Pre-War Stalker's part of what makes the NPE so bad.

[Orrion_the_Kitsune]

Unless you have mid/late-game gear, he's capable of OHKing due to 375+ Slash procs. His 'Dispel' ability is unavoidable, as is his teleport. Your strongest weapon might deal a mighty 47 damage to his shield per shot, and less to his health because he has armor too. Once you get mid/late-game gear and mods, he dies in the blink of an eye. He's a loot bag for players with gear, and an annoyance for players without. He adds nothing to the new player experience and subtracts a whole lot through unfairly killing new players because they dared to play. This leaves me with a question: does DE hate new players? The only meaningful choice you have when the Stalker appears is "Do I abort the mission or not?" and most often the answer is "No" as his appearance doesn't change anything about the mission objective, and most often said objective is easy enough that being down a revive is negligible. The only times his appearance may matter is if you are out of revives and somehow unable to finish the objective, which is an incredibly unlikely circumstance for new players to be in because of how the planet progression is structured. He's there to kill new players for progressing, and that's the only purpose he serves until you're able to one-shot him, which is when he becomes free loot.

This is a short post to raise a bit of awareness about the state of the old version of the Stalker and how he contributes to terrible newbie retention. The renovations DE makes to the maps and story quests are fantastic, but irrelevant if there's a bigger issue abound. DE has proven to us that they can implement scaling for Tenno-like NPCs, and so they should have the pre-War Stalker's equipment (and level) scale entirely on yours or in a way similar to Liches. Simple fix, and it'd go a long way to solving the problem. The only motivation for keeping the pre-War Stalker as-is would be to encourage new players to "speed their progression up a bit" but considering how scummy that is, I do not believe that DE's doing it for this reason.

 

[Genitive]

Yes, he is supposed to troll new players.

I miss the old Stalker, the post-Second Dream one is a pushover by comparison.

[Orrion_the_Kitsune]

1 hour ago, Genitive said:

Yes, he is supposed to troll new players.

I miss the old Stalker, the post-Second Dream one is a pushover by comparison.

So, DE doesn't like new players. I guess that's their choice then. That's a lot of revenue and clout down the toilet, though.

Here's my suggestion: they should take inspiration from Liches. Not only would the Stalker's weapons and frame level scale on yours, but he can gain levels as you complete planets regardless of whether he's pre-War or post-War (different stats and abilities of course) and this could even be done on the Steel Path to give SP players an even tougher assassin. Every time he levels up, he gains a new ability and his stats increase by a moderate amount and this moderate increase is present even if you level a new frame. He could have a unique codex entry detailing his current abilities, level, lore, etc. and it'd all be completely workable with present technology. It'd also make the game so much more interesting for everyone, new and old. He'd no longer be this pathetic entity that's only good at picking on new Tenno.

[_R_o_g_u_e_]

1 hour ago, Orrion_the_Kitsune said:

Unless you have mid/late-game gear, he's capable of OHKing due to 375+ Slash procs. His 'Dispel' ability is unavoidable, as is his teleport. Your strongest weapon might deal a mighty 47 damage to his shield per shot, and less to his health because he has armor too. Once you get mid/late-game gear and mods, he dies in the blink of an eye. He's a loot bag for players with gear, and an annoyance for players without. He adds nothing to the new player experience and subtracts a whole lot through unfairly killing new players because they dared to play. This leaves me with a question: does DE hate new players? The only meaningful choice you have when the Stalker appears is "Do I abort the mission or not?" and most often the answer is "No" as his appearance doesn't change anything about the mission objective, and most often said objective is easy enough that being down a revive is negligible. The only times his appearance may matter is if you are out of revives and somehow unable to finish the objective, which is an incredibly unlikely circumstance for new players to be in because of how the planet progression is structured. He's there to kill new players for progressing, and that's the only purpose he serves until you're able to one-shot him, which is when he becomes free loot.

This is a short post to raise a bit of awareness about the state of the old version of the Stalker and how he contributes to terrible newbie retention. The renovations DE makes to the maps and story quests are fantastic, but irrelevant if there's a bigger issue abound. DE has proven to us that they can implement scaling for Tenno-like NPCs, and so they should have the pre-War Stalker's equipment (and level) scale entirely on yours or in a way similar to Liches. Simple fix, and it'd go a long way to solving the problem. The only motivation for keeping the pre-War Stalker as-is would be to encourage new players to "speed their progression up a bit" but considering how scummy that is, I do not believe that DE's doing it for this reason.

