New enemy type to counter AoE - Suppressor units

[0_The_F00l]

Yeah so ,

many agree that AoE is a problem ,

Many also agree that AoE is great ,

I feel AoE is both , cause it is unregulated.

Spoiler

Observation : Warframe is predominantly a horde shooter , with emphasis on customisation , co op and loot. It encourages players to use a variety of gear in spectacular ways and progress in a group.

Issue: Loot tends to overshadow the gameplay and players pick the most effective way to optimize the fun out of the game , not for just themselves , but those that came for a co op experience as well. Due to the excessive optimization there are more and more RNG shells added to the gameplay reducing the fun further and pigeon holing the playerbase into even more optimised gear leading into a vicious downward spiral. And those that choose to play solo are still caught in the crossfire and either have to dive in or get out.

The current enabler for this cycle is the prevalent use of AoE weapons , and while drawbacks exist they can be relatively easily overcome by gear built specifically for that purpose.

Warframe being a live service game there will always be changes , gear will shift between top tier , adequate and obsolete. It is part of the cycle. But if a weapon category maintains an optimum category for a prolonged period it discourages growth and development.

Recommendation : Direct and indirect changes to the game such that the current optimum gear moves towards the adequate category and the obsolete categories have a reason to exist.

Primary recommendation : Nerf category directly ,

Secondary (current) recommendation: introduce mechanics where said category is not optimum.

I am suggesting a very specific enemy type for each faction referred to as the suppressor unit.

This would be somewhat between a arbitration drone , demolyst and ice eximus from a mechanical standpoint. 

Said unit would have a visible aura , all explosives within this visible aura would simply ... Not explode.

Mechanics:

Either make the radius of aoe weapons zero or make the damage zero when it enters said bubble.

Any direct damage (from the projectile) can still get through.

Appearance:

It could look like a nullifier for Corpus ,

One of the regulator drones for grineer ,

One of the moa/osprey for infested.

Presence:

It would exist as a variant of uncommon enemies, on par with a heavy unit.

Counterplay:

Melee attacks or non AoE targeted shots targeting either their exhausts (weak points) or simply killing them ,

Expected results:

Reduce spammability of AoE attacks,

Increase relevance of targeted weapons,

Give the GPU some much needed breathing space :P

 

[Traumtulpe]

13 minutes ago, 0_The_F00l said:

Any direct damage (from the projectile) can still get through.

Direct damage is generally speaking entirely negligible - so you are suggesting, essentially, to frequently force the player to switch to another weapon.

What this will do is (depending on the frequency) to make people not use AoE weapons anymore (since they can't actually use them anyway). So after nerfing melee to death, you suggest nerfing AoE to death too. Next we'll need to nerf chaining beams to death, and then what? People STILL won't use single target guns, they'll use abilities instead.

[0_The_F00l]

1 hour ago, Traumtulpe said:

Direct damage is generally speaking entirely negligible - so you are suggesting, essentially, to frequently force the player to switch to another weapon.

Yes,

1 hour ago, Traumtulpe said:

What this will do is (depending on the frequency) to make people not use AoE weapons anymore (since they can't actually use them anyway). So after nerfing melee to death, you suggest nerfing AoE to death too. Next we'll need to nerf chaining beams to death, and then what? People STILL won't use single target guns, they'll use abilities instead.

Exaggeration much ?

You do realise the whole objective is to counter the AoE spamming. 

I am sorry that this breaks your fragile comfort zone.

[Traumtulpe]

2 minutes ago, 0_The_F00l said:

I am sorry that this breaks your fragile comfort zone.

I have no idea what you are even trying to say, and I suspect neither do you. People don't use weapons that only work 50% of the time, that's all.

[0_The_F00l]

1 minute ago, Traumtulpe said:

I have no idea what you are even trying to say, and I suspect neither do you. People don't use weapons that only work 50% of the time, that's all.

Hmm ? I thought you were against AoE nerfs (of any sort) cause it would impact your playstyle that relies on spamming AoE ?

Is that not the case ? Then why would you be so against it?

