

I would like to fail these missions because the enemies do so much damage that standing in front of them in the open is very risky (this occurs on MOT after 30-60 minutes of waiting, thank you). I also would like them to be tanky enough to survive for a few more seconds when the entire team is packing enough heat to melt an entire galleon of Grineer.

MOT is one of the best nodes on the star chart because there's tons of enemies, they start off at a high level, they do 3x as much damage as normal, and they just keep getting stronger the longer you survive. Please make similar game nodes but also give them 3x health multiplier in addition to a 3x damage multiplier.

I am bored. I need either more reasons to go to MOT (reintroduce forma blueprints to rotation C again please), or I need more missions with 3x damage/hit point scaling that reward me with things like endo, ayatans, forma, axi relics, etc. (Basically arbitrations with 3x damage/hit point scaling but no annoying drones).

DO NOT add enemies that are invulnerable to Warframe abilities. That is annoying. If people want to cheese it with limbo, let them. Just give us enemies with more health and more damage to match the power creep. 

Edited October 14, 2019 by Flying_Scorpion

[peterc3]

On 2019-10-06 at 10:26 AM, Flying_Scorpion said:

Just give us enemies with more health and more damage to match the power creep. 

That doesn't match the power creep. All that does is reinforce the meta and make it increasingly hard to do the game outside the "right" loadouts.

[Arcira]

Increased health or damage won´t make warframe more difficult because there are mechanics to ignore this type of scaling (some examples: instant finisher, absolute invisibility, % damage, spamable shields with 100% damage absorption, cc). The only thing you will achieve is that you can´t play those missions without this stuff anymore.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Arcira

[Tsukinoki]

On 2019-10-06 at 8:26 AM, Flying_Scorpion said:

MOT is one of the best nodes on the star chart because there's tons of enemies, they start off at a high level, they do 3x as much damage as normal, and they just keep getting stronger the longer you survive

Oh you mean the node that if you're playing as a duration Zephyr its almost impossible to get killed even if you just stand there in the middle of the room?
That's your "challenging" node that you want to emulate?

Why?
What would really be the point?

its not like it would make anything more difficult or challenging.
Hek they could have enemies always be a 1 shot and near impossible to kill and all it would do is make people cheese it harder (see the level 9999 survival during one of the tennocons).  It wasn't any harder when enemies could one-shot you by looking in your direction, and it didn't make a difference if they were supposed to be impossible to kill people still found ways to do so, and quite quickly at that.

The only thing that an idea like this would do is serve to make it so that if you don't cheese the mode you can't complete it...which isn't really fun for anyone involved.

On 2019-10-06 at 8:26 AM, Flying_Scorpion said:

Just give us enemies with more health and more damage to match the power creep. 

Except that won't come even close to matching the power creep....
And creating bullet sponges that take minutes to kill any of them individually while being able to one-shot a Chroma with max vex armor as soon as they look in his direction won't make things challenging or fun, nor will it come close to matching power creep in any way.
It would just force you to using the meta where if you choose not to, you might as well not even attempt the node in question.

[Flying_Scorpion]

Then how do you suggest addressing the power creep? Maybe you don't think it's a problem. 

[Umquaptovis]

The cannon fodder units are necessary.

There could be an implementation of units that require more think than bullets. Like something like the lynx where the unit comes with a drone escort that provide shielding to it. It a unit that can activate the level security at will during a fight even respawning it and making it more dangerous.

A special grineer unit that is more like an assassin in difficulty but rather than fighting the whole group they rush the target and put down a bunker bubble that sections off you and then in a one on one fight, no bullets or powers in and none out. Maybe a new manic that when they jump you they just kinda swipe one of your guns rather than just knocking it from your hands, and then zips about housing your gun against you.

For the infested how about an assassin unit that has highish  Dr but can be dismantled limb buy limb though if there are infested close buy they just kinda "eat" them and reform a limb. Swarm units that are immune to direct damage but aoe blasts work and rather than attacking they can go around and convert friendly mobs into infested. Or they collect common maybe rare resources and form a stationary very durable unit that can attack like with tenticals and health drains, but they mostly spawn fodder units. And buy spawn I mean it cranks them out fast. Just a never ending stream of maggots, with 8 or so chargers and leapers every few seconds. 

