Elite Enemies/fireteam Spawns

[MJ12]

Right now, the spawn system is unpredictably random, and there aren't all that many enemy types for Grineer, Corpus, and Infestation. Diablo II had some of the same problems, but it added longevity by adding Champions and other miniboss-type enemies randomly into the game alongside 'scripted' bosses.

Warframe could do the same by having "Champion" enemies with modded weapons and bodies (Grineer are cyborgs and maybe even Corpus? Infestation are nano zombies so they could assimilate Orokin tech). Some of them might have unique powers, such as healing auras, others might have different weapons, yet others might have weapons mods like +Fire Rate, Elemental damage, multishot, or who knows? Ricocheting explosive bullets? The sky's the limit.

You could make them larger, differently colored, and thus immediately recognizable as dangerous enemies.

So you might have, say:

[squad Leader/Hive Node]: Increases accuracy, movement speed, and damage of nearby forces.

[Medic]: Healing Aura

[Area Shield]: Shields nearby enemies (like a shield osprey)

[Heavy Weapons/Spore Carrier]: Fires missiles/grenades or shoots homing spores

[sniper]: Semi-invisible (they should be translucent, not transparent), armed with Snipetron or Grineer equivalent

[Elite]: Generic boost to all stats by 25-50%

And this would be added onto whatever generic bonuses elite enemies have. So you could have, say, a Grineer Lancer Squad Leader or a Grineer Lancer Snipe or a Grineer Trooper Elite.

The other thing to do would be to alter spawns to spawn specific 'fireteams' some of the time instead of just generic masses of units. The random spawns could be added in additionally. This would allow more tactical synergy. So, for example, you might have a standard Grineer Marine Fireteam of 8 guys being:

4 x normal Grineer Lancers

2 x Grineer Troopers

2 x Heavy Grineer Lancers (armed with a light machine gun and mini-rockets, something between the Braton and the Gorgon?)

At higher difficulties, it might spawn a Fireteam of 11-12 guys, which would be, say...

4 x normal Grineer Lancers

2 x Grineer Troopers

2 x Heavy Grineer Lancers

2 x Seekers

either 1 x Random Heavy Grineer or 2 x Grineer Champions

And then the rest of the spawn would be random. Alternatively, you might get an assault fireteam, which looks like...

4 x Grineer Troopers

2 x Shield Lancers

2 x Grineer Seekers

And so on. This would add to the idea that the enemy is an organized military force instead of some sort of disorganized mob.

[neKroMancer]

Like the idea, nothing feels like got yourself surround by elite and his spawn during my Diablo2 day and emrging victorious with 10/1000 hp. 'Blood Bombadier the Destroyer'? NICE.

However, there's space to consider. The original corpus tileset doesn't have enough space to accomodate a large squad of 11-12 Grineer except in a few large rooms. New Grineer asteroid tileset suffer from the same problem but in a lesser degree.

Second thing the dev need to adress is AI behavior in these group. In these Elite group, they should be acting like a seasoned squad, not a random mob fighting against Tenno. 1-2 Gunner behind an advancing shield lancer with 2 groups of regular lancers flank players' position and pin them down with gunfire and grenade would be lovely and show a more organized aspect of AI.

Model is the THING that needs to change and I understand that the dev already know about it.

I totally support this idea.