 

And from what hat did you pull 50% usability? I would be happy if that actually happened.

I have referenced nullifiers , ice eximus and arbitration drones. I expect them to be just as uncommon.

[Yasha-7HS]

No.

This simply causes AoE weapons to do nothing for no logical reason. You have no listed counter-play, there is no indication of how often these units will spawn, nor do you have any indication of how they fight you. What you've effectively described is the Guardian Eximus aura for AoEs only, but more powerful. 

At such a point, instead of adding an enemy type that makes an entire category of weapons useless, it would make more sense to redefine the entirety of what AoE weapons are meant to do. You say:

2 hours ago, 0_The_F00l said:

many agree that AoE is a problem ,

Many also agree that AoE is great ,

I feel AoE is both , cause it is unregulated.

however, you haven't defined what you believe is the "problem" so I can't even attempt to refine your idea.

[0_The_F00l]

3 minutes ago, Yasha-7HS said:

No.

This simply causes AoE weapons to do nothing for no logical reason. You have no listed counter-play, there is no indication of how often these units will spawn, nor do you have any indication of how they fight you. What you've effectively described is the Guardian Eximus aura for AoEs only, but more powerful. 

The counter play is direct damage with less reliance on ranged AoE attacks 

, players have access to 3 weapon slots switching weapons is not an elaborate process.

You ask for counterplay to enemy auras , but did you ask what the enemies have as counterplay to AoE at all ?

Even at 90% DR guardian eximus and those in their aura can still be relatively quickly dispatched, it is not effective enough as a counter.

11 minutes ago, Yasha-7HS said:

At such a point, instead of adding an enemy type that makes an entire category of weapons useless, it would make more sense to redefine the entirety of what AoE weapons are meant to do. You say:

How does one enemy make the whole category useless ? It makes it less effective in a very specific scenario where said enemy exists. 

Have I mentioned that every enemy can do this ? No.

So on what basis do you claim that it is now useless ? 

Honestly , discussions would be a lot more productive if there was a lot less hyperbole used.

As to the changes to the AoE , i have some ideas , but the topic at hand is an enemy specifically made to counter (explosive) AoE weapons and have no intention to deviate from it.

15 minutes ago, Yasha-7HS said:

however, you haven't defined what you believe is the "problem" so I can't even attempt to refine your idea.

Fair enough,

Observation : Warframe is predominantly a horde shooter , with emphasis on customisation , co op and loot. It encourages players to use a variety of gear in spectacular ways and progress in a group.

Issue: Loot tends to overshadow the gameplay and players pick the most effective way to optimize the fun out of the game , not for just themselves , but those that came for a co op experience as well. Due to the excessive optimization there are more and more RNG shells added to the gameplay reducing the fun further and pigeon holing the playerbase into even more optimised gear leading into a vicious downward spiral. And those that choose to play solo are still caught in the crossfire and either have to dive in or get out.

The current enabler for this cycle is the prevalent use of AoE weapons , and while drawbacks exist they can be relatively easily overcome by gear built specifically for that purpose.

Warframe being a live service game there will always be changes , gear will shift between top tier , adequate and obsolete. It is part of the cycle. But if a weapon category maintains an optimum category for a prolonged period it discourages growth and development.

Recommendation : Direct and indirect changes to the game such that the current optimum gear moves towards the adequate category and the obsolete categories have a reason to exist.

Primary recommendation : Nerf category directly ,

Secondary (current) recommendation: introduce mechanics where said category is not optimum.

 

Hope that clarifies.

[(PSN)Silver1593]

Aoe is not promblem , too many enemies in one place is probem , not buffing weapons is a bigger problem , only nerf but never buff

[0_The_F00l]

29 minutes ago, (PSN)Silver1593 said:

Aoe is not promblem , too many enemies in one place is probem , not buffing weapons is a bigger problem , only nerf but never buff

I am not sure if you are being sarcastic or serious mate.

[Traumtulpe]

1 hour ago, 0_The_F00l said:

Hmm ? I thought you were against AoE nerfs (of any sort) cause it would impact your playstyle that relies on spamming AoE ?

