How do you actually make a "difficult fight" for end game players in this game?

[RichardKam]

44分钟前 , --END--Rikutatis 说:

Just gonna add my voice to the chorus here: you don't. WF's power creep and bloated math is hopelessly out of control and beyond redemption. That's why Steve dropped the hot potato in Rebb's hands and ran off to design Soulframe from scratch. WF can't be salvaged. What you see is what you get. But it can still be pretty fun for what it is. 

I thought the power creep and weird damage formula are what made Warframe so uniquely entertaining. Just look at all the meme builds and stupid 9 digit numbers in red and orange. It is pure chaos in a good way.

[CrownOfShadows]

While I understand all the people thinking this is impossible given our arsenal, I actually don't think it is. I think it's completely possible to create really engaging boss fights, you just need be creative and lean into our strengths instead of knee-capping us.

There was a spectacular post by someone over in the archon threads talking about how to improve those fights using things like multiple health bars and temporary weaknesses and adaptability.

I'd add that that on top of that, there's tons of potential for making bosses, especially ones like the archons, weak to certain warframes in particular. Instead of adding a buff to warframes like they did they could've made the archon weak to a certain warframe's abilities, as this would create a preferential composition that you can scale the boss around. If a boss is super weak to Ember for example, then you just need to scale around Ember If you wanted to simplify it further, you could frame-lock a boss, so that ONLY 1-3 frames can be used, and thus you simplify your scaling further, while still allowing abilities.

Getting rid of Damage Attenuation and Invulnerability in favor of these things would be a major step in a better direction.

Another possibility would be hard to do but rewarding - mix in tailored responses to specific abilities. As an example, if the boss detects a Mag 2 being used on them, they can have a specific response to that. Or if they detect a Mesa 4 being used, they can have a specific response to that, like throwing up obstacles or an assistant that takes all the fire. This is hard because you would need to do this for a huge number of 'problematic' abilities, but it would be rewarding because you could still do damage, and you could even design it so that other players could help you do damage by removing or dealing with the response.

Yet another useful thing would be to create boss abilities that have no answer. For example, knockdown can interrupt a lot of abilities and would be a useful tool for a boss, but we're immune to it. You need to give bosses tools to deal with tenno. You need to think like the boss. You have a Saryn trying to poison you every few seconds. So cleanse. You have a Banshee marking your weaknesses, so trick her. Drain the tenno energy. Drain the tenno health.

Another mechanic I've never seen used but that would be interesting is ability reflection. What if the boss could reflect your abilities at you? That would be terrifying. What if you're in a Mesa 4 and suddenly all your bullets are flying back at you, or your whole squad? Guess you better get out of your 4 then right? What if you're a banshee trying to mark the boss and suddenly your whole squad is marked?

Armor strip the tenno. Rip the tenno shields away and put them on yourself. Poison the tenno. CC the tenno.

Tons of awesome possibilities for bosses. I could go into fully creative mode and come up with a few if you guys want me to, but it's been my experience that doing that doesn't make anyone happy lol, and I don't get paid for it, so use your own imaginations.

 

[A5PECT]

"ONLY 1-3 frames can be used"

Is radically limiting frame selection not kneecapping the player? 

[CrownOfShadows]

1 minute ago, A5PECT said:

"ONLY 1-3 frames can be used"

Is radically limiting frame selection not kneecapping the player? 

well, what would you rather, have, a rotating selection of frames to use or attenuation and invulnerability?

17 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

If you wanted to simplify it further, you could frame-lock a bos

 

and that was just one suggestion out of many. Actually it was a tangent off of a solution

[RichardKam]

16分钟前 , CrownOfShadows 说:

While I understand all the people thinking this is impossible given our arsenal, I actually don't think it is. I think it's completely possible to create really engaging boss fights, you just need be creative and lean into our strengths instead of knee-capping us.

There was a spectacular post by someone over in the archon threads talking about how to improve those fights using things like multiple health bars and temporary weaknesses and adaptability.

I'd add that that on top of that, there's tons of potential for making bosses, especially ones like the archons, weak to certain warframes in particular. Instead of adding a buff to warframes like they did they could've made the archon weak to a certain warframe's abilities, as this would create a preferential composition that you can scale the boss around. If a boss is super weak to Ember for example, then you just need to scale around Ember If you wanted to simplify it further, you could frame-lock a boss, so that ONLY 1-3 frames can be used, and thus you simplify your scaling further, while still allowing abilities.