These are just ideas of the top of the head so they might not be the best but it's some thing with more depth. Just increasing hp and damage are rather 1D methods of difficulty  with optimal performance builds already.

The sentients seem to be in the right direction with the dynamic adaptation and multiple ways to deal with it. And you can disable some abilities buy shooting the arms off, but then other units can pick them up and then you would have a unit with the launchers and the beat you bat arm. I hope they add other health and armor types to aulter their resistances. Like atm I remember they are robotic with alloy armor, so they resist the more common damage types we use and are weak to ones there is next to no use for. ( I might be off here)

[(PSN)thegarada]

This thread makes it feel like Mot is hard lol. Even the least survivable frames can do 30 minutes in it with ease (assuming you have the right mods). 

Arbitrations already exist, with higher risk and reward. We also have sorties and 

To be fair though, I would like more stuff to start around level 60-80. Hopefully the Kuva leeches fulfill this.

 

[FrostDragoon]

1 hour ago, Umquaptovis said:

There could be an implementation of units that require more think than bullets.

/snip

We've seen them do a few things like this already and usually they just come across as annoying and gimmicky rather than actually fun or challenging. I think the Corpus are the prime examples of "Designed to be interesting, but aren't actually."

[Umquaptovis]

23 minutes ago, FrostDragoon said:

We've seen them do a few things like this already and usually they just come across as annoying and gimmicky rather than actually fun or challenging. I think the Corpus are the prime examples of "Designed to be interesting, but aren't actually."

Short answer yes the fridge people and their birb pets are the worst offenders like in OV.

Let's be honest nullifyers were a bandaid and nothing more. The scrambus offer a bit more as they deal with one kind of power at a time and one head shot removes that aura permanently. With the changes they now have to deploy the aura to. 

The nullifyers could be changed to be more of a projected barrier unit. They spot you throw out a field and then pop pot shots into you from a distance. Or as another option change the field to a screen that could block physical, elemental, or movement so you will not lose all your damage and crit but just part of it or be forced to stay away.

I'm rather against power immunity and power resistance, though resistance works in some cases as dose in only one case so far a self cleanse (demolysts have this). Power resistance works for the infested as you know one unit is causing it it's eazy to spot and hit. Immunity is just not the way to go as it robs alot of counterplay and players of parts of their kit. 

A perfect example are the arbitration drones small fast provide limmetless immunity to powers and damage, yet their more of a okay bring the plasmor cuz I'm done with these. There is more potential there but I'm getting long winded as is.

[Joezone619]

i completely agree, the game is way too easy nowa days, warframe tried to start making things harder with fortuna, probelm i believe was bad execution, they made abiltiies blocked more often, i dont think the key is to block abilities, but to make enemies resistant to them, or immune is certain cases (probly not immune but you get the point), MOT is one of the few things that can give a challange, but even then, the challange is often times annoying when you fail, not interesting, i think the enemies need fun twists, i made a post about this 

 if you want to check it out.

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

So we should get a node on the star chart with every enemy has the same stats as Wolf of Saturn Six? Tanky, lot's of health, lot's of armor, does decent amount of damage.

[FrostDragoon]

5 hours ago, Umquaptovis said:

 

I'm rather against power immunity and power resistance, though resistance works in some cases as dose in only one case so far a self cleanse (demolysts have this). Power resistance works for the infested as you know one unit is causing it it's eazy to spot and hit. Immunity is just not the way to go as it robs alot of counterplay and players of parts of their kit. 

Power immunity is the epitome of bad/lazy design for a few reasons, and it's why nullifiers have always been hated on:

1) It completely undermines the point of getting all these different frames. As in, "If I can't do what this frame is for, what's the point of bringing it to the mission?" This very narrowly limits build diversity in the most anti-fun way possible.

2) Related to part 1, why bother to design all these cool frames if you're just going to undermine all that hard work? Look how much time/effort and design intelligence they had to put into frames like Gauss, Wisp, Octavia, and other frames with a lot of self-synergy and ability interaction. Then you hit a nullifier bubble or Arbi drone... well, now you're just crewman with OP weaponry. Congrats.

