Nullifiers are outdated, and you know it

[Chewarette]

Heya,

I guess that's another "rant" against Nullifiers, but let's try it !

Nullifiers have always been a problem in Warframe. They were designed with the goals of mitigating the room-cleaning warframes, but bringing more frustration & limitations along the way.

- Using abilities is what makes Warframe fun

- Bubbles are the most efficiently de-spawned with fast-firing weapons

- Slow-firing weapons can be used, but you have to aim for the drone which can be on the other side, behind a wall, or the Nulli can be rotating like a headless chicken making it a chore

- Killing them with Melee usually comes with additional frustration of losing your buffs

- Operators are an option, but depends on the enemy level & Eximus or not (and your amp, do not bring explosive ones)

- If the host has some ping (and not even talking about second-long pings, even 150-200ms), you'll sometimes not see the bubbles, or see them while they're de-activated, complexifying your combat situation analysis.

- Nobody enjoyed being sniped right upon opening a door, so you fixed that with Shield Gating. Guess what ? Nobody enjoys rushing into a room to fall into a Nulli bubble that you had no way of seeing before and wasting all their buffs.

They've been complained about since their introduction, for very valid reasons, and over the years, other enemies types have been added/developed

- Orb Vallis' enemies being immune to some abilities on launch (I'm not sure it's still the case today)

- Eximii have overguard making them immune to plenty of Warframes' abilities

- Bigger threats have appeared with specific mechanics to deal with (Sentients' resistances, Thrax's, Dax that you can interrupt on Duviri, specific Parazon finishers for heavy units)

Now, why do I say "you (DE) know it" ? Circuit has no Nullifiers. None. Nada. Absolutely 0. You have purposely designed the latest game mode around it not having Nullifiers, because you know they suck, and we have limited loadout choices that shouldn't be further limited by "should I pick this weapon specifically to deal with Nullies ?".

And I think the result is here : Random selection aside, the Circuit is great ! It scales well, has a good variety of units, missions & maps, and is overall enjoyed by everyone.

I think it's about time the Nullifiers are removed. The Eximus are having the same mechanisms as them, and they're a lot better/more fun to engage. Nullies are obsolete!

Edited November 21, 2023 by Chewarette

[Circle_of_Psi]

1 hour ago, Chewarette said:

I think it's about time the Nullifiers are removed. The Eximus are having the same mechanisms as them, and they're a lot better/more fun to engage. Nullies are obsolete!

I don't think so, they have been in the game long enough and people have gotten used to em by now, if you still have an issue with them, you have to be better.

Or as hardcore gamers call it "Git Gut"

[Genitive]

I guess you could repurpose them. Instead of cancelling abilities they could do something else, like protecting allies inside the bubble from abilities. But to be honest, I'd like to see them gone, too.

[(XBOX)K1jker]

+1

I agree. 

[Chewarette]

22 minutes ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

I don't think so, they have been in the game long enough and people have gotten used to em by now, if you still have an issue with them, you have to be better.

Or as hardcore gamers call it "Git Gut"

I don't have any problem dealing with them. I have problem with them when the host has lag spikes (even minor ones) and the bubble's status doesn't refresh so you just shoot at it endlessly until it dies but you don't know if it's still there or not.

My problem here is not the challenge, it's the annoyance. Which are two very different things, that very often game companies think are equal, so they design annoying bosses thinking it'll make them challenging. Breaking news, that just makes them annoying.

[(NSW)Greybones]

I’m hearing “Make them harder in a more clever way”.

They’ve been less of a threat ever since I learned how to deal with them, I wouldn’t mind a second look that makes them scarier

[IamBESh]

Keep nullifier field. Change it so that field only works to protect the nullifier's allies from abilties, not weapon. And put away bullet protection. 

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

You can shoot the drone on top of the bubble to get rid of it pernamently.

You can melee the bubble to shrink it down until the bubble is no longer there.

You have more than one weapon to hit the bubble with. Even if all three of them are slow attacking weapons.

You can go Operator mode to destroy nulifiers without worrying about losing warframe buffs.

You can pull out an Archgun to shoot at the bubble then dismiss it right after to lower the cooldown timer. Less ammo used means lower cooldown for archgun launcher.

You can completely ignore it, run away from the encounter focusing on other targets.

There are tons of ways to deal with nulifiers. Why do people only want one easy no brain soulution?

