Please don't nerf Sentients

[(NSW)Mbek]

I'm gonna miss that feeling when RJ anomaly was first released and that place actually feels threatening even though we're fighting like 3 enemies max at the same time.

[Venyxos]

As voiced previously: Warframes/Tenno are actually the counter to Sentients - not the other way around... So if anything, they should be some of the easiest to kill and they should be fleeing from us every engagement... Like younglings from a young Vader...

Spoiler

Their leader, Hunno (sp?) is literally in hiding, pulling every string he can to gain an advantage over the Tenno - only recently obtained by kidnapping/swooping space ma... Which really just made Tenno and company independent... A proper sovereign entity which the other factions just can't predict outside of surgical strikes and sabotage... 

But I just wanted to point out this change is almost -certainly- due to DE trying to make Primary/Secondary Guns more relevant in the end game - the last half dozen live streams and most the past updates have mentioned and/or included changes which is designed to break up and/or add variety to the "Condition Overload Melee" meta

By "nerfing" sentients (which, here too, others have already pointed out: blanket immunity and similar is not really balancing an enemy and therefore its hard to call this a nerf... this is more a fix IMO), they open opportunities for your firearms to remain valid/useful in Sentient engagements (which I hear we should expect far more of in the near future)

[Silligoose]

43 minutes ago, Walkampf said:

Well, I mean, you any enemy is to weak, you can downgrade yourself.

Don't use Umbral, sacrificial oder primed mods and the playing field get's a lot more even.

Personally, I don't even use fully ranked mandatory mods anymore. (since these don't effect the gameplay anyway)

I also reduced my own surivability to crank up the fun. I completly got rid of Steel Fiber on any Warframebuild and replaced it with something that's actually effecting the gameplay. (Most of the time Augments)

You can also make the first levels in Tetris more difficult by downgrading yourself - just close your eyes for 5 - 10 seconds every time a new block comes, depending on the difficulty you want to experience.

Instead of players having to do that, the developers there instead chose to use the foundation they'd created and build upon that, by changing certain parameters (block drop speed) to increase the difficulty, which is a much better way to continue providing a challenging experience and player retention, than having players downgrade themselves.

The natural increase in difficulty and continued challenge as created innately within the game, along with a solid foundation, has led to the game's sustainability being increased massively - not only are people still playing it after 30 years, there are even tournaments for it!

[vanaukas]

1 hour ago, TomCruisesSon said:

Trying not to let my imagination get too wild, but I'm curious what they mean by "evolve".

This comment and the upcoming evolving sentient armor is making me think the sentients are gonna have multiple forms or phases like a Dark Souls boss.

they may abvsorb the status and uses it against us :O

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

4 hours ago, (XBOX)General Poke said:

I noticed the change to the Sentients, too, and I'm a bit worried about it. 

Fighting Sentients is meant to be scary, if one appears it's an amber alert to your mission progress. Two appearing means it got a little bit serious but doesn't last long.

A whole swarm of them makes you really sit up and pay attention.

Until now. 

I found them incredibly easy to kill today and they're supposed to be the ultimate threat against Warframe in general. I mean, isn't there supposed to be an invasion on the way?

We got mechs to help out because we're meant to be incredibly weak against them. We have a particular Warframe, Excalibur Umbra, as a specialist against them. These are now mute because of the recent changes.

I was actually looking forward to a proper battle, Valhalla style. I have beer, axe and horned helmet at the ready and everything. :C 

 

All games eventually are dumbed down for casuals. 

People with bad reflexes and people that can't read or make any effort just ask for the game to be made easier because they want what everyone else got so effortlessly. It makes them feel bad they can't kill something as fast and there ya go.

[(NSW)Greybones]

1 hour ago, Silligoose said:

You can also make the first levels in Tetris more difficult by downgrading yourself - just close your eyes for 5 - 10 seconds every time a new block comes, depending on the difficulty you want to experience.

Instead of players having to do that, the developers there instead chose to use the foundation they'd created and build upon that, by changing certain parameters (block drop speed) to increase the difficulty, which is a much better way to continue providing a challenging experience and player retention, than having players downgrade themselves.

The natural increase in difficulty and continued challenge as created innately within the game, along with a solid foundation, has led to the game's sustainability being increased massively - not only are people still playing it after 30 years, there are even tournaments for it!

Tetris?

Weird game comparison, but okay.

The thing is, if Tetris is like Warframe, then as you played you unlocked equipable skills that slowed blocks down, auto-rotated blocks to fit, or the ability to clear a line at will. Take all that away and you’re playing Tetris. Maybe at some point the blocks fall so fast you need to equip one of those skills to keep up, but if you didn’t need the help (or weren’t looking for the OP experience), would you take it anyways?

[Walkampf]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Silligoose:

(...)

Yeah, that's a whole lot of nonsense.

