A Step In The Right Direction Finally [Zanuka's Related]

[Phoenix86]

As we all seen in the latest trailer the Zanuka doge is able to dispell our defensive skills (like the most recent update to the Stalker).

 

I find this really nice because it's not the usual boring stunlock mechanic as spoken of in Hayden's thread here.

 

This is something new, this is something effective, this is something that can cause us troubles without depriving us of control, this is cool!!

 

I look forward for more enemy units capable of dealing with our powers, both by protecting themselves or ripping us off of our buffs.

 

All this to say, GZZ DE, this is a nice improvements, cant wait to test it!

[Silraed]

It might seem like a nice change but it will all depend on how it is implemented. If it straight up makes a large group of abilities useless against it (like the Stalker) then it will effectively just make it into a boss that you take a Rhino or other 'Frame with high base survival stats to fight or are considered stupid if you don't. 

 

That would not be a good thing and wouldn't be far off the stun locking artificial difficulty we currently have. After all what is Warframe without our abilities? A very bland shooter with a little bit of buggy parkour.

 

But we can only hope they do it properly.

[Phoenix86]

The point of a "counter" IS to render useless some feats of the opponent, considering how much we can currently spam our skills (thanks to our mods and no cooldown) i find it only a nice thing... we are not talking of a total shutdown but simply a:

 

"Oh you feel safe inside that snowglobe? AHAHAHAH, NO." *Snowglobe disappears*

 

And you have to cast it again

[WhisperByte]

The point of a "counter" IS to render useless some feats of the opponent, considering how much we can currently spam our skills (thanks to our mods and no cooldown) i find it only a nice thing... we are not talking of a total shutdown but simply a:

 

"Oh you feel safe inside that snowglobe? AHAHAHAH, NO." *Snowglobe disappears*

 

And you have to cast it again

And if it's anything like the Stalker then that snowglobe will disappear the moment it's cast. Again and again and again and again

Edited November 13, 2013 by WhisperByte

[Phoenix86]

And if it's anything like the Stalker then that snowglobe will disappear the moment it's cast. Again and again and again and again

 

And... you'll be out of your comfort zone and actually need to put effort in defeating your enemy or defending urself in a different way, i like it.

[Azira]

I wouldn't get too excited about this. If we went by trailers for solid information, Arid Fear would have told us that the Corpus are actually intelligent enough to pull of some sort of plan that involves deception, but we've all seen what they're like in game.

[fatpig84]

Basically he lol nopes certain buffs and debuffs like the Stalker.

[Liminal]

And... you'll be out of your comfort zone and actually need to put effort in defeating your enemy or defending urself in a different way, i like it.

In theory. But just like with the Stalker, this renders many frames completely powerless, so you'll only end up running the Zanuka missions with 2 or 3 different frames (probably the ones with the highest shields or the highest mobility, depending on the enemy's attacks).

It's not well implemented if all it does is ban you from using the 1-4 keys. It should be a sacrifice of some sort: the cost for using your skills should be increased (I mean figuratively, not the energy cost).

[fatpig84]

In theory. But just like with the Stalker, this renders many frames completely powerless, so you'll only end up running the Zanuka missions with 2 or 3 different frames (probably the ones with the highest shields or the highest mobility, depending on the enemy's attacks).

It's not well implemented if all it does is ban you from using the 1-4 keys. It should be a sacrifice of some sort: the cost for using your skills should be increased (I mean figuratively, not the energy cost).

 

Damage skills still works fine and cyber dog looks like a good old "if you have enough DPS, you kill him" Hyena with more Warframe skills.

Just that you won't be as untouchable before.

[Liminal]

Damage skills still works fine and cyber dog looks like a good old "if you have enough DPS, you kill him" Hyena with more Warframe skills.

Just that you won't be as untouchable before.

But difficulty isn't the issue: boring design (and balance) is. Taking away every single power feels lazy and cheap, even if you can still murder the boss in half a second with an 8-forma-soma-vandal.

Making it immune to Snow Globe is one thing, nullifying a frame's entire power repertorie is not cool, especially considering frame stats that remain unchanged (like shield and health) are balanced for each frame taking powers into account, which means some are objectively better than others at this kind of encounters. Also: a boss fight that's nothing but shooting isn't very exciting... there's a reason we have powers.