[(XBOX)Rez090]

Expand Nullifies to the Infested. They need 'em.

[(PSN)ClaimingKarma]

About the only change I would appreciate for nullifiers would be just disable my buff/ability while inside the bubble and give anything inside immunity to the damage/affect but allow the buff to return when I leave/eliminate the field

[--Xalted-LuaGuard--]

I counter that we keep Nullifiers, make the bubble have punch through and make it invisible more similar to Comba/Scrambus but less identifiable from generic corpus crewman.

this would allow them to be killed more easily but also increase their utility as an enemy unit

[BiancaRoughfin]

11 hours ago, Chewarette said:

Circuit has no Nullifiers. None. Nada. Absolutely 0.

Currently maybe? Its been quite a wile since i last did circuits or anything Duviri related as i hated the update but back when i was doing it, they would spawn tho not as frequent.

11 hours ago, Chewarette said:

I think it's about time the Nullifiers are removed.

I find it funny how some people have so much trouble with them, my only issue with them being a bug with Zephyr`s Airburst which i have complained about twice in the forums, aside that i usually blast them away with ease even in Steel Path.

Nullies are here to stay and they exist mostly because of those players that like to just stand in place spamming abilities.

[Fred_Avant_2019]

Not gonna lie, if you took out just the fizzling your buffs into thin air part about them, everyone would be chill with nullies. The really frustrating part about them is when they come in clusters, like in some specific missions, for whatever reason there just seems to be too many spawning at a time, lua disruption being one of them, and no, I do not wish to have my loadout altered just specifically for this one unit, it's a pain in the ass and I don't find it to be anything but a toxic interaction.

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

4 hours ago, Fred_Avant_2019 said:

Not gonna lie, if you took out just the fizzling your buffs into thin air part about them, everyone would be chill with nullies. The really frustrating part about them is when they come in clusters, like in some specific missions, for whatever reason there just seems to be too many spawning at a time, lua disruption being one of them, and no, I do not wish to have my loadout altered just specifically for this one unit, it's a pain in the ass and I don't find it to be anything but a toxic interaction.

Are you saying, stuck in a mission with a specific loadout, the only option is to die and fail the mission when a Nulifier show up?

[Hexerin]

9 hours ago, (PSN)ClaimingKarma said:

About the only change I would appreciate for nullifiers would be just disable my buff/ability while inside the bubble and give anything inside immunity to the damage/affect but allow the buff to return when I leave/eliminate the field

This is closest to my own thoughts on the matter.

I like the Nullifier Crewman as the "this guy provides a zone of protection from Tenno abilities, for all his allies within", so I'd prefer that they keep that. However, I dislike how even just barely touching the farthest edge of a single pixel of their bubble completely shuts everything you've got running down. You then have to reactivate all your buffs, ask your allies to refresh their buffs on you, etc.

Nullifiers also delete ability-based deployables, and there's literally nothing you can do to counterplay that other than to kill the Nullifier before it can reach them. Whereas for frame-based abilities and effects, there's skill expression (limited though it may be) in the forms of having to be mindful of your movement, the environment, enemy force position, etc. There's a very clear issue with design here.

Entering the bubble (or being hit with any other nullify effect for that matter) should only be a temporary disable. You can't cast your abilities, any current effects no longer apply to you (but the buffs remain and continue their timers) until you leave the bubble (or the nullify effect expires), etc.

You can ultimately sum their current design up easily: They're tedious to deal with, stop the forward momentum of player fun, and are just all around a relic of the past.

10 hours ago, (XBOX)Rez090 said:

Expand Nullifies to the Infested. They need 'em.

Only if the Ancient Disruptor is removed.

[(NSW)Greybones]

1 hour ago, Hexerin said:

Only if the Ancient Disruptor is removed.

Give Ancient Disruptors their own Nullifier Bubbles, you say?

I dunno, Hex. In the standard game with 1-player spawnrates actually designed for one player, it might make for a bit more of a threat while remaining more fair. Run it through Steel Path modifiers though and… oof.

🤔 Although… can’t say I don’t relish the idea of being pitted against impossible odds and figuring out how to overcome them. That’s the fun part of tweaking and refining some of the most overpowered builds and ways to play, even if repeatedly using them is of questionable entertainment once the puzzle has been solved

Alright, you’ve convinced me. I think they’ll make for a great addition to the unfair unbalanced part of the game. You’re surprisingly one hell of a madman, Hex, but damn if I don’t respect you more for it

Edited November 22, 2023 by (NSW)Greybones

[Chewarette]

11 hours ago, (PSN)jaggerwanderer said:

There are tons of ways to deal with nulifiers. Why do people only want one easy no brain soulution?

