Enemy Mechanics Rework

[weeaboopotato]

4 hours ago, keikogi said:

I use that example because I want to show a lot of the time the enemies can´t really deal with the tenno the best this lancer can do is do physicological damage and call lim "tenno skoom ". 

Had a old desing for modular TUBEMEN units to adress the grineer inability to deal with skill the tl:DR is the roll in 3 tables 

The table that matters for this discussion , helmet table 

Medic Helmet , can dispel debuffs and gives debuff imunity agaist the debuffs purged. Has a charge up time and audible sond cue before it dispels stufff

Melee helmet , gives a jet pack to the unit and allows to purge buffs after 2 sucesifull melee hits 

Sniper helmet , can see invisible units and allows the user to thrown a ink greneda to reveal the spoted target.  But this helmet always emits a laser dot showing where the user is looking at 

These skill would allow the grineer top fight agaist the tenno bullshiet but they don´t feel obnoxious to fight agasit either.

There is also a genetic defect table and a weapon table but they are not relevant for this discussion 

 

oh I like this mind if you link me to the thread so I can link that here to the main thread.

[weeaboopotato]

On 2020-05-01 at 6:58 PM, Loza03 said:

That is precisely what I want. It to no longer just stop everything in the rift. As it is now is a problem, because it's overpowered. Why is it a problem? Well, like someone else said - enemies have no winning moves against his 2 and 4 except to arbitrarily not play by that ability. What AI do you suggest works against Limbo's current stasis?

The ability is the problem, not the enemy AI. There's no way around it, no way to make that better. As long as Limbo's Stasis/Cataclysm spam exists in its current form, alongside the wealth of similar abilities like Nukes and Invisibility - any ability that can, with no limit other than energy, allow players to entirely circumvent or disable whole systems and mechanics will make it so that both enemy and mission design that isn't cheap and relies on pure numeric scaling.

it makes up for it by being limited to what enemies it can stun cause unlike nova and harrow there are something's even limbo can't stop in the rift. Nova and Harrow can even CC bosses, given that their CC is not as effective as Limbos but they have fair trade offs. Nullifiers however have a way to counter Limbo, some grineer units are completely unaffected by Stasis. Although Limbo can easily cheese stuff, Compared to other frames he's quite balanced. If you look at the game as a whole not only in certain activities. he can't nuke rooms (anymore), he can't dps (unless you use a augment that ruins the flow of the game for others), he can't do well against his weaknesses; However he has Map wide CC, pseudo invincibility, Cheese and utility. Which unfortunately most frames are either one or the other or literally all in one.

[keikogi]

5 hours ago, weeaboopotato said:

oh I like this mind if you link me to the thread so I can link that here to the main thread.

Could not find the original because Undortunally I did not link it on my profile and I can't find its source because my old notebook does not turn on anymore. But I did coment a fairly detailed version of it on thread a while ago.

That post is a quite interesting discussion on discussion about challenge , difficulty and the mechanic involved.

Here a more detailed version of this unit

As far as enemy desing is concerned DE has to give enemies either doble edged swords or powers with drawn backs. The player has to feel like he is out playing the enemy not outstating. When the player loses he Also has to feel like it was his duck up not bullS#&$ enemy skills. Warframe invisible energy drain auras and hitscan weapon are contrary of that. As far as how I would do it have a bit of a pet project. A pitch for the TUBEMEN of regor. Here how they would work. They are modular enemies that roll on a few tables for skill and stats. Here is the list. 

First table, birth defects table ( I find it odd , that the grinner keep referencing birth defecrs on the lore but it never reflects on the gameplay ). 

Weak heart , this TUBEMEN was born with defective heart. Tyl Regor transplanted a Omega Dreker Kubrow ( has a external heart like a tyrant from resident evil ). This unit has increased speed but The player can shoot of the armor protecting the heart and deal massive damage. 

Weak lungs , this TUBEMEN eas born with defective lungs. Tyl regor replaced his lungs with an Iron lung. This unit come with gas grenades but the player can shoot the gas cylinders ( causes an explosion , if the target survives it has its Moviment speed permanently reduced ).

Healthy boy , this is a healthyTUBEMEN has increased HP.

Second table , helmet table. This table focus on countering some common strategies. Sometimes the game would Rig the roll so the counter unit will always spam ( if this happens the player receives an announcement from Regor ) 

Gunner helmet. Allows the user to see invisible units , the user has a ink grenede to atttemp to reveal the target. However this helmet has a laser sight pointing where the user is looking at.

Medic helmet , can purge debuffs and gives temporary imunty to the dispelled buffs. But has a audible cue and charge time.