Is that not the case ? Then why would you be so against it?

 

And from what hat did you pull 50% usability? I would be happy if that actually happened.

I have referenced nullifiers , ice eximus and arbitration drones. I expect them to be just as uncommon.

How did you even come to such assumtions, I don't seem to have mentioned anything of the sort.

The 50% is an arbitrary number for how much of the time your suggested AoE-Nullifiers are present. If the number is much lower (say 5%), why even bother implementing something that makes no difference 95% of the time, and if it is higher it only makes the case worse. The point is that people don't want unreliable weapons.

Also, you talk about Nullifiers and Ice Eximus units being umcommon - that may be the case in a 5 minute mission, but in longer missions these enemies become VERY common, to the point of being basically permanently present.

[0_The_F00l]

56 minutes ago, Traumtulpe said:

How did you even come to such assumtions, I don't seem to have mentioned anything of the sort.

Very easily , based on your tendency to exaggerate about Death and Doom of certain play styles based on your Assumptions.

57 minutes ago, Traumtulpe said:

The 50% is an arbitrary number for how much of the time your suggested AoE-Nullifiers are present. If the number is much lower (say 5%), why even bother implementing something that makes no difference 95% of the time, and if it is higher it only makes the case worse. The point is that people don't want unreliable weapons.

oh my , i was under the impression there are more numbers between 50 and 5. Didn't know there was no middle ground whatsoever. Thanks for opening my eyes.

And who is this "People" you speak of , people other than yourself ?

And what is this rubbish of unreliability? Sounds more like a bad workman quarreling with his tools instead of picking the right tool for the job.

59 minutes ago, Traumtulpe said:

Also, you talk about Nullifiers and Ice Eximus units being umcommon - that may be the case in a 5 minute mission, but in longer missions these enemies become VERY common, to the point of being basically permanently present.

That's not a problem , that is an expected result of pushing the boundary of difficulty over time.

[Traumtulpe]

34 minutes ago, 0_The_F00l said:

oh my , i was under the impression there are more numbers between 50 and 5. Didn't know there was no middle ground whatsoever. Thanks for opening my eyes.

And who is this "People" you speak of , people other than yourself ?

And what is this rubbish of unreliability? Sounds more like a bad workman quarreling with his tools instead of picking the right tool for the job.

Honestly, you're just talking rubbish at this point. Your suggestion is not gonna happen anyhow, and I have nothing further to add.

[0_The_F00l]

10 minutes ago, Traumtulpe said:

Honestly, you're just talking rubbish at this point. Your suggestion is not gonna happen anyhow, and I have nothing further to add.

I am sorry you cannot see from my point of view , enjoy your day :)

[Yasha-7HS]

11 hours ago, 0_The_F00l said:

The counter play is direct damage with less reliance on ranged AoE attacks 

, players have access to 3 weapon slots switching weapons is not an elaborate process.

11 hours ago, 0_The_F00l said:

How does one enemy make the whole category useless ? It makes it less effective in a very specific scenario where said enemy exists.

All right, to clarify: You have reduced the sheet damage alone for most radial weapon by 1/3rd in the better case scenarios, and by 7/8ths in the worse case scenarios in any situation where this enemy exists by either removing the radial, or causing the radial to do zero damage. This is assuming the explosive shell itself actually hits enemies. Many AoE weapons have poor accuracy and projectile speed otherwise adding another arbitrary reduction to the weapon's ability to deal damage. Some explosive weapons have status effects or chance linked specifically to their radial damage portions, thus adding another arbitrary reduction to the weapon's ability to deal damage by two fold.

As such, AoE weapons with the intent of actually hitting enemies in groups(e.g. Excluding weapons like Secondary Tombfinger, as its AoE is very small, and functions more as a single-target weapon) have now lost nearly all damage, have no compensation for their lack of rate of fire and reload speed, slow projectile speed, inability to hit headshots consistently, and inability to hit other weakpoints that make enemies more bearable consistently, such as Nox. Oh, while also still having a chance to kill you from misfires of many sorts.