Of course, I'm not saying they can perfectly balance all frames for every boss fight, but they should try.

Edited November 13, 2013 by The_Doc

[Azira]

Damage skills still works fine and cyber dog looks like a good old "if you have enough DPS, you kill him" Hyena with more Warframe skills.

Just that you won't be as untouchable before.

I feel like this guy is missing the point. As The_Doc said, it isn't about how hard the encounter is. That can be balanced without taking away your buttons. A poorly designed boss will make the fight harder by making various parts of your arsenal less powerful or obsolete, aka, taking away your powers, or being an overpowered recolor of a previous enemy that makes your guns, armor, and shields worth less by having better guns, armor, and shields itself. This means that when you fight it, it isn't compelling gameplay, it's just grindier. A well-designed will not invalidate player kit or control, instead forcing the player to use their guns and abilities in more precise and creative ways that normal enemies can't.

[Phoenix86]

But difficulty isn't the issue: boring design (and balance) is. Taking away every single power feels lazy and cheap, even if you can still murder the boss in half a second with an 8-forma-soma-vandal.

Making it immune to Snow Globe is one thing, nullifying a frame's entire power repertorie is not cool, especially considering frame stats that remain unchanged (like shield and health) are balanced for each frame taking powers into account, which means some are objectively better than others at this kind of encounters. Also: a boss fight that's nothing but shooting isn't very exciting... there's a reason we have powers.

Of course, I'm not saying they can perfectly balance all frames for every boss fight, but they should try.

 

 

I feel like this guy is missing the point. As The_Doc said, it isn't about how hard the encounter is. That can be balanced without taking away your buttons. A poorly designed boss will make the fight harder by making various parts of your arsenal less powerful or obsolete, aka, taking away your powers, or being an overpowered recolor of a previous enemy that makes your guns, armor, and shields worth less by having better guns, armor, and shields itself. This means that when you fight it, it isn't compelling gameplay, it's just grindier. A well-designed will not invalidate player kit or control, instead forcing the player to use their guns and abilities in more precise and creative ways that normal enemies can't.

 

what you 2 seems to not understand is the fact that this monsters could have a skill that dispell one of our powers,

it doesnt render us powerless,

it doesnt turn off everything,

you see everything black or white, while there are 50 shades of grey (lol)

 

Simply you have to be careful to what you use and maybe now instead of mindlessy use Snow Globe you will first use Freeze on him (or while he's about to do his dispell skill), it means that you might want to "cover" your Iron Skin with Roar in order to preserve it, it means that before casting important skills you'll actually need to think to "how to counter its counter"

 

It's nothing like you describe like we are going back to the iron age ffs!

and please notice that:

- if it uses its dispell skill he wont target us

- if it uses its dispell skill he must aim to 1 of us

 

So stop acting like it's "all or nothing" because it isnt, it is not going to dispell you 24875627830 times in a minute ffs

[Liminal]

what you 2 seems to not understand is the fact that this monsters could have a skill that dispell one of our powers,

it doesnt render us powerless,

it doesnt turn off everything,

you see everything black or white, while there are 50 shades of grey (lol)

 

Simply you have to be careful to what you use and maybe now instead of mindlessy use Snow Globe you will first use Freeze on him (or while he's about to do his dispell skill), it means that you might want to "cover" your Iron Skin with Roar in order to preserve it, it means that before casting important skills you'll actually need to think to "how to counter its counter"

 

It's nothing like you describe like we are going back to the iron age ffs!

and please notice that:

- if it uses its dispell skill he wont target us

- if it uses its dispell skill he must aim to 1 of us

 

So stop acting like it's "all or nothing" because it isnt, it is not going to dispell you 24875627830 times in a minute ffs

There would be shades of grey if non-damaging powers had many degrees of uselessness when disabled, but currently "disabled" means "0% utility".

 

You can't stagger the Stalker so his dispel is impossible to stop, and you can't counter it by any other means except killing him before the animation completes (which basically requires a 1 hit kill considering it's pretty fast).

In addition to that he will stagger you as he dispells your stuff, which means you get no advantage from the time he took to cast his power.