Melee helmet, gives a jetpack to this untit and after two melee hits this unit will purge. 

The last table roll their hand ( they have attachable hands like Tyl Regor). This roll has a it's results limited by the helmet  roll. 

Ack and Brunt ( gives heavy residency to all forms of ranged damage coming from the front) . limited to Melee helmet.

Knux ( can Launch the fists, if the target is a defensive structure ( snow globe, gara wall and so on ) the first hit will crack the wall and the second one will break it ). Limited to melee helmet 

Frontal shield, has a frontal shield like Heinhart ( block aoe coming from the front ). Limited to gunner 

Glue gun , launches a stream of glue slowing down the targets hit. Limited to gunner 

Medic Gun , heals the target and can turn the target invulnerable 

Medic seringe claw , can revive fallen grineer as ghouls 

A last note is a later levels they would be spam along side either a grineer sentinel or a Omega Dreker Kubrow.

Feel free to use it as an example.

Edited May 3, 2020 by keikogi

[Loza03]

6 hours ago, weeaboopotato said:

it makes up for it by being limited to what enemies it can stun cause unlike nova and harrow there are something's even limbo can't stop in the rift. Nova and Harrow can even CC bosses, given that their CC is not as effective as Limbos but they have fair trade offs. Nullifiers however have a way to counter Limbo, some grineer units are completely unaffected by Stasis. Although Limbo can easily cheese stuff, Compared to other frames he's quite balanced. If you look at the game as a whole not only in certain activities. he can't nuke rooms (anymore), he can't dps (unless you use a augment that ruins the flow of the game for others), he can't do well against his weaknesses; However he has Map wide CC, pseudo invincibility, Cheese and utility. Which unfortunately most frames are either one or the other or literally all in one.

No, he really isn't.

One enemy, which is explicitly designed to be the hard counter hammer to abilities, is the only real counter, and any Grineer units (which, as far as non-bosses are concerned, I'm coming up blank despite several years of Limbo) that are able to move in the rift still can't actually shoot, because THEY can move, their bullets can't.

Mapwide CC is just as overpowered as mapwide nuking. It achieves the same thing - nothing can ever can ever oppose you. Nukes are just more direct.

And weaknesses? Unless he's literally sitting in a game mode like ESO where only hardcore nukes can prosper, I can't really think of all that many. Trust me, I've been playing him a long enough while, he doesn't have all that many.

[weeaboopotato]

3 hours ago, keikogi said:

Could not find the original because Undortunally I did not link it on my profile and I can't find its source because my old notebook does not turn on anymore. But I did coment a fairly detailed version of it on thread a while ago.

That post is a quite interesting discussion on discussion about challenge , difficulty and the mechanic involved.

Here a more detailed version of this unit

As far as enemy desing is concerned DE has to give enemies either doble edged swords or powers with drawn backs. The player has to feel like he is out playing the enemy not outstating. When the player loses he Also has to feel like it was his duck up not bullS#&$ enemy skills. Warframe invisible energy drain auras and hitscan weapon are contrary of that. As far as how I would do it have a bit of a pet project. A pitch for the TUBEMEN of regor. Here how they would work. They are modular enemies that roll on a few tables for skill and stats. Here is the list. 

First table, birth defects table ( I find it odd , that the grinner keep referencing birth defecrs on the lore but it never reflects on the gameplay ). 

Weak heart , this TUBEMEN was born with defective heart. Tyl Regor transplanted a Omega Dreker Kubrow ( has a external heart like a tyrant from resident evil ). This unit has increased speed but The player can shoot of the armor protecting the heart and deal massive damage. 

Weak lungs , this TUBEMEN eas born with defective lungs. Tyl regor replaced his lungs with an Iron lung. This unit come with gas grenades but the player can shoot the gas cylinders ( causes an explosion , if the target survives it has its Moviment speed permanently reduced ).

Healthy boy , this is a healthyTUBEMEN has increased HP.

Second table , helmet table. This table focus on countering some common strategies. Sometimes the game would Rig the roll so the counter unit will always spam ( if this happens the player receives an announcement from Regor ) 

Gunner helmet. Allows the user to see invisible units , the user has a ink grenede to atttemp to reveal the target. However this helmet has a laser sight pointing where the user is looking at.

Medic helmet , can purge debuffs and gives temporary imunty to the dispelled buffs. But has a audible cue and charge time.

Melee helmet, gives a jetpack to this untit and after two melee hits this unit will purge. 

The last table roll their hand ( they have attachable hands like Tyl Regor). This roll has a it's results limited by the helmet  roll. 