This makes nearly all AoE weapons useless. That is not hyperbole. Reading your edited OP, it seems they spawn as commonly as Heavy Gunners, Bombards, Corpus Techs, and Amalgams... Which is to say your weapon becomes useless every 45 seconds of any endless mission.

Switching weapons does not change the fact that you are practically removing one or more weapons from the three to six weapons(archguns, exalted weapons, amps) we are allowed to bring into a game, on a random chance.

11 hours ago, 0_The_F00l said:

The current enabler for this cycle is the prevalent use of AoE weapons , and while drawbacks exist they can be relatively easily overcome by gear built specifically for that purpose.

So your issue is that, being a horde shooter, DE designed AoE to be the best at killing hordes with little contest. I don't believe this is the best way to combat this issue. As you said you'll put your other recommendations for other threads, I'll leave my opinion there, as is.

If it has to be an enemy that specifically counters the explosive meta, I'd rather see an enemy that makes the user's life difficult instead of making the weapon not worth using. Say, an enemy with high mobility, that takes lessened damage from explosives but increased damage from weakpoint hits, and have accurate, moderate damage weapons. Maybe give them a mechanic that lets them parry the slow moving explosive projectiles every once in a while, making it quite a bit more threatening to not only you, but your teammates and companions.

Instead of strictly disincentivizing AoE, incentivize single target weaponry more. I don't want choices removed, I want more choices to be appealing.

[0_The_F00l]

6 hours ago, Yasha-7HS said:

All right, to clarify: You have reduced the sheet damage alone for most radial weapon by 1/3rd in the better case scenarios, and by 7/8ths in the worse case scenarios in any situation where this enemy exists by either removing the radial, or causing the radial to do zero damage. This is assuming the explosive shell itself actually hits enemies. Many AoE weapons have poor accuracy and projectile speed otherwise adding another arbitrary reduction to the weapon's ability to deal damage. Some explosive weapons have status effects or chance linked specifically to their radial damage portions, thus adding another arbitrary reduction to the weapon's ability to deal damage by two fold.

Duh , it would be a poor recommendation if it doesn't actually work.

The whole point is to reduce the AoE effect , wouldn't be much of a change otherwise.

6 hours ago, Yasha-7HS said:

As such, AoE weapons with the intent of actually hitting enemies in groups(e.g. Excluding weapons like Secondary Tombfinger, as its AoE is very small, and functions more as a single-target weapon) have now lost nearly all damage, have no compensation for their lack of rate of fire and reload speed, slow projectile speed, inability to hit headshots consistently, and inability to hit other weakpoints that make enemies more bearable consistently, such as Nox. Oh, while also still having a chance to kill you from misfires of many sorts.

Not sure about chance to kill from misfire , where did you get that from?

You speak as if those drawbacks actually matter in the current game.They don't cause kills per second still make them better than other weapons without those drawbacks.

Guess players will just need to be a bit more mindful.

6 hours ago, Yasha-7HS said:

This makes nearly all AoE weapons useless. That is not hyperbole. Reading your edited OP, it seems they spawn as commonly as Heavy Gunners, Bombards, Corpus Techs, and Amalgams... Which is to say your weapon becomes useless every 45 seconds of any endless mission.

Hmm, 45 seconds still seems too long , i was hoping for a 15 to 20 second interrupt.

6 hours ago, Yasha-7HS said:

Switching weapons does not change the fact that you are practically removing one or more weapons from the three to six weapons(archguns, exalted weapons, amps) we are allowed to bring into a game, on a random chance.

Random ? I thought it was every 45 seconds , so not random. But an expected outcome and so should be planned for in advance.

Players have gotten too used to unrestricted mayhem with no consequence.

6 hours ago, Yasha-7HS said:

So your issue is that, being a horde shooter, DE designed AoE to be the best at killing hordes with little contest. I don't believe this is the best way to combat this issue. As you said you'll put your other recommendations for other threads, I'll leave my opinion there, as is.