 

He can't dispell you that many times in a minute because it has an animation, but he can dispell you as many times as he needs to, which is exactly the number of times you use a skill in that time.

[Tsukinoki]

@Phoenix86

And the problem is that it makes some frames utterly USELESS in a battle against him. Similar to what the stalker does now.

You play a Loki, and he's you're favorite frame? Well if you bring him along to fight Zanuka all you're doing is wasting a slot on the party roster because your invisibilty will do absolutely nothing since he can dispell it.

And considering that is the only skill Loki has which affects bosses in any way and yeah...

Even Trinity wont be useful as he can just dispell blessing.

Volt? None of his skills deal enough damage and since he can get rid of your shield oh well, try again with a different frame.

And if he uses dispell anything like Stalker you cant pop down a snow globe to revive an ally because he'll strip it away and take you out while you have no protections.

That completely removes the ability to do *any* form of safe revival.

Currently the stalker is hard, yet very unfun to fight. Why? Because of any sort of actual challenge he just removes all defensive abilities and if you cant out DPS him and bring his health down within a few seconds you're going to die because you have no way of protecting yourself. Especially squishy frames like Loki.

If Zanuka can do the same thing we're looking at a fight that is ONLY viable for high shield and health frames, unless you can burst him down within a few seconds.

Further, the stalkers dispell dispells ALL buffs, so you cant 'hide' a buff behind another.

So if Zanuka follows the line of that he's going to be very unfun to fight because you cant do anything to protect yourself for safe revivals or anything because he'll just strip it away instantly.

[Phoenix86]

There would be shades of grey if non-damaging powers had many degrees of uselessness when disabled, but currently "disabled" means "0% utility".

 

You can't stagger the Stalker so his dispel is impossible to stop, and you can't counter it by any other means except killing him before the animation completes (which basically requires a 1 hit kill considering it's pretty fast).

In addition to that he will stagger you as he dispells your stuff, which means you get no advantage from the time he took to cast his power.

 

He can't dispell you that many times in a minute because it has an animation, but he can dispell you as many times as he needs to, which is exactly the number of times you use a skill in that time.

 

Take Mind Control, take Freeze, take Stomp, take Radial Blind, just to name a few.... they all work

Furthermore if he dispells it means that he's not doing anything else and you can shoot him or move.

You describing this like if anytime i use a skill he will immediately cast his dispell, which is FALSE.

 

In addition you are talking about the Stalker, a rare unique boss, you cannot assume every zanuka doge we will meet will act like him or have the same resistance/dps

[Liminal]

Take Mind Control, take Freeze, take Stomp, take Radial Blind, just to name a few.... they all work

Furthermore if he dispells it means that he's not doing anything else and you can shoot him or move.

You describing this like if anytime i use a skill he will immediately cast his dispell, which is FALSE.

 

In addition you are talking about the Stalker, a rare unique boss, you cannot assume every zanuka doge we will meet will act like him or have the same resistance/dps

Well, I'm discussing Zanuka as if he had the Stalker dispel. That's how this started, it's mostly hypothetical.

Mind control, Freeze and Radial Blind don't work against the Stalker. Stomp deals damage, which is what I am talking about: you either have damaging powers or you have no powers (I can only think of 2 exceptions).

If he is casting dispel, sure, you get a half second advantage... which you then lose as you get staggered.

And in my experience, he does immediately dispel whatever I cast, the first time I got dispelled I used 225 energy for invisibility 8 times in a row and he cancelled them all without pause.

[Phoenix86]

well, to me this will open up new ways to deal with our enemies,

everyone is claiming fights are boring, redundant are rely on bullet sponges or player's lockdown.

 

now we finally see something different and yet there's ppl blaming even before changes come out, i cant force you to agree with me and i dont mind to convince you. i'm happy something is changing, that's it.

 

Hope you'll be happy too later.

[lautalocos]

maybe it should make all abilities useless, but at least for of those abilities should not work.

 

as an example, rhino stomp shouldn´t slowdown him, nova prime shoudln´t slowdown him, bastille shouldn´t slowdown him and that shoudl be with every warframe.

 

oh, and at least in the trailer, the power deactivation skill is actually some kind of projectile. im guessing you could see him casting it and then you could dodge out of the way so that you can keep your skills.