Ack and Brunt ( gives heavy residency to all forms of ranged damage coming from the front) . limited to Melee helmet.

Knux ( can Launch the fists, if the target is a defensive structure ( snow globe, gara wall and so on ) the first hit will crack the wall and the second one will break it ). Limited to melee helmet 

Frontal shield, has a frontal shield like Heinhart ( block aoe coming from the front ). Limited to gunner 

Glue gun , launches a stream of glue slowing down the targets hit. Limited to gunner 

Medic Gun , heals the target and can turn the target invulnerable 

Medic seringe claw , can revive fallen grineer as ghouls 

A last note is a later levels they would be spam along side either a grineer sentinel or a Omega Dreker Kubrow.

Feel free to use it as an example.

some of these are good but enemies who would have extra weak spots although helpful and allows more ways to kill them easily varying on birth defects isn't exactly necessary. Mostly now since how you worded it the only thing different about these enemies are extra crit spots, they don't look any different but they are different. Which would mean players wouldn't even know which ones are which and just pray to god that a random enemy as has one. Also the enemy that can revive grineer can be a bit too much cause remember this is a horde shooter. They'd be essentially making the horde more crowded and would probably end up up in some bull(sh!t) scenarios. everything else however sounds like amazing editions to the enemy roaster.

[weeaboopotato]

1 hour ago, Loza03 said:

No, he really isn't.

One enemy, which is explicitly designed to be the hard counter hammer to abilities, is the only real counter, and any Grineer units (which, as far as non-bosses are concerned, I'm coming up blank despite several years of Limbo) that are able to move in the rift still can't actually shoot, because THEY can move, their bullets can't.

Mapwide CC is just as overpowered as mapwide nuking. It achieves the same thing - nothing can ever can ever oppose you. Nukes are just more direct.

And weaknesses? Unless he's literally sitting in a game mode like ESO where only hardcore nukes can prosper, I can't really think of all that many. Trust me, I've been playing him a long enough while, he doesn't have all that many.

The thing about nukes are that they permanently put the enemy down. Map wide CC still has a duration. Limbo if you're not careful enough and if you don't keep an eye on the stasis duration, could either get hit ability cancelled out of nowhere (its a bug that hasn't been fixed) or pop like a balloon because a stray bullet from an enemy that just unfroze for a split second. His kit is essential on how it is since he pops like a balloon the moment enemies aren't cc'ed or in the opposite dimension he pops. Even the nuke frames have some sort of survivability. Also with your logic Vauban, Nyx and Loki are overpowered. 

[Loza03]

Just now, weeaboopotato said:

The thing about nukes are that they permanently put the enemy down. Map wide CC still has a duration. Limbo if you're not careful enough and if you don't keep an eye on the stasis duration, could either get hit ability cancelled out of nowhere (its a bug that hasn't been fixed) or pop like a balloon because a stray bullet from an enemy that just unfroze for a split second. His kit is essential on how it is since he pops like a balloon the moment enemies aren't cc'ed or in the opposite dimension he pops. Even the nuke frames have some sort of survivability. Also with your logic Vauban, Nyx and Loki are overpowered. 

Shield gating and Quick thinking give Limbo more than enough EHP to take a hit or two, enough that if you don't want to play the 'sit in a bubble and be god', you can absolutely take him as a aggressive frame. Trust me - I've been doing just that for years, considering I love Limbo's core gimmick, just not his OP stuff.

 

Also, yeah. Vauban especially has plenty of ability to just entirely lock down whole sections, and Loki can completely ignore interactions just as freely. Both used to be meta picks once upon a time. Nyx has the fact that Chaos leaves enemies active and that they can still target her or the other enemies.

[keikogi]

10 minutes ago, weeaboopotato said:

some of these are good but enemies who would have extra weak spots although helpful and allows more ways to kill them easily varying on birth defects isn't exactly necessary. Mostly now since how you worded it the only thing different about these enemies are extra crit spots, they don't look any different but they are different

They are supposed to be modular enemies. Birth defect roll the chest model , helmet rolls the head model  , weapon rolls the hand model. The weakspot are siposed to be quite obvious as far as visual desing is concerned. The heart is suposed to stick out and the tubes are exposed on the side. They are not really that important gameplay wise but they are important for the gameplay x lore conection it shows our efforts into sobotaging the tubemen project had a impact. 