You know, that gets thrown around a lot , as if being a horde shooter invalidates restrictions of any sort. Also the players have made it a horde shooter , it is quite possible to complete missions without encountering hordes (outside of specific missions where they are expected and is an objective).

AoE wasn't always this powerful , the arsenal has gotten more lethal but the counters that enemies have to it has not quite kept up.

The recommendations of direct weapon change were mostly related to ammo economy and LoS restrictions. I think it got merged in the much bigger AoE thread some time ago.

6 hours ago, Yasha-7HS said:

If it has to be an enemy that specifically counters the explosive meta, I'd rather see an enemy that makes the user's life difficult instead of making the weapon not worth using. Say, an enemy with high mobility, that takes lessened damage from explosives but increased damage from weakpoint hits, and have accurate, moderate damage weapons. Maybe give them a mechanic that lets them parry the slow moving explosive projectiles every once in a while, making it quite a bit more threatening to not only you, but your teammates and companions.

Aren't my suggestions making life difficult enough ?

Also such enemies already exists , and is still taken out trivially , the grineer manic and the guardian eximus (and the kuva guardian to some extent)  have different ways to try and avoid AoE. The fact that you don't even recollect they have such mechanics just strengthens my argument.

I quite like the idea of redirecting projectiles , i already made that recommendation as well quite a while ago. Maybe there should be two new enemies. One that suppresses and one that redirects projectiles .

6 hours ago, Yasha-7HS said:

Instead of strictly disincentivizing AoE, incentivize single target weaponry more. I don't want choices removed, I want more choices to be appealing.

Also already exists , in the form of sargeant ruk. Wow , great incentive right ? 

So enemies that are completely immune to damage unless you hit the weakspots with single target weapons? How is that different from what I am suggesting , except my suggestion is a lot more threatening and an immediate danger, and yours can simply be ignored.

You fail to grasp that there can be no choice if there is no disincentive as well.

[Yasha-7HS]

On 2022-08-10 at 11:47 PM, 0_The_F00l said:

You know, that gets thrown around a lot , as if being a horde shooter invalidates restrictions of any sort.

What I said was that DE designed AoE to be the best at killing hordes and there is little contest to those weapon types. Many other horde shooter games have other ways around making explosives useful without specifically killing an entire group of enemies, which causes them to outpace single target weapons. Say, restrictions to ammo economy, or maybe a hard limit on how many times said explosive type can be used per time.

In no way did I say being a horde shooter invalidates restrictions.

 

On 2022-08-10 at 11:47 PM, 0_The_F00l said:

Aren't my suggestions making life difficult enough ?

Your suggestions require no mechanical effort on the part of the player, it simply turns off the usefulness of a gun entirely. It doesn't make the player's life difficult, it just makes their gun useless.

 

On 2022-08-10 at 11:47 PM, 0_The_F00l said:

Also such enemies already exists , and is still taken out trivially , the grineer manic

That's because they don't have the mechanics I mentioned. Manics move at normal speed simply teleport and have a health gate which also counters single-target weaponry.

 

On 2022-08-10 at 11:47 PM, 0_The_F00l said:

the guardian eximus

On 2022-08-10 at 4:05 AM, Yasha-7HS said:

What you've effectively described is the Guardian Eximus aura for AoEs only, but more powerful.

I have already mentioned that Guardian Eximus exist, but all they do is walk around and give everything DR, without doing more damage, being accurate, or moving quickly. It is, quite literally, the opposite of what I suggested.

On 2022-08-10 at 11:47 PM, 0_The_F00l said:

(and the kuva guardian to some extent)

Has nothing tailored to AoE reduction. The only thing is simply immunity to all damage including singe-target weaponry unless you use the operator.

On 2022-08-10 at 11:47 PM, 0_The_F00l said:

You fail to grasp that there can be no choice if there is no disincentive as well.

I don't believe you understand the phrase "Instead of strictly disincentivizing," which is why my suggestion, I added resistance to the explosive damage while also adding a damage increase from precision damage. A disincentive to use the problem, and an incentive to use something else. You fail to grasp that just disincentivizing options leads to a stale gunplay meta exactly as we have now.  This is why I specifically stated resistance in lieu of immunity because replacing the problem with a binary choice is just as bad as what you're trying to fix in the future.