 

You’re aware that Stalker’s stats scale with the level of the mission, right? It doesn’t really matter what gear the new player has. A level 5 stalker was designed to be appropriate for level 5 content. The same for a level 20 or 30 stalker in level 20 or 30 content.

[Genitive]

10 minutes ago, Orrion_the_Kitsune said:

So, DE doesn't like new players. I guess that's their choice then. That's a lot of revenue and clout down the toilet, though.

You know, here's my suggestion just so people won't be like "Oh you're just COMPLAINING! Why don't YOU do any better?!" They should take inspiration from their clever Lich technology: not only would the Stalker's weapons and frame level scale on yours, but he can gain levels as you complete planets regardless of whether he's pre-War or post-War (different stats and abilities of course) and this could even be done on the Steel Path to give SP players an even tougher assassin to fear. Every time he levels up, he gains a new ability and his stats increase by a moderate amount and this moderate increase is present even if you level a new frame and the Stalker's own level scales with it. He could have a unique codex entry detailing his current abilities, level, lore, etc. and it'd all be completely workable with present technology. It'd also make the game so much more interesting for everyone, new and old. He'd no longer be this pathetic entity that's only good at picking on new Tenno, he'd actually live up to his name.

Complain all you want. As a new player, defeating Stalker for the first time felt good. And the fights were exciting when I didn't have all the mods or powerful gear, which, one would guess, was the point. Besides, you said yourself, dying to the Stalker means almost nothing because you can revive. There would be a problem if we would still have to pay for additional revives, but we don't have to anymore.

There is a lot of pressing issues that derail new player experience, Stalker isn't the one of them.

[(PSN)robotwars7]

Stalker was always supposed to be the powerful, mysterious and edgy antagonist that shows up now and then, and his older version suits this well. I'd argue that if newer players can't beat OG stalker, then they are really gonna struggle in high level content, when they are surrounded by enemies who can deal even more damage than he does. technically all of his abilities are mimicked by at least one enemy type: his teleport? Manics can do that. cancelling your powers? that's what Nullifiers exist for. throwing powerful ranged attacks at you? Bombards and Ballistas at high level can also down new players from afar when they aren't careful.

OG stalker, if nothing else, basically trains you to deal with the more underhanded tactics of enemy units later down the line, so the best thing to do is brave the fight, and if you lose, try to learn what you did wrong, or where your gear needs improvement, and then eventually you'll beat him: then you'll start beating him on a regular basis, and even more so after Second Dream where he becomes a total pushover. there really isn't anything wrong with OG stalker's position in the game.

if anything, I want to revert him back to his old form so that I actually get a fight, rather than "woops, I meant to reset his adaptation but my amp killed him! oh well".

[Orrion_the_Kitsune]

16 minutes ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

Stalker was always supposed to be the powerful, mysterious and edgy antagonist that shows up now and then, and his older version suits this well. I'd argue that if newer players can't beat OG stalker, then they are really gonna struggle in high level content, when they are surrounded by enemies who can deal even more damage than he does. technically all of his abilities are mimicked by at least one enemy type: his teleport? Manics can do that. cancelling your powers? that's what Nullifiers exist for. throwing powerful ranged attacks at you? Bombards and Ballistas at high level can also down new players from afar when they aren't careful.

OG stalker, if nothing else, basically trains you to deal with the more underhanded tactics of enemy units later down the line, so the best thing to do is brave the fight, and if you lose, try to learn what you did wrong, or where your gear needs improvement, and then eventually you'll beat him: then you'll start beating him on a regular basis, and even more so after Second Dream where he becomes a total pushover. there really isn't anything wrong with OG stalker's position in the game.

if anything, I want to revert him back to his old form so that I actually get a fight, rather than "woops, I meant to reset his adaptation but my amp killed him! oh well".

Ah yes, it's really easy to learn from being one-shot by a single Dread arrow because of the 500 slash damage ticks, which ignore armor now so the entire tactic is to one-shot him as soon as he spawns. Very interesting gameplay, and so much to learn... not. If any other game does this, it's terrible design. If Warframe does it, it's fine. The fanboy apologia couldn't be more obvious.