3) Aside from the obvious self-defeating nature of the design paradox it creates, it's an admission that they know the powers are strong af but don't know how to intelligently design around them. Here's a hint: There will always be ways to "cheese" content, but the balance is in the way the design should encourage some and exclude others. In other words, before the massive power creep we have now, Warframe was more about bringing the right tool for the job. Now the devs just bring the same hammer to every nail, screw, spike, clamp, brace, pinion, pylon, etc. It's a lack of imagination.

Rather than just blanket power immunity, we should see power type immunities. For example, Rollers should be immune to blind/silence effects for obvious reasons. Why are moas vulnerable to sleep? Aren't the prosecutors a better example of immunity done right? Why can't manics enter/exit Limbo's rift with free action, or perhaps they get even more insane/fast/powerful based on the noise in the area? Certain kinds of ospreys, grineer snipers, and non-wisp sentients should be able to detect stealth. There are lots of little ways that enemies could counter warframe powers without having blanket immunity. These nuances would be more interesting and encourage more thoughtful, awareness based play. 

[Aldain]

1 hour ago, FrostDragoon said:

Rather than just blanket power immunity, we should see power type immunities.

I'd also advocate for ability resistance (e.g. damage resistance specifically designed for abilities and only abilities), plop that on a few enemies to prevent them from getting caught up in AoE nukes and give them time to actually have an impact on the players.

But yeah, making enemies into one-shot kill sandbags with tons of health doesn't strike me as good game design, (responding to the original topic here, not you Frost) I'd rather see the actual design better support making the enemies not just health bars with guns strapped to them.

All the hate I'm gonna get for saying this I fully accept; DE needs to dial back the absurd power ceiling that players can reach that causes the game to devolve into utter mindlessness.

[FrostDragoon]

9 minutes ago, Aldain said:

I'd also advocate for ability resistance (e.g. damage resistance specifically designed for abilities and only abilities), plop that on a few enemies to prevent them from getting caught up in AoE nukes and give them time to actually have an impact on the players.

But yeah, making enemies into one-shot kill sandbags with tons of health doesn't strike me as good game design, (responding to the original topic here, not you Frost) I'd rather see the actual design better support making the enemies not just health bars with guns strapped to them.

All the hate I'm gonna get for saying this I fully accept; DE needs to dial back the absurd power ceiling that players can reach that causes the game to devolve into utter mindlessness.

I think that ship has left the harbor, for better or worse, because if they were to rein in out of line weapons (Tigris P comes to mind), there would be such outrage and tantrum-throwing that we'd probably see a mass exodus from the game. Look how much gnashing of teeth there was over the riven "balance" pass, lol.

[Aldain]

2 minutes ago, FrostDragoon said:

if they were to rein in out of line weapons (Tigris P comes to mind), there would be such outrage and tantrum-throwing that we'd probably see a mass exodus from the game. Look how much gnashing of teeth there was over the riven "balance" pass, lol.

I see that only as a good thing right now, the players mindlessly chasing damage have caused endless amounts of trivialization of content and will never be satisfied with any level of power.

Better to rip the band-aid off than leave it to fester.

[FrostDragoon]

5 minutes ago, Aldain said:

I see that only as a good thing right now, the players mindlessly chasing damage have caused endless amounts of trivialization of content and will never be satisfied with any level of power.

Better to rip the band-aid off than leave it to fester.

Maybe better for gameplay, but definitely not better for DE as a studio/business.

[Aldain]

1 minute ago, FrostDragoon said:

Maybe better for gameplay, but definitely not better for DE as a studio/business.

I'm aware, I'm also just rather irritated by all the petty complaints about the Riven disposition changes despite the numerous times that DE has stated that they will change.

[FrostDragoon]

36 minutes ago, Aldain said:

I'm aware, I'm also just rather irritated by all the petty complaints about the Riven disposition changes despite the numerous times that DE has stated that they will change.

My favorite is the "investment" nonsense, lmao

[Xzorn]

MOT is an odd beast.

