Enemy Grenades - Unfair death? HUD indication, In-game death log?

[OcelotEx]

TL;DR - Enemy thrown grenades too OP, needing either fair HUD indication, re-balancing, or outright removal

After playing Warframe for several years nearly since its conception, I've noticed one annoying, consistent thing in gameplay: faint, fast, high pitched (sometimes inaudible) beeps followed by a *boom* and instant death.

https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Plasma_Grenade

While obviously not a universally common complaint (maybe it's just that obscure!), I've run into several accounts (spanning across the years!) of players complaining about ambiguous or unclear one-shot deaths, usually in high level missions such as Arbitrations, Elite Sanctuary Onslaught, but primarily against any enemy with a pocket full of inexplicably powerful thrown grenades. 

This is my first post offering feedback, considering that, similar to others, upon checking out the game's 'death log' (appdata/local/warframe/EE.txt), instant death-by-grenade is shown by ...

14:07:04 - <OcelotEx> took 2,774 damage at 1,225 health from a level 99 CORRUPTED LANCER using a NpcOrokinThrowGrenadeWeapon

 

...Which I've found a handful of other players taking note of. One example:

'Resisting damage' or 'the proper build' is no longer the point in the case of these grenades, the point is the damage is unnecessarily hard to avoid entirely.

Consider a tough enemy like a Corpus Nullifier or Grineer Bombard. While more or less capable of such damage, upon seeing either of these enemies at high level, a player can determine how to react. The same can even be said about Sapping Ospreys (consider how much damage they deal.) In the case of this obscure 'enemy thrown grenade' mechanic, the only chance a player has to react is the hardly distinct, quick beeping noise, and many times the beeping isn't even noticeable. Not only do these grenades 'insta-delete' non-tank Warframes at high level, but the indication that your 1,225 health is about to be zero simply isn't enough to react to, or needs updating/balancing. I'm actually unsure whether this kind of damage is intended, or some kind of scaling bug.

14:07:04 - <ShedDecoyAvatar7145> took 7,721 damage at 107 health from a level 99 CORRUPTED LANCER using a NpcOrokinThrowGrenadeWeapon

The simplest solution I can foresee is to have a HUD indicator of enemy grenades (like close to every modern video game involving thrown grenades), or for the sake of lessening confusion, an in-game death log similar to Conclave/Index/Rathuum. The latter would serve to nullify the broader "wtf killed me?" dilemma, while the former would directly address the grenade issue. Although, I don't know of anybody that would mind seeing them removed altogether. 

Edited October 9, 2019 by OcelotEx
TL;DR

[kyori]

21 minutes ago, OcelotEx said:

this kind of damage is intended

Pretty much this. It is 1 of the things that is purposely made to kill players. Hyekka Master's motolov can insta-kill many warframes too. She also throw it without much audible warning.

[Hello]

Ever since they added the red blinking icon the demolysts have in disruption, I kind of wish they had something similar for grenades. Personally I don't really hear much of the game. I have volume low and youtube/netflix loud. So with grenades, it's a whole lot of: Bullet Jump around, shoot enemy, explosion that kills me, self revive since I'm solo and repeat.

[Walkampf]

vor 29 Minuten schrieb OcelotEx:

(...)(sometimes inaudible) beeps(...)

I've read this a few times over the years, and in all honesty, I have never been able to not hear a grenade. So I don't think the game is bugged. It's more likely, that a few players either problem with their system,

be it on the software side, for example through outdated audio drivers,

or on the hardware side, speakers not being able to generate the admintedly rather high sound, when to much else is going on at the same time,

or a 'user-problem':

vor 4 Minuten schrieb --Brandt--:

I have volume low and youtube/netflix loud.

As for the death log, yes, please!

[Thundervision]

10 minutes ago, --Brandt-- said:

Ever since they added the red blinking icon the demolysts have in disruption, I kind of wish they had something similar for grenades.

Hah, I had the same thoughts before, caused mostly by the way ME3 handled it. In fact, ME3MP, despite its flaws and bugs, handled telegraphs and notifications amazingly-well (not counting ninja Praetorians, heheh). So, grenades in ME3:

Visuals:

• Red icon when thrown, indicating its location
• Red trail when thrown
• Flashing proximity icon

Sound:

• Short 'draw' click, landing 'click' and countdown beeping with fuse whistle

Here:

(And at 24:18, too)

 

Honestly, I don't have issues with grenades, but having some improved warnings wouldn't hurt.

[Walkampf]

vor 30 Minuten schrieb Thundervision:

Honestly, I don't have issues with grenades, but having some improved warnings wouldn't hurt.

But not having this also doesn't hurt. If I remember right, in the first Crysis game, when you played on the highest diffuculty, the enemies language was actually switched from english to something else, masking what they were shouting, like their grenade warnings.

And it's not like there are no indicators at all for grenades, they are just less 'in your face' than in games that don't trust their players at all.

So it's a concience decision, how much handholding you want to give the player. I don't mind having to pay attention in videogames. This is the reason why I often choose videogames over TV.

And in Warframe you even have plenty of time to react. The best way to avoid being killed by grenades (as well as Bombard rockets) is rolling.

Rolling grants a huge amount of defense during the animation, so you don't even need to fully roll out of the grenade radius, you just need to be in the rolling animation when it goes off.

[taiiat]

i would like the Grenades to go with the standard like once/twice a second light flash so that it can be visually seen as well as the positional Audio.
as ofcourse relying exclusively on Audio to notify the Player isn't ideal.

Edited October 9, 2019 by taiiat

[TheGrimCorsair]

A HUD indicator would be nice for folks who're hard of hearing. Only needs to be on screen if you're just a bit out of the blast radius, and pair it with a blinking light to mark its location when you're not close enough for the HUD indicator to pop.