I'm not saying I want a no-brain solution. But their design is outdated compared to the other heavy units that DE has added / updated over the years. They're just being an annoyance, and my main problem with them is not how to deal with them, but how the slightest latency from the host will make the situation unreadable (bubbles existing but not visible, bubbles visible but already destroyed, bubbles visible but not visually shrinking when taking damage etc), forcing you to just blast at them until they die because you don't know where the bubble even is.

And, as I said above, they do not provide any sort of challenge, only annoyance. Which is why I want them gone, or reworked (as Eximii were reworked, they're cool now).

That's just as if they replaced every single Grineer unit by Vay Hek. There would be some dude on the forum asking me not to complain because there are ways to deal with him. Yeah, cool, but he's the embodied definition of tedious, not challenge.

[(XBOX)Rez090]

1 hour ago, Hexerin said:

Only if the Ancient Disruptor is removed.

You mean, only if their converted.

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

1 hour ago, Chewarette said:

I'm not saying I want a no-brain solution. But their design is outdated compared to the other heavy units that DE has added / updated over the years. They're just being an annoyance, and my main problem with them is not how to deal with them, but how the slightest latency from the host will make the situation unreadable (bubbles existing but not visible, bubbles visible but already destroyed, bubbles visible but not visually shrinking when taking damage etc), forcing you to just blast at them until they die because you don't know where the bubble even is.

And, as I said above, they do not provide any sort of challenge, only annoyance. Which is why I want them gone, or reworked (as Eximii were reworked, they're cool now).

That's just as if they replaced every single Grineer unit by Vay Hek. There would be some dude on the forum asking me not to complain because there are ways to deal with him. Yeah, cool, but he's the embodied definition of tedious, not challenge.

How much hours did it take you to go from "Oh crap this guy is immune to warframe powers." to "Dammit, this guy again? Stop existing." The annoyance is there by design. It is to disrupt a players monotonous routine.

[Chewarette]

1 hour ago, (PSN)jaggerwanderer said:

The annoyance is there by design. It is to disrupt a players monotonous routine.

If a unit is annoying (and not challenging) by design, then it's a garbage design that should be overhauled. There are other ways to disrupt the routine, Nullifiers were their first tentative, and it's not successful, as they've proven in the recent years by designing other types of units that are also disrupting, but in a way that's not garbage to deal with.

[Hexerin]

36 minutes ago, Chewarette said:

If a unit is annoying (and not challenging) by design, then it's a garbage design that should be overhauled. There are other ways to disrupt the routine, Nullifiers were their first tentative, and it's not successful, as they've proven in the recent years by designing other types of units that are also disrupting, but in a way that's not garbage to deal with.

Say it louder for those in the back. It's a shame that there's so many people who defend them, and that Pablo is unwilling to listen to reason.

[Fred_Avant_2019]

Il y a 8 heures, (PSN)jaggerwanderer a dit :

Are you saying, stuck in a mission with a specific loadout, the only option is to die and fail the mission when a Nulifier show up?

Not really no.

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

9 hours ago, Chewarette said:

If a unit is annoying (and not challenging) by design, then it's a garbage design that should be overhauled. There are other ways to disrupt the routine, Nullifiers were their first tentative, and it's not successful, as they've proven in the recent years by designing other types of units that are also disrupting, but in a way that's not garbage to deal with.

Like I've stated previously, there are other ways to engage against Nulifiers. Your suggestions are to bypass them completely. Nulifiers are only an annoyance when Tenno doesn't have the means to deal with them. 

[BiancaRoughfin]

13 hours ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

Give Ancient Disruptors their own Nullifier Bubbles, you say?

If i recall well, there was a time where one of the Infested Ancients had a Dispel ability that would remove all active buffs/abilities from players without the need of a bubble.

I remember doing Infested missions and instants after casting Turbulence on my Zephyr the ability just vanishing, shes built for Duration so her Turbulence lasts 46 sec.

[Famecans]

Nullifiers = Visual Polution; Waste of energy; Obstruct of actions; Mess of logical gameplay.