Enemy Adaptation to player damage over time

[0_The_F00l]

So just to preface , this is with regards to the potential changes to weapons (buffing of guns and some speed rework to melee ).

This suggestion has probably happened in the past as well.

It is an observation that at any single time there are only a fixed number of enemies in the mission , new ones are created when old ones die.

And the new ones have the exact same resistances as the old ones (their health and damage rises with their levels though )

My suggestion is the new ones created should adapt their resistances depending on how the old ones died.

So *hypothetically* if enemies died to a weapon / ability which has predominant viral damage , their next incarnation would gain 15% resistance to it (elemental and status chance) , this would keep adding up until 75%.

This is pretty much the same effect as sentients , only sentients can adapt to any damage (except void) and its for just that instance of the fight.

This should provide some added difficulty and gear selection thoughts for longer runs. Short runs should not see too significant of a change.

Edit : forgot to mention that the enemy can only have max 10 resistance stacks ,upto 5 resistance stacks per element (max 75%) any further changes cancels the oldest resistance.

This will make sure enemies don't just become sentient 2.0.

[DoomFruit]

Technically, they do adapt to the player. It's called level scaling.

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

This would make it impossible to go past a relatively low point in endless missions, since so many enemies get spawned in those modes, and you can only bring so many different elements on your weapons. You would very quickly get to the point that the only way to kill an enemy is with a finisher, unless you are planning on them also adapting to true damage, in which case they would eventually become too tanky to kill in a reasonable amount of time. This would also reinforce the melee meta, not reduce it, because if a butcher takes a full clip for me to kill it with a gun then I will have no choice but to use melee, since it doesn't use ammo.

I think you greatly overestimate the number of active enemies present in the game at any given time. A single wave of defense involves filling each enemy slot at least twice, as can be seen if you go to a low level defense and let all of the enemies gather before killing them. You will have to do that at least twice, sometimes more depending on the tile and the enemy level, before the wave will end. Under your system, every single defense mission would have enemies with full resistance to multiple elements by the end of wave 5, which is just the first round. By wave 20, which is rotation C, every single enemy would have full resistance to every single damage type the player could bring. Not even Lavos could use an element that they would not resist.

EDIT: I should have also discussed the impact of non-endless missions. An exterminate, towards the end of the star chart (Uranus+) fills each spawn slot multiple times throughout the mission. I don't know the exact numbers, as it's been a while since I last only killed enemies at the end, but by the end you will be facing enemies with multiple resistances. This also applies to the begining of the star chart. New players have their available elemental damage types limited enough that they could easily run out of ammo by the end of an exterminate on Mars, pushing them more towards melee (which I believe to be the opposite of your goals here), because each enemy they face at the end will be resistant to the damage types they have.

[0_The_F00l]

2 hours ago, DoomFruit said:

Technically, they do adapt to the player. It's called level scaling.

Armor is based on mission level and wave timers in endless, not damage done. They don't adapt , they have fixed scaling.

1 hour ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

This would make it impossible to go past a relatively low point in endless missions, since so many enemies get spawned in those modes, and you can only bring so many different elements on your weapons. You would very quickly get to the point that the only way to kill an enemy is with a finisher, unless you are planning on them also adapting to true damage, in which case they would eventually become too tanky to kill in a reasonable amount of time. This would also reinforce the melee meta, not reduce it, because if a butcher takes a full clip for me to kill it with a gun then I will have no choice but to use melee, since it doesn't use ammo.

I think you greatly overestimate the number of active enemies present in the game at any given time. A single wave of defense involves filling each enemy slot at least twice, as can be seen if you go to a low level defense and let all of the enemies gather before killing them. You will have to do that at least twice, sometimes more depending on the tile and the enemy level, before the wave will end. Under your system, every single defense mission would have enemies with full resistance to multiple elements by the end of wave 5, which is just the first round. By wave 20, which is rotation C, every single enemy would have full resistance to every single damage type the player could bring. Not even Lavos could use an element that they would not resist.

EDIT: I should have also discussed the impact of non-endless missions. An exterminate, towards the end of the star chart (Uranus+) fills each spawn slot multiple times throughout the mission. I don't know the exact numbers, as it's been a while since I last only killed enemies at the end, but by the end you will be facing enemies with multiple resistances. This also applies to the begining of the star chart. New players have their available elemental damage types limited enough that they could easily run out of ammo by the end of an exterminate on Mars, pushing them more towards melee (which I believe to be the opposite of your goals here), because each enemy they face at the end will be resistant to the damage types they have.

There is a cap at 75% resistance (I forgot to mention it in the OP , have added it now ) and if each stack is 15% you can only have max 2 elements at 75% resistance. Or 3 at 50%, or 4 at 30% and so on if damage is more distributed. Enemies will have max 10 adaptation stacks ( maybe more at higher level?)