On one hand I agree that dangerous enemies who can kill you should be more common but on the other hand the damage multiplier of MOT isn't exactly the best way to do this. The normal enemy scaling of the game works fairly well for enemy Offense Vs Defense in creating dangerous conditions. It just doesn't happen fast enough.

MOT just leans towards different meta conditions due to it's damage multiplier.

This puts frames that are invisible, have CC or similar at an advantage over frames made to take a hit or two. Not specifically just stand there like Warframe plays now but if you've ever tried to push a frame like Chroma or Trinity on MOT then you should know it ends very poorly without actually reaching full build potential.

A proper ratio is key and MOT doesn't have this it just feels good because MOT is quite anti-current-meta for the reasons I mentioned. CC is highly valued, well as barrier effects like Volt's Shield and Invisibility beats eHP every time but we want all frames and play styles to have relatively equal opportunity.

--------------
On a side note you can use Ancient Healer Specters to completely mute the MOT modifier. They are far too powerful IMO.

[Umquaptovis]

10 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

i completely agree, the game is way too easy nowa days, warframe tried to start making things harder with fortuna, probelm i believe was bad execution, they made abiltiies blocked more often, i dont think the key is to block abilities, but to make enemies resistant to them, or immune is certain cases (probly not immune but you get the point), MOT is one of the few things that can give a challange, but even then, the challange is often times annoying when you fail, not interesting, i think the enemies need fun twists, i made a post about this 

And that's for the most part the core of the issue. There are ideas out there but they are implemented badly or are just 1 note. There is no variety or twist to change the okay I'll just hit it with a bigger gun.

8 hours ago, FrostDragoon said:

Power immunity is the epitome of bad/lazy design for a few reasons, and it's why nullifiers have always been hated on:

1) It completely undermines the point of getting all these different frames. As in, "If I can't do what this frame is for, what's the point of bringing it to the mission?" This very narrowly limits build diversity in the most anti-fun way possible.

2) Related to part 1, why bother to design all these cool frames if you're just going to undermine all that hard work? Look how much time/effort and design intelligence they had to put into frames like Gauss, Wisp, Octavia, and other frames with a lot of self-synergy and ability interaction. Then you hit a nullifier bubble or Arbi drone... well, now you're just crewman with OP weaponry. Congrats.

3) Aside from the obvious self-defeating nature of the design paradox it creates, it's an admission that they know the powers are strong af but don't know how to intelligently design around them. Here's a hint: There will always be ways to "cheese" content, but the balance is in the way the design should encourage some and exclude others. In other words, before the massive power creep we have now, Warframe was more about bringing the right tool for the job. Now the devs just bring the same hammer to every nail, screw, spike, clamp, brace, pinion, pylon, etc. It's a lack of imagination.

Rather than just blanket power immunity, we should see power type immunities. For example, Rollers should be immune to blind/silence effects for obvious reasons. Why are moas vulnerable to sleep? Aren't the prosecutors a better example of immunity done right? Why can't manics enter/exit Limbo's rift with free action, or perhaps they get even more insane/fast/powerful based on the noise in the area? Certain kinds of ospreys, grineer snipers, and non-wisp sentients should be able to detect stealth. There are lots of little ways that enemies could counter warframe powers without having blanket immunity. These nuances would be more interesting and encourage more thoughtful, awareness based play. 

Yes exactly. It's why the nullifyers should be changed though I still want to keep the scrambus. Having a set of manic units like bombards, gunners, and the normal ones that get hyper aggressive with high sound levels would be interesting. I would also feel like they would be able to detect an invisible warframe. 

6 hours ago, Aldain said:

advocate for ability resistance (e.g. damage resistance specifically designed for abilities and only abilities), plop that on a few enemies to prevent them from getting caught up in AoE nukes and give them time to actually have an impact on the players.

But yeah, making enemies into one-shot kill sandbags with tons of health doesn't strike me as good game design, (responding to the original topic here, not you Frost) I'd rather see the actual design better support making the enemies not just health bars with guns strapped to them.

I'm hopeing that the new sentient mobs will have some form of power resistance on their heavy units, like decreases duration or effective ness.