14 minutes ago, weeaboopotato said:

can revive grineer can be a bit too much cause remember this is a horde shooter.

it´s not meant as mass reivival tool , the revival is single target and has melee range. The reived units also has naturally decaying HP and is reduced to melee strikes ( with increased moviment speed and sttack speed ). I was planing to create a kuva  mine boss status version with a mass revival ( 7 enemies ) but I never quite figured all the variants out so ithat idea is on the freezer 

 

[weeaboopotato]

13 hours ago, keikogi said:

it´s not meant as mass reivival tool , the revival is single target and has melee range. The reived units also has naturally decaying HP and is reduced to melee strikes ( with increased moviment speed and sttack speed ). I was planing to create a kuva  mine boss status version with a mass revival ( 7 enemies ) but I never quite figured all the variants out so ithat idea is on the freezer 

so grineer nekros?

[Loza03]

On 2020-04-29 at 2:33 PM, weeaboopotato said:

[Optional Additions]

New enemy types by @Loza03

Excuse me?

[Steel_Rook]

On 2020-04-29 at 4:33 PM, weeaboopotato said:

1.2: Higher TTK for Trash Mobs in Higher LvLs

Significantly lower the armor of trash mobs and hard cap the armor scaling in lower levels. Killing trash mobs aren't much of a problem in the lower levelled missions; However after certain levels they start to become secondary elite units that are slightly weaker, and they're scaling damage don't make it any better. Why only trash mobs you say? Because they're trash mobs, they're supposed to be easy to sweep. Elite units like gunners and bomboards need to be tanky. This would not only improve gunplay but also make bomboards and gunners seem even more powerful and even more of a threat to the player. 

The distinction you're making between "trash mobs" and presumably everything else is a good one. I've been pushing for discrete enemy tiering for some time now. That is to say, class some enemies as Commons, give them generally low damage and low TTK, then fill the majority of a mission with them. They're the "trash" that we mop up to fill space, and they're only dangerous as a distraction or in particularly large numbers. Class other enemies as Specials. Make them rare (rare enough that you see then some of the time, not all of the time in triplicate), make them tanky, give them complex mechanics that players need to play around. Give them telegraphed wind-up attacks that players need to dodge or interrupt, give them destructible weak points which alter their behaviour or disable their abilities, give them their own unique models and sound package. Finally, class some enemies as Minibosses, have those show up individually only once every few minutes if the alarms are on, make them a serious fight. Like a Special, but bigger, meaner and tougher.

Right now, Warframe's enemy design is game development soup. Enemies are thrown seemingly at random based on what a developer at some point thought sounded cool with no overall idea of what roles an individual enemy might serve or how a group of different enemies might work together. The result is an indistinct mass of theoretically unique units who all look the same, behave broadly the same and are killed the same. Especially when it comes to the Grineer, this is a highly reductive model. It's either going to shoot at you or run at you, and you're going to shoot it in the head. Is it a Lancer? A Trooper? A Scorpion? A Butcher? Doesn't matter, shoot it in the head and move on. You do have standout units like the Nox thanks to its excellent design or the likes of Drakhmasters and Commanders due to their annoying abilities, but most of the Grineer soldiers are an indistinct mass of heads.

I'm of the opinion that we need to class enemies by Common/Uncommon/Miniboss, then split existing factions into individual Corps comprised of 2 Commons, 4 Specials and 1 Miniboss. Have the particular corps chosen at random at mission start, let players identify it based on the enemies who show up. You can still have the individual subfactions, like you can still fight Frontier Grineer or Arid Grineer, just smaller subsets of them per mission. Generally speaking, less enemy variety at a time with more complex designs per enemy tends to work better than just throwing a whole bunch of the same enemy with different guns and a different hat.

 

On 2020-04-29 at 4:40 PM, keikogi said:

A.I is not the problem at all. Enemy desing is. Seriously put yourself on the shoes of grineer lancer against a limbo spanning cataclysmic and stasis , there is literally no winning move you can take.

I think it goes further. In general, "better AI" is almost never a solution to creating challenge in a video game. Quite the opposite, actually - "dumb" enemies who telegraph their actions, announce their intentions and follow predictable patterns make for more compelling gameplay than enemies who better mimic players. The goal of PvE AI is not to mimic PvP, because PvP fights are almost always cheap, gimmicky affairs. I'm of the opinion that the relationship between us as players and the enemies we fight should not be an adversarial one, from a design point of view. That is to say, the goal of AI enemies is not to kill us, frustrate us and prevent us from progressing farther into the game. Quite the opposite - their goal is to entertain us AS we progress, to give us reasons to play smart and use the wealth of tools available to us. While it does sometimes help for enemies to negate player abilities (I believe Nullifiers are an overall good design), this should only ever be done in an attempt to push the player into falling back onto further complexity.