[Liminal]

well, to me this will open up new ways to deal with our enemies,

everyone is claiming fights are boring, redundant are rely on bullet sponges or player's lockdown.

 

now we finally see something different and yet there's ppl blaming even before changes come out, i cant force you to agree with me and i dont mind to convince you. i'm happy something is changing, that's it.

Hey I agree with that, but I'm not complaining about Zanuka as if I knew what skills he had. It's just that someone mentioned the Stalker and the discussion started because I don't consider him to be a proper example of an interesting fight.

 

We definitely need cooler bosses, and I hope this one brings some innovations to the table. If it's just 1/4 of what the trailer shows it should be quite fun.

 

EDIT: to the post above mine -> A projectile that shuts down the ability to use powers for a while would be great.

Edited November 13, 2013 by The_Doc

[Azira]

Hey I agree with that, but I'm not complaining about Zanuka as if I knew what skills he had. It's just that someone mentioned the Stalker and the discussion started because I don't consider him to be a proper example of an interesting fight.

 

We definitely need cooler bosses, and I hope this one brings some innovations to the table. If it's just 1/4 of what the trailer shows it should be quite fun.

 

EDIT: to the post above mine -> A projectile that shuts down the ability to use powers for a while would be great.

 

Pretty much this. The conversation was hypothetically treating Zanuka as similar to Stalker, which to me seems to be a terrible thing because Stalker is the epitome of bad boss design. I want new and interesting mechanics to fight against, but only if I am in turn able to interact with them to display my skill, instead of having my warframe choice invalidated.

[NalkorRN]

And... you'll be out of your comfort zone and actually need to put effort in defeating your enemy or defending urself in a different way, i like it.

No, then it just becomes another @(*()$ dps-check. Can you put out enough dps before he kills you since your abilities are worthless now? If yes, then congrats, if no, then gtfo.

 

Yeah, I totally see that going over well in public games or games in general.

[Madotsuki]

Just because something can dispel/resist warframe powers doesn't mean it'll ruin the fight, if the dispel/resist is done RIGHT. Basically, said enemy should resist certain aspects of the powers, but still make the powers have a role and effect on the battlefield.

 

For example, in the case of Zanuka:

Snowglobe - Blocks bullets and ranged attacks from Zanuka. Instead, being in a snowglobe causes it to rush into the Snowglobe for melee, and is NOT slowed while within.

Stomp - Staggers instead of stasising it, deals damage.

Bastille - Can hold up Zanuka, but it can still turn and shoot at full strength while caught and will break the Bastille in a quarter of its natural duration.

 

Meanwhile, it can have dispelling properties on certain attacks, for example shockwaves that can dispel and do damage (can be jumped over), a back-mounted turret that can fire dispelling projectiles simultaneously with other attacks (can be dodged), etc.

 

Long as powers still have a significant (though non-gamebreaking) effect in the fight and dispels can be avoided through skill, it will ADD to the experience instead of subtracting from it.

 

Or DE can just do it the Stalker way and make Zanuka another gearcheck boss, which they most likely will. *sigh*

[fatpig84]

No, then it just becomes another @(*()$ dps-check. Can you put out enough dps before he kills you since your abilities are worthless now? If yes, then congrats, if no, then gtfo.

 

Yeah, I totally see that going over well in public games or games in general.

 

Hyena WAS the DPS check boss back then.

 

If you did not do enough damage to break his shield and shield regen you die or run out of ammo and run with a tail between your legs.

No one actually complained ya know ?

 

In fact people are complaining more on bosses with invincibility stages and DPS caps.

[TheHeraldXII]

And... you'll be out of your comfort zone and actually need to put effort in defeating your enemy or defending urself in a different way, i like it.

You mean that we're going to just shoot it right? Without the utility abilities of our 'frames there are basically no options besides take cover and shoot which is how I play 99% of the game anyway on account of going solo. Taking away the interesting options available to us isn't going to make it fun, it's just going to reduce the game to at best a basic shooter, at worst a tank-n'-spank.

[Liminal]

No one actually complained ya know ?

I remember a lot of threads complaining about the ridiculous shields that fully recharged before players finished reloading.