And yes , making it difficult past a certain point is the objective.

Most loadouts focus on 2 or 3 damage types , (viral , heat ,slash meta at the moment ) so if the weighting and effectiveness of those elements if nearly halved there would be more incentives to mix and match killing shots to avoid max resistances.

New players will not have access to mods that skew the damage significantly , so the end result is that enemies will have about 5 resistances each at 30% if they use 5 damage types.

Let's take an example :

https://overframe.gg/build/9890/nikana-prime/steel-path-blade-light-viral-heat-update-295-acolyte-killer/

(Only for representation purpose as it has high weightage onspecific element and ips, not a discussion about build loadouts ) 

has 504 viral , 178 heat , 178 slash , 9 impact , 9 puncture total 881 damage.

The first 5 stacks will go to viral (as it remains the highest damage until the end) at the end of which you will get viral output reduced to 126 ,

the next 5 stacks will alternate between heat and slash assuming slash gets an advantage you will get 3 on slash and 2 on heat (could be the other way around )

So 97.9 slash , 124 heat will alternate between enemies.

So the damage is now reduced to 365.9

That's nearly a 60% reduction at base of pure damage , damage reduction due to status resistance will add on top of it for passive damage.

On the other hand a starter skana with no catalyst or forma

https://overframe.gg/build/new/1136/skana/?bs=WzEsMTEzNiwzMCwwLFtbMCwwLDBdLFswLDAsMF0sWzAsMCwwXSxbMzY2LDMsMF0sWzM2NSwyLDBdLFszNjcsMiwwXSxbMzkxLDMsMF0sWzM3NywyLDBdLFs4NTgsMiwxXV1d

With 

201 viral , 134 slash and 86.4 heat 28.8 puncture 28.8 impact has 480 total damage

So viral will get 3 stacks first to get to 110.55 

Then slash will get 2 and get to 93.8

Then viral again to 80.4 (4 stacks now)

Then slash again to 73.7 (3 stacks now ) 

Then heat to to 73.44 (1 stack)

Then viral to 50.25 (maxed stacks at 5)

Then slash to 53.6 (4 stacks )

So we are at max stacks which start alternating.

So now the damage is 235

Which is still about 50% ,

So the more specialised the loadout greater the damage adaptation.

 

I am so sleepy right now , maybe I will create a table in the morning.

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

2 hours ago, 0_The_F00l said:

Armor is based on mission level and wave timers in endless, not damage done. They don't adapt , they have fixed scaling.

There is a cap at 75% resistance (I forgot to mention it in the OP , have added it now ) and if each stack is 15% you can only have max 2 elements at 75% resistance. Or 3 at 50%, or 4 at 30% and so on if damage is more distributed. Enemies will have max 10 adaptation stacks ( maybe more at higher level?)

And yes , making it difficult past a certain point is the objective.

Most loadouts focus on 2 or 3 damage types , (viral , heat ,slash meta at the moment ) so if the weighting and effectiveness of those elements if nearly halved there would be more incentives to mix and match killing shots to avoid max resistances.

New players will not have access to mods that skew the damage significantly , so the end result is that enemies will have about 5 resistances each at 30% if they use 5 damage types.

Let's take an example :

https://overframe.gg/build/9890/nikana-prime/steel-path-blade-light-viral-heat-update-295-acolyte-killer/

(Only for representation purpose as it has high weightage on specific element and ips, not a discussion about build loadouts ) 

has 504 viral , 178 heat , 178 slash , 9 impact , 9 puncture total 881 damage.

The first 5 stacks will go to viral (as it remains the highest damage until the end) at the end of which you will get viral output reduced to 126 ,

the next 5 stacks will alternate between heat and slash assuming slash gets an advantage you will get 3 on slash and 2 on heat (could be the other way around )

So 97.9 slash , 124 heat will alternate between enemies.

So the damage is now reduced to 365.9

That's nearly a 60% reduction at base of pure damage , damage reduction due to status resistance will add on top of it for passive damage.

On the other hand a starter skana with no catalyst or forma

https://overframe.gg/build/new/1136/skana/?bs=WzEsMTEzNiwzMCwwLFtbMCwwLDBdLFswLDAsMF0sWzAsMCwwXSxbMzY2LDMsMF0sWzM2NSwyLDBdLFszNjcsMiwwXSxbMzkxLDMsMF0sWzM3NywyLDBdLFs4NTgsMiwxXV1d

With 

201 viral , 134 slash and 86.4 heat 28.8 puncture 28.8 impact has 480 total damage

So viral will get 3 stacks first to get to 110.55 

Then slash will get 2 and get to 93.8

Then viral again to 80.4 (4 stacks now)

Then slash again to 73.7 (3 stacks now ) 

Then heat to to 73.44 (1 stack)

Then viral to 50.25 (maxed stacks at 5)

Then slash to 53.6 (4 stacks )

So we are at max stacks which start alternating.