Getting rid of Damage Attenuation and Invulnerability in favor of these things would be a major step in a better direction.

Another possibility would be hard to do but rewarding - mix in tailored responses to specific abilities. As an example, if the boss detects a Mag 2 being used on them, they can have a specific response to that. Or if they detect a Mesa 4 being used, they can have a specific response to that, like throwing up obstacles or an assistant that takes all the fire. This is hard because you would need to do this for a huge number of 'problematic' abilities, but it would be rewarding because you could still do damage, and you could even design it so that other players could help you do damage by removing or dealing with the response.

Yet another useful thing would be to create boss abilities that have no answer. For example, knockdown can interrupt a lot of abilities and would be a useful tool for a boss, but we're immune to it. You need to give bosses tools to deal with tenno. You need to think like the boss. You have a Saryn trying to poison you every few seconds. So cleanse. You have a Banshee marking your weaknesses, so trick her. Drain the tenno energy. Drain the tenno health.

Another mechanic I've never seen used but that would be interesting is ability reflection. What if the boss could reflect your abilities at you? That would be terrifying. What if you're in a Mesa 4 and suddenly all your bullets are flying back at you, or your whole squad? Guess you better get out of your 4 then right? What if you're a banshee trying to mark the boss and suddenly your whole squad is marked?

Armor strip the tenno. Rip the tenno shields away and put them on yourself. Poison the tenno. CC the tenno.

Tons of awesome possibilities for bosses. I could go into fully creative mode and come up with a few if you guys want me to, but it's been my experience that doing that doesn't make anyone happy lol, and I don't get paid for it, so use your own imaginations.

 

> no damage attenuation and no damage cap

Madurai power transfer, roar (or other self damage buff), glaive prime, big slash slash and heal no more. Repeat for the number of health bar the boss may have and you are done.

> damage adaptation

Without damage cap, that's just another profit taker with health bar, a big bullet sponge. People hate bullet sponge, right?

> reflect abilities

Useless when I don't use any abilities except self buff.

>frame-lock a boss

.....seriously? That's the most arsenal restriction I have ever seen on this forum. May as well force us to use Kahl against Boreal and call that endgame.

[CrownOfShadows]

1 minute ago, RichardKam said:

> no damage attenuation and no damage cap

Madurai power transfer, roar (or other self damage buff), glaive prime, big slash slash and heal no more. Repeat for the number of health bar the boss may have and you are done.

> damage adaptation

Without damage cap, that's just another profit taker with health bar, a big bullet sponge. People hate bullet sponge, right?

> reflect abilities

Useless when I don't use any abilities except self buff.

>frame-lock a boss

.....seriously? That's the most arsenal restriction I have ever seen on this forum. May as well force us to use Kahl against Boreal and call that endgame.

You always are full of optimism and vision, that's what I like about you.

[A5PECT]

That's the thing. The game has reached a point where there's no reason to be optimistic if you're looking for a challenging and varied endgame that naturally grows out of underlying systems. After all these years, DE has developed themselves into a corner. The only way to create consistent, meaningful difficulty is to create parallel game modes like Kahl and the drifter, that sweep the flaws and bloat of the rest of the game under a rug

[RichardKam]

7分钟前 , CrownOfShadows 说:

You always are full of optimism and vision, that's what I like about you.

Just being practical and stick with the premise: "challenge without arsenal restriction" is impossible.

[Marvelous_A]

I want a difficult fight

...but not high hp enemies

...and no take away my power also

...and no nerf my OP weapons

...and no mechanics too

[Hypernaut1]

4 minutes ago, Marvelous_A said:

I want a difficult fight

...but not high hp enemies

...and no take away my power also

...and no nerf my OP weapons

...and no mechanics too

DE can design a challenging endgame boss, but it's the players that don't want a true challenge. 

So really the question is "how do you design something that's easy to complete but pretends to be difficult" so players feel good about themselves. This is what DE is juggling. 

[CrownOfShadows]

I think Violence is a great example.

While most of the other acolytes can be shrugged off, Violence is dangerous. Why? Because he can get past all our usual defenses and shut off our abilities. Because of his potent attacks you really cannot ignore him, you have to pay attention. What's great though? We can still use our abilities on him (for the most part) and all of our weapons, he's not immune or invincible.

Another great example is demolysts. Are they immune to abilities? Well, technically no, but they can cleanse them. This makes them interesting to deal with without making them immune or invincible either.