Doom 4 is a good example of enemy AI acting "dumb" from the perspective of killing the player, but creating a more compelling combat experience because of it. Doom 4's enemy AI is able to determine cover positions from the player relatively well, but they use this information to stay AWAY from cover so that the player can more easily see them and rush them down. They'll also avoid shooting near explosive barrels specifically to avoid detonating them, so that the player has the chance to do that. Nominally, the AI is "trying to kill the player." In practice, the AI playacting a fight and setting the stage for the player to feel smart, aggressive and dominating. Good AI isn't "hard" AI. To me, good AI is AI which intelligently sets the player up to win in the most spectacular way possible, but without the player realising this.

When it comes to Warframe, I feel an easy way to replicate this feeling is what I said above - give enemies destructible weakpoints that we can exploit and gate their bigger one-shot attacks behind clearly-telegraphed activation sequences. That alone would go a long way towards helping create a sense of agency in the player without simultaneously making enemies feel like they're exploiting cheap tactics.

[weeaboopotato]

22 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

I think it goes further. In general, "better AI" is almost never a solution to creating challenge in a video game. Quite the opposite, actually - "dumb" enemies who telegraph their actions, announce their intentions and follow predictable patterns make for more compelling gameplay than enemies who better mimic players. The goal of PvE AI is not to mimic PvP, because PvP fights are almost always cheap, gimmicky affairs. I'm of the opinion that the relationship between us as players and the enemies we fight should not be an adversarial one, from a design point of view. That is to say, the goal of AI enemies is not to kill us, frustrate us and prevent us from progressing farther into the game. Quite the opposite - their goal is to entertain us AS we progress, to give us reasons to play smart and use the wealth of tools available to us. While it does sometimes help for enemies to negate player abilities (I believe Nullifiers are an overall good design), this should only ever be done in an attempt to push the player into falling back onto further complexity.

Doom 4 is a good example of enemy AI acting "dumb" from the perspective of killing the player, but creating a more compelling combat experience because of it. Doom 4's enemy AI is able to determine cover positions from the player relatively well, but they use this information to stay AWAY from cover so that the player can more easily see them and rush them down. They'll also avoid shooting near explosive barrels specifically to avoid detonating them, so that the player has the chance to do that. Nominally, the AI is "trying to kill the player." In practice, the AI playacting a fight and setting the stage for the player to feel smart, aggressive and dominating. Good AI isn't "hard" AI. To me, good AI is AI which intelligently sets the player up to win in the most spectacular way possible, but without the player realising this.

When it comes to Warframe, I feel an easy way to replicate this feeling is what I said above - give enemies destructible weakpoints that we can exploit and gate their bigger one-shot attacks behind clearly-telegraphed activation sequences. That alone would go a long way towards helping create a sense of agency in the player without simultaneously making enemies feel like they're exploiting cheap tactics.

I've never actually thought of it that way thank you for your insights

[weeaboopotato]

On 2020-05-04 at 5:14 PM, Loza03 said:

Excuse me?

well I did say I wanted to add it into the main thread

[Loza03]

41 minutes ago, weeaboopotato said:

well I did say I wanted to add it into the main thread

I'm pretty sure it's common courtesy to ask first, instead of declaring that somebody's just going to do it.

Also, I've been talking about the fact that current ability design inhibits enemy design, such as Limbo's ability to entirely ignore an entire gameplay sub-category. That's something that needs addressing long before any form of enemy updates, because those enemy updates will be pretty much useless otherwise.

For example - a higher time to kill. What's the point? Maybe it'd deal with nukes to a degree, but CC is still going to render them entirely helpless statues. And, yes, there is technically a time, but you can refresh that timer whenever you want. Invisibility is still going to allow you to never engage in combat through no input of your own since enemies can never aggro to you, and the numerous means of pseudo-invulnerability - well, do I really need to suggest why being able to soak up more damage than enemies are ever going to throw at you would make a combat encounter one-sided?

[Bluedragon92139823]

I think the main problem with the enemy mechanic is that

1. Many enemies with different unique abilities become the standard weak enemies that you can easily kill, due to a warframe's ability and/or weapon instantly killing them and/or making the unique ability useless. What use is the shield lancer if the shield barely protects them.

2. Enemy difficulty relies only on brute force. i.e. making the game harder by increase enemy damage, durability, or amount. there is nothing unique that makes it more difficult. the only enemy that does not have this problem only appear in certain game mode like the arbitration drone.

3. Enemy that have abilities that the player can't do anything about it. most of the eximus unit are like this, Drains energy without you easily knowing who is drain it, a flame wave that you cannot dodge. 

Honestly, I think Warframe needs to seriously rework the combat in the game.