 

25 minutes ago, Genitive said:

Complain all you want. As a new player, defeating Stalker for the first time felt good. And the fights were exciting when I didn't have all the mods or powerful gear, which, one would guess, was the point. Besides, you said yourself, dying to the Stalker means almost nothing because you can revive. There would be a problem if we would still have to pay for additional revives, but we don't have to anymore.

There is a lot of pressing issues that derail new player experience, Stalker isn't the one of them.

You stop with the apologia too. You suffering through DE's worse design decisions and being satisfied that you no longer need to deal with them isn't a point in your favor, and new players don't need to suffer because you did. You barely have comprehension of what your emotional response to stimuli mean, let alone what would be good for new players being introduced to a newbie-unfriendly game.
https://imgur.com/a/BxALcf6

[(PSN)robotwars7]

2 minutes ago, Orrion_the_Kitsune said:

Ah yes, it's really easy to learn from being one-shot by a single Dread shot plus a 500 Slash DoT. Please stop with the apologia.

not gonna lie, you're making yourself out to be like a person who's salty because they can't kill stalker. you can stop making out like he's impossible to kill, because myself and plenty other players have done it. many times. it's one of the reasons we were so disappointed with Shadow Stalker: Second Dream was great, but it's one downside was nerfing Stalker into oblivion.  you can always use frames like Rhino if you need to protect yourself, and moving around a lot and staying airborne helps too, as enemeis are less accurate whilst you're in mid-air. yeah, you'll probably get hit from time to time, but get yourself the right equipment and mods and you can probably take it. alternatively you could invets in a powerful weapon and try to get close and deliver as much DPS as you can before he can retaliate. running misisons with others or using Specters will also divide his agro, whcih makes life much easier too. 

I know it's rude to just say "git gud", but this really is one of those cases where you have to do exactly that. I was once at a point where I thought "how'd you beat this guy?". but then one day I said to myself "this edgy boi is gonna die" and I did it. regardless of gear, and strategy and whatnot, you also have to have the confidence to say "I will kill this boss no matter what". 

 

[DrivaMain]

Just die to him and revive. It's not a big deal. It's not like Stalker is gonna appear every time you're in a mission anyway.

Once you're past The Second Dream that annoyance will go away.

[Orrion_the_Kitsune]

3 minutes ago, DrivaMain said:

Just die to him and revive. It's not a big deal. It's not like Stalker is gonna appear every time you're in a mission anyway.

Once you're past The Second Dream that annoyance will go away.

That's exactly my point. What new player is going to be willing to deal with this until they finish The Second Dream? Only about 24% of them, according to Steam and only about 26.1% of them, according to TrueAchievements. A loss of 76%-74% of players is not a minor tax. Originally the Stalker was at least reasonably doable with a rank 20 frame and weapon, but the 2019 changes to the DoTs look to have made it no longer doable because they now require Inaros to survive.

[DrivaMain]

Just now, Orrion_the_Kitsune said:

That's exactly my point. What new player is going to be willing to deal with this until they finish The Second Dream? Only about 24% of them, according to Steam and only about 26.1% of them, according to TrueAchievements.

Then those 76% players aren't interested in Warframe to begin with. You can make the "best" game in the world and people still refuse to play it because "reasons". You still forget that there are other platforms outside of PC, so that data isn't 100% accurate.

I mean come on, pressing the revive button is too much for you?

[Orrion_the_Kitsune]

19 minutes ago, DrivaMain said:

Then those 76% players aren't interested in Warframe to begin with. You can make the "best" game in the world and people still refuse to play it because "reasons". You still forget that there are other platforms outside of PC, so that data isn't 100% accurate.

I mean come on, pressing the revive button is too much for you?

Ah yes, I'd totally go through a 28GB install just to quit after a few hours because I didn't want to give the game a fair shot. Don't you think that's a bit of a rationalization, "Ah they must have quit because they didn't want to give it a fair chance"? Don't you think that there are things that might, say, give people an inaccurate (or worse) idea of what the experience consists of, and that at some point you have to admit "Ah it gets better after 100 hours" isn't a great pitch when the first 100 hours take the cake for "worst experience had"?