6 hours ago, Aldain said:

I'm aware, I'm also just rather irritated by all the petty complaints about the Riven disposition changes despite the numerous times that DE has stated that they will change.

 

5 hours ago, FrostDragoon said:

My favorite is the "investment" nonsense, lmao

I have no sympathy for those that burnt plat to get a meta riven and complain about changes. they consented to the kuva game and act like children when it bites back. I still feel rivens need a bit of a change but that's for another time. 

[Flying_Scorpion]

On 2019-10-09 at 8:20 PM, Joezone619 said:

i completely agree, the game is way too easy nowa days

 

On 2019-10-10 at 2:03 AM, Xzorn said:

MOT is an odd beast.

On one hand I agree that dangerous enemies who can kill you should be more common

Finally, some like-minded players. The powercreep in Warframe has trivialized much of the content, and made it less interesting.

This is why I think we need enemies that scale 3x as fast in both hit points and damage. That way we can hit the sweet spot sooner.

But there is a problem with 3x damage/hit point scaling...you're within the sweet spot for 1/3rd of the time than if the enemies scaled at normal 1x speed. So it's a give-and-take, on the one hand, you don't have to wait as long to hit the sweet spot, but on the other hand, they scale outside of that spot much faster too. (Could also be considered a good thing if you're looking for a challenge).

There's gotta be a way to solve this. And in case anyone is interested in what inspired me to make this post - I have an absurdly high DPS build for my Harrow+Knell, with rivens, and arcanes. The build is absolute overkill for everything on the star chart. I have to survive for 1 hour on an arbitration before the enemies have enough health+armor for the build to BEGIN to shine. I don't like having to wait that long. I want to take my incredibly powerful build and USE IT SOMEWHERE! It's like having a really fast car, and no where to drive it. It's like taking a #1 golf driver club to a mini-putt. It's like taking a gatling gun to shoot at squirrels. I want to USE MY BIG SMASH STICK! But I don't have anywhere to let it truly shine. That's what I want, a place to use it. Even in the Similacrum, I can spawn enemies at high level and I can only get a taste of the power potential that my build has. It's disappointing to have nowhere to use it.

Edited October 13, 2019 by Flying_Scorpion

[Xzorn]

2 hours ago, Flying_Scorpion said:

This is why I think we need enemies that scale 3x as fast in both hit points and damage. That way we can hit the sweet spot sooner.

But there is a problem with 3x damage/hit point scaling...you're within the sweet spot for 1/3rd of the time than if the enemies scaled at normal 1x speed. So it's a give-and-take, on the one hand, you don't have to wait as long to hit the sweet spot, but on the other hand, they scale outside of that spot much faster too. (Could also be considered a good thing if you're looking for a challenge).

 

Dynamic scaling in the hands of the players works decently. 

I made large mission concept a while back which used most of the things we already have in the game. Alert system from Vallis, Objectives from bounties, Environmental Hazards and specialize Hunters that would randomly spawn but only at 4-5 stars to produce dynamic and dangerous situations for players in addition to giving them some control over the scaling speed of enemies. The player can choose how hard they want to push and get a little more if they do.

Problem right now is there are multiple techniques a group can do which doesn't involve cheesing that will level cap given the time. DR stacking is the simplest method. You can currently stack Blessing from three separate Trinity and Gara's 2nd ability along with an Ancient Healer which will give each of those Trinity players  300 million eHP and by comparison a lvl 9,999 Bombard rocket hits for 4 mil. That's pretty much Game Set.

This is why in the concept I made Hunters would serve as a counter measure. At Tier 4 a soft counter and at Tier 5 a hard counter. Nothing quite so cheese as total immunity. It was more their abilities would affect certain play styles. One would dispell an area of objects and barriers (not buffs). One would become dramatically more dangerous if CC was used on them, one would use Kubrows with a charge attack in attempts to counter stealth and one did a %True Damage to hurt even the toughest frames. None of them were immune to effects, they more punished the player for using those effects Tier 5 being made for groups where a players will need the help of their team to stay alive.