Unfortunately, I don't feel like any progress is being made stating my point. Oh well. Have a nice day.

[0_The_F00l]

2 hours ago, Yasha-7HS said:

Unfortunately, I don't feel like any progress is being made stating my point. Oh well. Have a nice day.

I feel the same way , enjoy your day :)

[Kaligath]

Or simply make a enemy reflect damage thus making AOE hazardous. 

[Phantasm100]

On 2022-08-10 at 5:55 AM, Traumtulpe said:

How did you even come to such assumtions, I don't seem to have mentioned anything of the sort.

The 50% is an arbitrary number for how much of the time your suggested AoE-Nullifiers are present. If the number is much lower (say 5%), why even bother implementing something that makes no difference 95% of the time, and if it is higher it only makes the case worse. The point is that people don't want unreliable weapons.

Also, you talk about Nullifiers and Ice Eximus units being umcommon - that may be the case in a 5 minute mission, but in longer missions these enemies become VERY common, to the point of being basically permanently present.

Solving both of these problems could be something like the following:

• If killed via a weak point, the suppressor explodes. This deals a reduced amount of all the damage it has accumulated by blocking AoE attacks to all enemies within whatever range, say like 15m or something (line of sight to suppressor required to be hurt).
• Make the suppressor weak to melee.

Players would be able to kill the suppressor (fairly) easily with melee, which means they don't need to swap all the way to their secondary weapon, and sit through that animation.

Additionally, if the player does switch, and target's the suppressor's weak spot, the AoE damage they 'wasted' on it could actually be put to use.

[Phantasm100]

1 minute ago, Phantasm100 said:

Solving both of these problems could be something like the following:

• If killed via a weak point, the suppressor explodes. This deals a reduced amount of all the damage it has accumulated by blocking AoE attacks to all enemies within whatever range, say like 15m or something (line of sight to suppressor required to be hurt).
• Make the suppressor weak to melee.

Players would be able to kill the suppressor (fairly) easily with melee, which means they don't need to swap all the way to their secondary weapon, and sit through that animation.

Additionally, if the player does switch, and target's the suppressor's weak spot, the AoE damage they 'wasted' on it could actually be put to use.

Or what might be an even better alternative is: make the enemy have some sort of tech it uses to 'grab' your projectile and throw it at you, or just out of the way. Obv damage would need to be altered since players deal immensely more damage than enemies at most levels, but that could make things more interesting. Maybe the enemy catches your first projectile and locks onto you, so another teammate may surprise them from behind or from the side with AoE that it isn't focusing on. But at the same time, while it's locked onto you, it will grab ANY non-hitscan projectile you fire at it (abilities should probably be excluded from that).

[0_The_F00l]

3 hours ago, Phantasm100 said:

Solving both of these problems could be something like the following:

• If killed via a weak point, the suppressor explodes. This deals a reduced amount of all the damage it has accumulated by blocking AoE attacks to all enemies within whatever range, say like 15m or something (line of sight to suppressor required to be hurt).
• Make the suppressor weak to melee.

Players would be able to kill the suppressor (fairly) easily with melee, which means they don't need to swap all the way to their secondary weapon, and sit through that animation.

Additionally, if the player does switch, and target's the suppressor's weak spot, the AoE damage they 'wasted' on it could actually be put to use.

 

3 hours ago, Phantasm100 said:

Or what might be an even better alternative is: make the enemy have some sort of tech it uses to 'grab' your projectile and throw it at you, or just out of the way. Obv damage would need to be altered since players deal immensely more damage than enemies at most levels, but that could make things more interesting. Maybe the enemy catches your first projectile and locks onto you, so another teammate may surprise them from behind or from the side with AoE that it isn't focusing on. But at the same time, while it's locked onto you, it will grab ANY non-hitscan projectile you fire at it (abilities should probably be excluded from that).

Sounds good to me , like a rocket lassoing scorpion or an infested that literally eats the projectile.