 

1. Tetris doesn't feature upgrades and powercreep. Back, when the Stalker was intoduced, the fight was extremly frantic and challenging, for a while. When he got an upgrade to the shadow Stalker, he was a threat again, but only for a time.

2. Tetris is single player, Warframe is multiplayer. So, even if YOU want the game to be harder, the next person might not. This is the reason, why games had selectable difficulty levels for decades. So even if the foundation is extremly and impossibly well thought out, the exceptable difficulty is always subjective. But it's basically impossible to create a game, where different people with different skills get different difficulties while interating withing the same sandbox.

3. In Tetris you have always your own score to compete against. Warframe levels are, for the most part self contained. You move to the end of a stage and you are done. If you can't reach the extraction, this is frustating. If you can't beat you previous highscore in Tetris, you have at least the thought, that you yourself set the goal, which you culdn't reach again.

[Danielw8]

Sentients should be endgame and should be very hard to deal with. Blade mail or reflecting damage is a good mechanic as example but being honest looking the direction of the game those enemies will be designed for 100h mr10 players

[ReddyDisco]

Yes don't change them, because fighting a bulletsponge, telegraphed and easily dodgeable attack enemy is so engaging

/s

[(XBOX)The Neko Otaku]

Nerf is needed, sentients before were interesting but became tedious bullet sponges that you wanted to avoid fighting. Plus you needed crit weapons to even deal with them effectively otherwise it is a nightmare killing them with pure stat weapons. And like others pointed we're literally made to kill these things.

[Tyreaus]

I thought at one point DE mentioned about getting rid of status immunity across the board, replacing it with things like status caps and diminishing returns on procs...

[Hypernaut1]

3 hours ago, (XBOX)The Neko Otaku said:

 but became tedious bullet sponges that you wanted to avoid fighting. 

Literally all someone needs to say to dismiss anything they don't like instead of being a real critique 

It's like players truly just want cannon fodder that goes down without a fight.

[Silligoose]

41 minutes ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

Tetris?

Weird game comparison, but okay.

The thing is, if Tetris is like Warframe, then as you played you unlocked equipable skills that slowed blocks down, auto-rotated blocks to fit, or the ability to clear a line at will. Take all that away and you’re playing Tetris. Maybe at some point the blocks fall so fast you need to equip one of those skills to keep up, but if you didn’t need the help (or weren’t looking for the OP experience), would you take it anyways?

The analogy was used to demonstrate the ridiculousness of the arguement to "downgrade yourself" as opposed to wanting the game to provide that challenging experience and showed an exmaple how keeping a game challenging has maintained player interest. 

Don't like Tetris, same can be said for a racing game: If you spend spend time upgrading the engine, tires, exhaust, get a better and then find yourself lapping opponents in the hardest races multiple times, it is bad design. The equipment is overpowered and not suited for the content. Stating one should then unequip these upgrades, or give the opponents a head-start for the sake of challenge, instead of supporting having better opponents, is ridiculous.

You can "downgrade yourself" in any game, but it won't excuse a game from being too easy. If there was a Tetris, similar to Warframe, with equipment and abilities that you need to use to get to later stages, but then trivializes the end-game, then it is bad design.

 

32 minutes ago, Walkampf said:

Yeah, that's a whole lot of nonsense.

 

1. Tetris doesn't feature upgrades and powercreep. Back, when the Stalker was intoduced, the fight was extremly frantic and challenging, for a while. When he got an upgrade to the shadow Stalker, he was a threat again, but only for a time.

2. Tetris is single player, Warframe is multiplayer. So, even if YOU want the game to be harder, the next person might not. This is the reason, why games had selectable difficulty levels for decades. So even if the foundation is extremly and impossibly well thought out, the exceptable difficulty is always subjective. But it's basically impossible to create a game, where different people with different skills get different difficulties while interating withing the same sandbox.

3. In Tetris you have always your own score to compete against. Warframe levels are, for the most part self contained. You move to the end of a stage and you are done. If you can't reach the extraction, this is frustating. If you can't beat you previous highscore in Tetris, you have at least the thought, that you yourself set the goal, which you culdn't reach again.

 

1. I'd say power-creep is probably essential for persistent online games to keep them going, but that power needs to be met with suitable opposition. If not, it trivializes the game, which causes players lose interest and become bored, which loses players, which loses money. Yeah sure some will collect it because they are collectors, but many will look at the price, either in time or currency, look at their current performance in the game and think: "Why? Why buy this? Why grind this? I don't need it. I'll never need it". Putting some powerful gear in a game that doesn't really serve a function other than to be a new thing is a wasted opportunity. Overpowered gear is called that for a reason: It is overpowered. It is not in balance. Given the game's mechanics, it shouldn't be there in that state,

2. An acceptable difficulty level is only applicable to games with one difficulty setting. Warframe already has two difficulty settings - Normal and Steel Path, so multiple difficulty settings in an online persistent world already works. Aside from that, The New War is the next chapter in Warframe. It should be more difficult, just like Kuva Fortress should be more difficult than Earth. It is basic game design.

