Less numerous but stronger Eximi

[Luka-Song]

Recently, I have noticed the spawn rate of Eximus units seems bigger than it used to be, or at least much bigger than they *should* be.

 

It is not unusual to be fighting against, 6, 7, sometimes up to 10 Eximus units at the same time, particularly on the Circuit, and on game modes like Survival and Defense. I had heard that DE explicitly stated the spawn cap for them is around 4 or 5, so I'm not sure if this is a bug or intended design, but either way, I think the following suggestion is still valid.

 

Back when the Eximus rework was first announced in Devstreams, it was mentioned that the idea behind Eximi was for them to feel like mini-bosses appearing mid-mission, and they reworked them accordingly, giving them more noticeable effects both visually and mechanically. However if that is still the intention behind them, the current design doesn't quite live up to it.

The current spawn rate of Eximi makes them as commonplace as regular units, and what's more is they're not even that troublesome. As mentioned, it's not unusual to be going up against several Eximi at once, and despite that they pose very little threat, at most an annoyance since you can't CC them. This post isn't born from a feeling of frustration fighting against them, just dissapointment, honestly. They don't feel like mini-bosses, just like normal enemies deluxe.

 

Personally, I'd love for them to feel more impactful, and present a change in priority and gameplay once they appear. Reduce their spawn rate to 1 or 2, at the very most 3 at the same time, and never more than that, but make them more powerful, particularly their abilities. For instance, increase the radius and frequency of the energy draining pulses from Leech Eximus, or the radius and damage of the blast from Blitz/Volatile. Lower their mercy kill threshhold if you need them to be tankier, as it stands it's all too common to have their mercy threshhold be 90-100% of their HP, being mercy-killable as soon as overguard is down. If need be, go ahead and increase their HP.

Basically, it'd make them feel much more like the mini-bosses they were meant to be if they didn't show up in hordes like they do right now, but when they *do* show up you could feel their presence and be forced to deal with them immediately, particularly from their abilities. They're not really that interesting if every mission feels like an Eximus Stronghold.

[quxier]

1 hour ago, Luka-Song said:

It is not unusual to be fighting against, 6, 7, sometimes up to 10 Eximus units at the same time, particularly on the Circuit, and on game modes like Survival and Defense. I had heard that DE explicitly stated the spawn cap for them is around 4 or 5, so I'm not sure if this is a bug or intended design, but either way, I think the following suggestion is still valid.

Are you killing Eximus fast enough? When I do some afk style I don't see too many eximus. However when I change into slower styles, especially one that don't kill eximus fast enough I see more eximus. Same happens for Nullies. I can see 3 or even more nullies near each other (ridiculous).

IMHO they should check how many special units are in rooms or near you (around room wide size). If there is such unit(s) don't spawn them. After killing eximus, spawn it after e.g. 10-15 second.

1 hour ago, Luka-Song said:

Back when the Eximus rework was first announced in Devstreams, it was mentioned that the idea behind Eximi was for them to feel like mini-bosses appearing mid-mission,

I remember that. And they were supposed to give approtiate rewards. Now they are just annoying base units that don't give anything more than few credits (used to get 50-100k per one random, non sp mission)

[Luka-Song]

1 hour ago, quxier said:

Are you killing Eximus fast enough?

Depends on my build, but as long as the enemy count in the room is above 0, the proportion of Eximi to normal enemies doesn't change much. At any point it seems like for every 2 or 3 common enemies, there is 1 Eximus, regardless if I'm clearing the room every 10 seconds or not.

1 hour ago, quxier said:

IMHO they should check how many special units are in rooms or near you (around room wide size). If there is such unit(s) don't spawn them.

See I thought we already had that. We already know there are enemy caps, and as far as I'm aware they also mentioned there being Eximus caps, so even if I'm killing them slowly, there shouldn't be more spawning. I strongly feel there is some bug happening, but it's hard to tell if this is intended design or not.

[(XBOX)Mastermitchel89]

5 hours ago, quxier said:

I remember that. And they were supposed to give approtiate rewards. Now they are just annoying base units that don't give anything more than few credits (used to get 50-100k per one random, non sp mission)

Solution ~ Bosses drop rare resources so mini boss eximi should have a 25% chance to drop rare loot example tellurium or entrati lanthurns

Then de would think about there spawn rates aswell

[AegidiusF]

Il y a 9 heures, Luka-Song a dit :

Back when the Eximus rework was first announced in Devstreams, it was mentioned that the idea behind Eximi was for them to feel like mini-bosses appearing mid-mission, and they reworked them accordingly, giving them more noticeable effects both visually and mechanically. However if that is still the intention behind them, the current design doesn't quite live up to it.

I still remember that too and Pablo, at the Devstream that came just after the Eximus Reborn, said that it was very fun to play the game killing a bunch of normal enemies and then have to change the pace and deal with a higher threat coming. It sounded funny, but since then, the Eximus were nerfed.

There were some specific problems that had to be fixed, such as Eximus Nox having DR and DA stacking in a weird way, but Eximus didn't really need to be nerfed. Also, they were a bit intended to make us use the operator a bit more (to deal with the Overguard), but this never really worked as most warframe's weapons and abilities worked much better to remove Overguard than any Amp.

The consequence of the Eximus nerf was that they've got a higher spawn rate. The initial intention (mini-bosses) totally failed (in my opinion) and Eximus are now just blinking enemies that would be much more useful as a kind of decoration on a christmas tree 🎄.

It's true that, from the beginning, the Eximus spawn rate was a bit weird and we used to get much more Eximus on missions than intended (their spawn rate never matched what they announced on DevWorkshop and Devstream), but this was non intended and could be fixed (instead of nerfing Eximus).

Now, they are just making some of our choices more limited : CC frames are a bit useless on some missions (Circuit Defense), but at the same time, DPS frames never noticed the Eximus Reborn : Mesa is one of the best Defense frames on the Circuit now. The CC immunity, in my opinion, was a total mistake : a total warframe ability immunity would have been much better and would have put Eximus as a high threat even for DPS frames. Of course, this would need a low Eximus spawn.

Anyway, Eximus Reborn project should be renamed into Eximus Stillborn project...

[quxier]

1 hour ago, (NSW)AegisFifi said:

It's true that, from the beginning, the Eximus spawn rate was a bit weird and we used to get much more Eximus on missions than intended (their spawn rate never matched what they announced on DevWorkshop and Devstream), but this was non intended and could be fixed (instead of nerfing Eximus).

Maybe "nerf to overguard" is unrelated to enemy spawn? Enemy spawn, in general, not only eximus, is problem for long time. I remember new Corpus ship tileset defense 5 waves took me 30 minutes (no nukker or AoE). Recently I've played Khela de tame missions (Area afair) and there were 2 enemies that I have to run whole map.... 25 kills took me 10+ minutes. Ridiculous.