So now the damage is 235

Which is still about 50% ,

So the more specialized the loadout greater the damage adaptation.

 

I am so sleepy right now , maybe I will create a table in the morning.

I wouldn't consider just getting to wave 20 in a defense to be a long mission. that is the absolute minimum to get rewards. And most new players are lucky to have even half of their basic elemental mods by Mars, due to the limitations on where those mods drop and their drop-rates. Thus, they will have even more limits than endgame players. So while yes, you will be forcing endgame players to have a rainbow loadout, new players will get hurt by not being able to do the same.

There's a reason why we are able to strip resistances from sentients, and that is because, without that, creating a build that can kill them would be very tedious and very forma-intensive. Giving that adaptation to all enemies is only going to cause problems, even if it is a bit more gradual. Maybe if killing an enemy with Void damage resets the resistances for that spawn then maybe it could be ok, as it would give a way to prevent the enemies from becoming unkillable

Also, consider how the game might implement this in situations that have unique enemy spawns. For example, how would Demolysts in disruption be affected? They are already very tanky and resist or prevent a lot of abilities. Adding on some heavy damage resistance on top of their existing health and armor values would only make them even more difficult to kill. Also, Liches/Queenpins. As it is right now they have a small chance to increase their resistance to a damage type that is used to kill them. If this system also applied they would additionally have the resistances of whatever enemy spawn slot they replaced when they spawned, which would make them incredibly difficult to kill, as you would have brought a loadout tailored to their current weaknesses and resistances, and the killing of enemies to lure them out would give them resistances to what you brought to kill them. Rank 5 liches are already tanky enough and have enough resistances as it is; they don't need even more.

When it comes to damage types in Warframe, a carrot approach will always be better than a stick approach. Try to make all damage types useful, and players will use all damage types. Make all damage types mandatory, and players will try to avoid it if possible. Make that the entire game, and they may just avoid the game as a whole.

[0_The_F00l]

4 hours ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

I wouldn't consider just getting to wave 20 in a defense to be a long mission. that is the absolute minimum to get rewards. And most new players are lucky to have even half of their basic elemental mods by Mars, due to the limitations on where those mods drop and their drop-rates. Thus, they will have even more limits than endgame players. So while yes, you will be forcing endgame players to have a rainbow loadout, new players will get hurt by not being able to do the same.

There's a reason why we are able to strip resistances from sentients, and that is because, without that, creating a build that can kill them would be very tedious and very forma-intensive. Giving that adaptation to all enemies is only going to cause problems, even if it is a bit more gradual. Maybe if killing an enemy with Void damage resets the resistances for that spawn then maybe it could be ok, as it would give a way to prevent the enemies from becoming unkillable

Also, consider how the game might implement this in situations that have unique enemy spawns. For example, how would Demolysts in disruption be affected? They are already very tanky and resist or prevent a lot of abilities. Adding on some heavy damage resistance on top of their existing health and armor values would only make them even more difficult to kill. Also, Liches/Queenpins. As it is right now they have a small chance to increase their resistance to a damage type that is used to kill them. If this system also applied they would additionally have the resistances of whatever enemy spawn slot they replaced when they spawned, which would make them incredibly difficult to kill, as you would have brought a loadout tailored to their current weaknesses and resistances, and the killing of enemies to lure them out would give them resistances to what you brought to kill them. Rank 5 liches are already tanky enough and have enough resistances as it is; they don't need even more.

When it comes to damage types in Warframe, a carrot approach will always be better than a stick approach. Try to make all damage types useful, and players will use all damage types. Make all damage types mandatory, and players will try to avoid it if possible. Make that the entire game, and they may just avoid the game as a whole.

Feels like you haven't really grasped the concept here mate. You still want to maintain the status quo of the slot machine approach for the game it seems. Though some points you made are valid.

I will again highlight that there is a limit to the resistance. So you will not be in a situation where all enemies are fully resistant to everything , at most they will be resistant to 3 elements in most situations and that too at 50% each as per current number suggestion (number could be tweaked as per mission starting level so fewer adaptation stacks and resistance per stack for low level and more at higher level) 

There could of course be methods to reset these , I was thinking parazon/ finishers or void element kills will reset any resistance stacks for the next spawn.

And unique enemies? Guess they will be that much more of a unique threat now. Liches only show up once per mission , I do not see this affecting them, as their spawn is not tied to the mission mob spawn in my opinion.

I do not agree that you can make all damage types useful , though I would like it if they could , there will always be a preferred type for its convenience even if it's limited to a faction. Maybe if DE actually could pull it off this wouldn't be needed.