3. Frustration isn't exclusive to not completing a mission. People competing against their own scores find frustration when they can't improve upon multiple attempts. This extends beyond gaming as well into all factors of sports and life in general.

[Uhkretor]

... so instead of 2-hit a lvl180 Steel Path Sentient, I can 1-hit a lvl5000 Steel Path Sentient now?

[(PSN)ElectricCold]

5 hours ago, DrivaMain said:

I don't find having to forced to "USE CRITICALS OR YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG" against a faction to be "fun" and "scary".

 

 

yup summed it up perfectly

 

[Flannoit]

this thread is too long but my 5 cents as someone who took a long break between when Operator first came out to a few months back, this change is pretty welcome. Yeah, I have a good amp now and my MOTE is in the trash, but it's a nice change. Far from perfect, of course, because now their adaptive resistances mean literally nothing because my kitgun can literally status them to death in seconds.

My biggest question is weather or not this also applies to Eidolons.

[(PSN)ErydisTheLucario]

Dude, the only weapons effective against sentiments were crit weapons. We didn't have the option to use CO on weapons when they had their previous resistances. This is being done for a reason, and finally I can use the opportunity to bust out something with CO. It's not a big deal and it's not a problem. It's not even anything to be afraid for, that's ridiculous. The new war is coming, this is preparation for it. Get used to it.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

1 hour ago, Uhkretor said:

... so instead of 2-hit a lvl180 Steel Path Sentient, I can 1-hit a lvl5000 Steel Path Sentient now?

No one considers probably level 500 even a target average player arena.

On the forums and reddit people are often like "Oh man my whatever build melts level 80 grineer like nothing!" Like they have no idea T3 sortie enemies are fodder just like level 200.

[CephalonCarnage]

6 hours ago, MonsterOfMyOwn said:

Paracesis is now less useful, everybody with take their typical viral / slash melee mindlessly

Doubt that - the sentients will be damage immune to those DoT procs. and a slash proc without damage is pretty useless.

Try a cold proc to slow it, a heat proc to make it harder to kill - and a rad proc to make it shoot its buddies. That's what will happen. not the DoT meta.

[(XBOX)The Neko Otaku]

2 hours ago, Hypernaut1 said:

Literally all someone needs to say to dismiss anything they don't like instead of being a real critique 

It's like players truly just want cabin fodder that goes down without a fight.

Sentients are boring to fight! They are tedious bullet sponges. Shoot them 5 fives time switch to operator to wipe away immunities and go back to shooting repeat 6 times. That's tedious and boring.

I want challenge. Nox is a challenge, very tanky but if you can aim you can shatter their helmet letting you headshot them to get rid of them easy but they have tackle once they like to spam when the helmet shatters and deal tox and and slowing projectiles. Sentients are bullet sponges.....what's the challenge besides extremely boring loop to deal with them?

[-Krism-]

7 minutes ago, gbjbaanb said:

Doubt that - the sentients will be damage immune to those DoT procs. and a slash proc without damage is pretty useless.

Try a cold proc to slow it, a heat proc to make it harder to kill - and a rad proc to make it shoot its buddies. That's what will happen. not the DoT meta.

I can confirm what Monster said, a regular viral slash build is more effective than a Paracesis fully built to fight Sentients

I wonder what DE will do with the "evolve" part they mentioned, 'cause right now, they became complete garbage

[Corvid]

4 minutes ago, gbjbaanb said:

Doubt that - the sentients will be damage immune to those DoT procs. and a slash proc without damage is pretty useless.

For the record, I took my Bleeder Epitaph into an anomaly yesterday. Without any application of Viral (since I loathe what that particular proc has done to the game's balance, pretty much none of my general use builds feature it), it was killing Symbilysts in 3-4 hits (assuming that the shot both didn't hit an arm and did cause a proc), and those procs still did full damage on every tick even after the enemy adapted.

[SiriSnugglebottoms]

Having them be status immune was dumb, and that goes for any defensive mechanic used on a large scale (an entire faction) that renders huge parts of the game arsenal just about worthless. That said, making them status vulnerable should also have come with a general juicing up of their other stats to compensate. I welcome not being pigeonholed though. I rather have this than what it was, but it could be much better.

[Tesseract7777]

8 hours ago, (XBOX)General Poke said:

Fighting Sentients is meant to be scary

 

Really? Because they've never felt remotely scary to me. 

[SneakyErvin]

It is good they are getting changed. Sentients arent supposed to be a massive threat to the Warframes since the bloody Warframes were made to combat the sentients and successfully did so aswell. Adaptation is one thing, but that isnt how the sentients worked pre- the recent changed. They fully shut you down and they fully shut down the most mundane of things (which they shouldnt be able to do according to the lore!).

Now I just hope they start looking over all skills aswell so they are usable against the faction that we are supposed to be the counter to.