Actually yes, I don't think being randomly one-shot because you decided to progress is that appealing to people even if the consequences are in theory minor. You're given revives for mistakes, not for RNG instant death that results from them forgetting to properly balance old Stalker against the new statuses.

[SneakyErvin]

How do you even get Stalker to come after you that early on and so often? You need to be farming bosses in order for him to appear regularly, and iirc he goes away if he kills you a single time and stays away until you've killed another boss.

[Orrion_the_Kitsune]

10 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

How do you even get Stalker to come after you that early on and so often? You need to be farming bosses in order for him to appear regularly, and iirc he goes away if he kills you a single time and stays away until you've killed another boss.

You dare to fulfill junction requirements of killing bosses is how. You'll have five whole marks before you're even quarter way through the planet total.

[TaricTheAncient]

Just dodge him n finish mission its fun to have something actually threatening happen.

[SneakyErvin]

Just now, Orrion_the_Kitsune said:

You dare to fulfill junction requirements of killing bosses is how.

That is like once per planet. Which means you need Stalker to kill you once for every planet you clear if you cant beat him. 

When I started playing and noticed what Stalker was about on my first encounter with him all I did was look up a single good primary weapon, leveled it up and modded it. After that Stalker no longer had a chance. Sure it reduced the speed for mastery gain since I couldnt level a primary at the same time, but I rather killed Stalker reliably for his items when he showed up.

This whole Stalker complaint is the same as vets had regarding Wolf, because they felt misstreated by requiring a proper weapon to kill him, so they couldnt master items as quickly as otherwise.

[Orrion_the_Kitsune]

11 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

That is like once per planet. Which means you need Stalker to kill you once for every planet you clear if you cant beat him. 

When I started playing and noticed what Stalker was about on my first encounter with him all I did was look up a single good primary weapon, leveled it up and modded it. After that Stalker no longer had a chance. Sure it reduced the speed for mastery gain since I couldnt level a primary at the same time, but I rather killed Stalker reliably for his items when he showed up.

This whole Stalker complaint is the same as vets had regarding Wolf, because they felt misstreated by requiring a proper weapon to kill him, so they couldnt master items as quickly as otherwise.

So new players and veterans hate how DE handles random-spawn bosses. Hmmmm... not a good argument. The Wolf was fixed, meanwhile the Stalker's still a problem. I wonder if it has anything to do with the huge amounts of money DE tries to make off of new players, which goes to show their little respect for 'em.

[Uhkretor]

... Old Stalker is so easy right now...

 

... I miss having him constantly teleporting to my face...

 

Oh, don't mind me though, I defeated Stalker back in Update 7 with an unmodded Skana... And repeated the whole prowess up until Update 12, which is when I decided to go with something else, and proceeded to repeat the whole process again with my Melee of choice up until DE "fixed" his teleport to make it easier for new players to defeat which, at that moment, I simply 1-shot its face...

... Not a worthy opponent to Solo if he can't teleport and give me less than 0.1s reaction time intervals...

[SneakyErvin]

8 minutes ago, Orrion_the_Kitsune said:

So new players and veterans hate how DE handles random-spawn bosses. Hmmmm... not a good argument. The Wolf was fixed, meanwhile the Stalker's still a problem. I wonder if it has anything to do with the huge amounts of money DE tries to make off of new players.

That depends if you think you equal all new players or that those that disliked Wolf made up all the vets. Hint, that isnt the case. And if you know about Wolf and how he got changed, then you arent really new to WF as a whole, so how do you struggle with Budget Vader 1.0? Also, what money from new players? You can get everything you need to kill Stalker for free. The only thing a new player needs to buy would be slots.

[Orrion_the_Kitsune]

14 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

That depends if you think you equal all new players or that those that disliked Wolf made up all the vets. Hint, that isnt the case. And if you know about Wolf and how he got changed, then you arent really new to WF as a whole, so how do you struggle with Budget Vader 1.0? Also, what money from new players? You can get everything you need to kill Stalker for free. The only thing a new player needs to buy would be slots.

I'm not sure if you read my OP, but let me help you out.

• New players don't have knowledge.
• Knowledge is how you acquire gear.
• Gear makes the Stalker easy.
• The Stalker will one-shot players without gear.
• The Stalker's incredibly binary, being instantly killed or instantly killing you.
• Being instantly killed is bad for new players and drives them away.