These are two well implemented mechanics and I'd take them any day over invulnerability. Violence has an offensive tool for dealing with us. Demolysts have a defensive tool for dealing with us. Bosses need tools, ideally both offensive and defensive. Really great bosses should actually be something that a player could use effectively against a team of tenno. Tenno are not without weaknesses, after all. In fact, they have a great many, and bosses should press their advantages where they can.

[AzureScion]

Just now, CrownOfShadows said:

I think Violence is a great example.

While most of the other acolytes can be shrugged off, Violence is dangerous. Why? Because he can get past all our usual defenses and shut off our abilities. Because of his potent attacks you really cannot ignore him, you have to pay attention. What's great though? We can still use our abilities on him (for the most part) and all of our weapons, he's not immune or invincible.

Oh boy how I love and hate Violence at the same time. Can't tell you how many times he pisses me the hell off and makes me wanna go ahead and shove his disgusting head onto his butt because of that silence of his. Definitely the only moment in the entire game where I say "Oh crap not him"

[nslay]

I think improved AI... but since that doesn't exist, this game and other games increase HP and damage of end-game bosses by a lot.

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

16 hours ago, AzureScion said:

 

The only thing I can think of is.. if you cannot make an enemy powerful enough to fight us, the only answer is to let us fight ourselves, aka PVP. Not Conclave either because that "restricts options", but a full blown PVP with all weapons, frames, and other gears maxed to oblivion plus arcane and stuff. I can't tell how many times I have to actively keep in mind and avoid other players whenever radiation proc comes in play because there's a high chance they wouldn't pay attention and starts barraging everyone with rad proc on. 

So yeah, the only thing powerful enough to fight a tenno is a fellow tenno.

All I can think of is revenant running a toxin tenet envoy and one shotting everyone else to become the most meta frame in existence. It would be pretty funny tho.

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

16 hours ago, TheArmchairThinker said:

Just a bit of hammering though, that nerf hammer I have you? it's sharpened too much that it becomes an axe now

I wouldn't call the ammo nerf an axe. AoE is just as powerful but now you need to use an actual setup.

Fun fact: did you know the regular zarr has 9x the ammo economy of the kuva zarr? For only a small reduction in power, all of your ammo problems can go away. 

Tenet envoy also has a decent amount of ammo on pickup.

[Cody]

16 hours ago, AzureScion said:

Without damage reduction/limiting options/mods/arcanes what have you? With the most high end equipments and stuff players are able to survive LEVEL 9999 enemies with 200% modifiers while instakilling them with infinite scaling weapons and abilities.

Gimmick mechanics can only go on so far, people are already able to 6x3 eidolons on a daily basis, so that wouldn't be considered difficult either, at least for them.

Ropalolyst was also fun, but people got used to it fast anyway. 

Exploiter orb and profit taker fights are hated by many.

So how does one make an actual difficult fight to satisfy end game players? The newest content archon fights which were meant to be difficult got cheesed anyway in less than 5 minutes. I honestly can't really think of what would be engaging. 

The power we have in our hands is basically limitless.

 

The only thing I can think of is.. if you cannot make an enemy powerful enough to fight us, the only answer is to let us fight ourselves, aka PVP. Not Conclave either because that "restricts options", but a full blown PVP with all weapons, frames, and other gears maxed to oblivion plus arcane and stuff. I can't tell how many times I have to actively keep in mind and avoid other players whenever radiation proc comes in play because there's a high chance they wouldn't pay attention and starts barraging everyone with rad proc on. 

So yeah, the only thing powerful enough to fight a tenno is a fellow tenno.

bosses with big AoE mechanics that cause you to actually move, inside an arena that prevents operator use, that also contains environmantal hazards. The revamped jakal fight very veeeeery faintly grazes this surface. likewise with ropalulyst. Those 2 need to have a baby then feed it veggies so it grows up nice and strong :)

my analysis on this is the fact that its never been hard to deal damage, its always been challenging (after a certain point) to survive. there are some enemies in certain situations that can melt a 10k hp inaros in a matter of 2 seconds, likewise with nezha and all the other beefy tanks. they could capitalize on that

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

There are plenty of games like WoW and Final Fantasy built for raiding and "challenging" content. But it's not actually challenging, as the only challenge is finding competent healers and tanks to carry everyone else. And if you're a good support role, you're stuck playing that as a second job because all the casuals wanna be the big shot dps.

1 to 3 hour raids can get old fast. Many people have been there, done that. 