There's another Warframe difficulty thread going on where I mentioned enemy mechanics alone don't work and neither does scaling alone. We need to carefully use both. DE isn't careful when they add new mechanics. They have no consideration for the consequences when scaling kicks in and newer enemies often just break while still not really providing anything more than an annoyance in the lower level ranges. it just doesn't work without both concepts.

 

3 hours ago, Flying_Scorpion said:

I want to take my incredibly powerful build and USE IT SOMEWHERE!

Many of us do....

[Flying_Scorpion]

I like your idea of the alert levels and it's one of the best things DE did when they introduced Fortuna - they gave us control of the difficulty. 

 

Here's what I'll say about cheesing, and I've been of this opinion for awhile now. If people want to cheese the game and make themselves invincible, just let them. I know a group of players who's version of fun is breaking the game. They figure out ways to make themselves invincible, how to turn on permanent radiation procs on themselves (to enable pvp basically), how to go through waves of defense in arbitrations in seconds, and so on and so forth.

 

There will always be players who break the game, and at worst - who use hacks/cheats. 

 

In my opinion, if they want to do that stuff, let them. Because as soon as you try to stop them, they can simply create a new account and get back to entertaining their version of fun - finding new ways to break the game. I choose to simply not play with them, because that's not my version of fun. I think the game is already too easy so I feel almost no desire to participate in making the game any more trivial than it already is. 

 

***Tin foil hat time***

 

Maybe DE doesn't make the game more difficult because they're afraid that if they do, exploits will run rampant through the playerbase and deligitimize their game. It's a valid fear, because people like to take the path of least resistance, if you give them something that's challenging and there's an easy way to do it by utilizing exploits...it very well might become a problem. 😞 Hmm...yeah it's a tricky problem.

Edited October 13, 2019 by Flying_Scorpion

[Xzorn]

It's not really far fetched. It's obvious DE avoids high level scaling because they're aware of various things players can do. DE has been inattentive on what they've added to the game over the years so now there's a lot of combinations that can simply break their game where initially there was kinda just two. CC and Barriers.

I would say overall allowing this has had a negative impact on the game. DE does not reward effort anymore. Doesn't matter if you're going hardcore with Banshee or half-afk with Octavia. Also doesn't matter the level you fight; everyone gets the same which is just about nothing. Sure you get an upgraded Relic for going hours in a fissure mission but at this point Relics are essentially Warframe litter.

The rewarding things in Warframe these days are their module mini-games where they can attempt to meta limit player options but that's all this tactic really does. It doesn't make the game more difficult or more engaging. It just removes play options.

[Flying_Scorpion]

7 hours ago, Xzorn said:

It just removes play options.

Wow you hit the nail right on the head. They did the same thing with loot frames, and in doing so, limited our options. Players lashed back when the "module drop chance booster" was released and DE reverted the change.

They thought that allowing the synergy between the different frames created a situation where players options were limited (which I certainly did not feel at all).

On 2019-09-30 at 2:59 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

This puts players in a position of deciding whether or not to bring the frames that have the best looting abilities rather than anything else. Our intentions with the change were to alleviate that, but ultimately we are reverting it in an effort to eliminate bad will

But what they did was actually the opposite and created the very problem that they were trying to avoid - limiting options.

This is why I say that if people want to break the game with Limbo, just let them. There are players like me who will try it once, realize how stupidly broken it is, and then go back to using stuff that feels more fun.

Another example: Some people find it fun to farm for resources. So if someone wants to use synergies between loot frames to farm up 1000x Sola Toroids...let them! If I want to use the loot frame synergy to do as little farming as possible for this item... LET ME! I'd rather get my farming done and over with so I can move on to the next thing that I actually enjoy - creating powerful builds and testing them in a challenging environment....which leads to my problem...

Someone said earlier that the solution was for me to just do missions with no mods equipped. That's not the answer man,..not for my problem anyways. I don't think anyone who suggests that really understands my problem. I'll repeat it one more time in case they didn't get it. Having an extremely high DPS build and no enemies worthy of using it on is like having an extremely fast car and having nowhere to drive it. The answer isn't to just drive a slower car. I got the thing for a reason, and now I need a highway to use it on. 

Edited October 14, 2019 by Flying_Scorpion