I'm not sure how hard this is to understand. It's pretty obvious I'm not a new player. I have knowledge, and with knowledge comes the ability to one-shot the Stalker with the Paris. I know you're possibly subject to the same ridiculous notion the original person who responded to me was, but wtf.

[SneakyErvin]

1 minute ago, Orrion_the_Kitsune said:

No offense, but just how stupid are you to think that someone new to the game would be criticizing the Stalker in such a detailed manner? I'm heavily criticizing how the Stalker necessitates good gear or you may as well just hack and flee and/or just die, and how that has a severe negative effect on new players. I really couldn't care less about how difficult the Stalker is for me because, here's a hint that you just caught on to, he isn't.

So you more or less think new players are complete morons since you feel a need to speak for them? Stalker is easier now than he was before for several reasons, main one being that all weapons have gotten buffed over the years, making it easier to mod a regular weapon to beat him effortlessly.

And why post these thoughts on an alt account?

[Orrion_the_Kitsune]

6 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

So you more or less think new players are complete morons since you feel a need to speak for them? Stalker is easier now than he was before for several reasons, main one being that all weapons have gotten buffed over the years, making it easier to mod a regular weapon to beat him effortlessly.

And why post these thoughts on an alt account?

I'm sure you wish I thought so, but Warframe's pretty well-known for the lacking NPE. An account dedicated to the NPE, talking about the NPE? Wow, big shocker. I imagine actual new players would be more interested in using the forums if replies like this

 

2 hours ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

not gonna lie, you're making yourself out to be like a person who's salty because they can't kill stalker. you can stop making out like he's impossible to kill, because myself and plenty other players have done it. many times. it's one of the reasons we were so disappointed with Shadow Stalker: Second Dream was great, but it's one downside was nerfing Stalker into oblivion.  you can always use frames like Rhino if you need to protect yourself, and moving around a lot and staying airborne helps too, as enemeis are less accurate whilst you're in mid-air. yeah, you'll probably get hit from time to time, but get yourself the right equipment and mods and you can probably take it. alternatively you could invets in a powerful weapon and try to get close and deliver as much DPS as you can before he can retaliate. running misisons with others or using Specters will also divide his agro, whcih makes life much easier too. 

I know it's rude to just say "git gud", but this really is one of those cases where you have to do exactly that. I was once at a point where I thought "how'd you beat this guy?". but then one day I said to myself "this edgy boi is gonna die" and I did it. regardless of gear, and strategy and whatnot, you also have to have the confidence to say "I will kill this boss no matter what". 

 

weren't so common. I also don't imagine that many people - people like you, by the way - have alternate accounts dedicated to experiencing the S#&$ty NPE. You, as veteran players, get to meme about how easy the Stalker is when you literally haven't fought him for months if not years and judging by your post history specifically, the latter is more likely correct.

You're literally talking about how non-problematic the new player experience is on a veteran account, meanwhile I'm talking about it on a new account to prove that in fact I am talking from modern experience. Head out of the hole in the ground, please.

[Genitive]

22 minutes ago, Uhkretor said:

... Not a worthy opponent to Solo if he can't teleport and give me less than 0.1s reaction time intervals...

He definitely should have more mobility. But since he appeared at Tennocon, maybe he will receive another makeover.

[Letter13]

I think the reasoning here is a bit flawed. I distinctly remember when I was a new player and when I first encountered the Stalker it was a pretty terrifying (and exhilarating) experience. Sure, it was a "bad" experience because I got my teeth kicked in or I wound up running in fear or something of the sort, but it was a bad experience in the same way that running into Mr. X in Resident Evil 2 was a bad experience. Didn't feel at all like it was a 'scummy' practice to get me to buy stuff to make up for the power difference as much as it was a challenging surprise.

The New Player Experience might not be as good as it could be, but I don't think the Stalker is the reason. Games have a history of having an unexpectedly hard or challenging element pop up when not expecting it. Dark Souls/Bloodborne has invaders, Resident Evil had Mr. X/Nemesis/Dimitrescu, Warframe has the Stalker.

 

That said, it's become increasingly clear that this thread has failed to remain civil, so I'm going to go ahead and lock it.