[AzureScion]

21 minutes ago, Cody said:

my analysis on this is the fact that its never been hard to deal damage, its always been challenging (after a certain point) to survive. there are some enemies in certain situations that can melt a 10k hp inaros in a matter of 2 seconds, likewise with nezha and all the other beefy tanks. they could capitalize on that

This is more likely the case than it is dealing damage yes but wouldn't that just cement tanky frames like Revenant or Rhino's place in the meta further and squishy ability based frames get downed on the drain even further? I mean their abilities work on barely anyone. Maybe make the boss CC-able to a certain extent? I feel bad for these frames lol

[Mag_Gaming]

This is what you should ask every crybaby talking about, for example, archons being just bullet sponges. And I´m quite certain 90% of them haven´t played any other game like Warframe so they have no idea what they want anyway they just like to cry non stop.

And I personally like archons and think they´re a step in the right direction... except they are also a complete joke with the proper loadout. They need more ways to mess up the player, disrupt playstyles as well as make certain playstyles unplayable in their missions. That´s how you make challenging content. Challenging content isn´t and will never be meant for everyone.

I know personally what it takes to make a fight engaging and challenging as somebody who´s played Destiny 2 a lot and raided quite a bit but quit D2 due to how mentally draining D2 can be. I can post my more detailed version if you would like but just tell me so if you wish to hear it.

 

Otherwise...

12 hours ago, Marvelous_A said:

I want a difficult fight

...but not high hp enemies

...and no take away my power also

...and no nerf my OP weapons

...and no mechanics too

This comment summarizes it pretty well.

[Cody]

4 minutes ago, AzureScion said:

This is more likely the case than it is dealing damage yes but wouldn't that just cement tanky frames like Revenant or Rhino's place in the meta further and squishy ability based frames get downed on the drain even further? I mean their abilities work on barely anyone. Maybe make the boss CC-able to a certain extent? I feel bad for these frames lol

they could make the boss periodically cancel abilitys like every 15 or 30 seconds or whatever (just spitballing here) to make you recast and keep you on your toes

as for the CC frames becomming relevant they could have something like enemies that cant be damaged but can be CC'd and run towards a certain "endpoint" and if they reach that endpoint it heals the boss, or gives the boss extra damage or makes the environmental hazards more potent. or ultimately fail the mission, making it essential to keep those wandering adds on lockdown. imagine a CCable demolyst as an example, that if it gets to the tower something catastrophic happens (still just spitballing obviously dont take this too literal anyone lol)

[TheArmchairThinker]

2 hours ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

And if you're a good support role, you're stuck playing that as a second job because all the casuals wanna be the big shot dps.

And the usual

If the team wins, it's because of good DPS. If the team loses, it's everyone but DPS fault not doing their job

[-Moctezuma-]

19 hours ago, AzureScion said:

The only thing I can think of is.. if you cannot make an enemy powerful enough to fight us, the only answer is to let us fight ourselves, aka PVP. Not Conclave either because that "restricts options", but a full blown PVP with all weapons, frames, and other gears maxed to oblivion plus arcane and stuff. I can't tell how many times I have to actively keep in mind and avoid other players whenever radiation proc comes in play because there's a high chance they wouldn't pay attention and starts barraging everyone with rad proc on. 

 

So Mutalist Alad V mind control disc?

[(PSN)rexis12]

I do think a big issue is how much DPS focused Warframe is.

You want big numbers because that's almost how most, if not all, of how the game is played. So you end up having a boss who's whole shtick is numbers.

And then you have to continually up those numbers or lower the players to keep things 'Hard' and advance mechanics, while neat at first, would be absolutely draining if done repeatedly.

Why do you think people complain about Trinity since the whole fight a dull change of mechanics that makes the fight take longer than it should.

Honestly I wouldn't mind Archons to have Mechanical bloat, and exchange that for the Damage Attenuation. Weakpoints, need to go here to stop something, search the arena to stop an attack, etc. and once those things are handled, you can have a good ol' DPS timeframe. And the only reason that I'd be fine is because they are weekly and give out pretty optional shards that aren't as game changing or build defining as Prime Mods or even Rivens for that matter.

[Raarsi]

I'm not sure it's possible to make truly difficult endgame fights without either the community hitting League levels of toxic or the fight being so hard that not even endgame players can clear it and having devs respond with "sorry, but this is what you all asked for, so idk why you're complaining".

[SenorClipClop]

Limitations.

If the player's abundant and powerful options make the game easy, decrease the pool of options the player can use to create a challenge. The Grendel missions, for example, require you to do them without any Mods.