One easy way to add challenge to the game without changing much.

[thelasttand]

all mobs which are lvl80+ or lvl 100+ or whatever higher level than a particular one should aim faster, increased reaction time, speed up animations, decreased melee attack cooldown by ALOT.
also infested should run faster and charge player quicker.
just increasing their damage will not do much since they are so slow at hitting anything.

a good exemple is what TERA (a mmorpg with action based combat) did with their monsters.
they had a rage mechanic that would trigger after loosing a % of health which would speed up all their animation, speed and ability cooldown for a greater challenge.

while having a similar mechanic around % of hp left in warframe wouldn't work at all since everything dies so fast or are easily CC by players,

adjusting all warframe mobs one by one to have that particular mechanic would be tedious.
what you could do is add a new buff for mobs, akin volt team buff but with the effects mentioned above instead.
either set that buff at a regular buff passing a certain level or add it in the form of unique mission type like the special drone buff in abitrary missions.
in the end you could also add a new eximus type which would give that particular buff to its allies.

warframe is a bit of a speedy game where you can go everywhere and do everything super fast. but enemies often don't follow.
they either die too fast even before being able to use their special move or are so slow at deciding to act and then stuck into a long animation that they often don't do anything or hit a wall when the player has already goten pass them several seconds ago.
its the same for all infested. they are so slow at attacking in melee or initiating a charge attack that they often don't touch the player. increasing their melee damage like you did in the last patch (27.2.0) is not the solution as they wont damage the player if they can't touch him anyway.

if you want a exemple of great monster reaction time, running speed and attack animation in a successfull game it would be DOOM. all monsters are super reactive which quick use of their special move but with a clear sound warniong that they are doing it so the player can react.

another good exemple is what left 4 dead 2 did. zombies and special zombies have distinct sounds so they can alert the players of what danger you ll face. at the same time they are quick to react but give enough warning to the player for him to react in time.

for exemple,
an infested charger in warframe:
_stare at the player.
_then do an awefull long animation without any specific noticable sound toward the player.
_charge with high speed on a tiny distance.
_actually it would already be dead before charging because it took too much time.
_may hit a player but often hit a wall or stairs.
_proceed to stare at the player again or channel its long and avoidable melee attack.

put this charger into DOOM.
_suddenly it would start charging animation right off the bat unless it is too far away with a glorious rawr.
_it would slam into whatever it hit and proceed to change focus right away to keep the player engaged into the fight actively forcing the player to move and be reactive.

put hte charger into left 4 dead 2.
_suddenly the charger would jump high or climb some strucutre or walls.
OR
_charge the player with an ominous sound effect while charging and throw the player far away.
_then proceed to follow the player to bite him to death while moving instead of stoping movement to make melee attack animation.


i believe that warframe has, at least for grineer, corpus and infested enough different monster type with unique abilities. but for their abilities to truly shine they need some tweaks.
right now most mobs feel like mindless fodder. only a few really stands out like sentient scouts, infested drone and its poison cloud, zero with their bubble and  grineer nox. (excluding eximus and fortuna mobs).
some of their ability would aslo need some tweaks but i would be happy if they just get quicker at what they are doing without horrible long animations or spacing out.

🙂

 

Edited March 6, 2020 by thelasttand