Enemy Defenses Are Arbitrary And Make No Sense (Warning: Lots Of Pictures)

[shut]

Title. I'm referring mostly to the complete loony bin that is the entirety of the Grineer.

 

 

~~~    THE PROBLEM

- There is no way of discerning which Grineer unit has which armor type by looking at them. Players must memorize their stats from Codex entries.

 

I'll elaborate on this a bit with a bunch of examples, from the most to least sensible. Beware: pictures.

 

Exhibit A  (This one makes sense.)

 

All the same armor type (Ferrite), with visual similarities. Good so far.

 

Exhibit B

 

Same armor type (Alloy), with visual similarities. Good so far.

 

Exhibit C

 

Here, it starts getting weird. Despite the visual similarities, the two have different armor types. Shield Lancers use Ferrite, and Eviscerators use Alloy.

 

Exhibit D

 

Again, weird. Despite visual similarities, they have different armor types. Troopers use Ferrite, and Elite Lancers use Alloy.

 

Exhibit E

 

This is where it starts getting irritating. Despite looking and acting completely different, these all have the same armor type (Ferrite).

 

Exhibit F  (This one just makes me mad.)

 

These lancers have different armor types. Regular Lancers use Ferrite, and Elite Lancers use Alloy, despite looking completely identical aside from helmet shape.

No, I don't know why DE thought this was a good idea.

 

 

 

Basically, there is very little pattern as to which Grineer have which armor types. "Melee units" use Ferrite, but that's really the only pattern that can be found.

Edited December 28, 2013 by SortaRandom

[shut]

(too many images) 

 

 

~~~    THE SOLUTION

- Give Grineer armor types that can be discerned from appearance. Ferrite-armored and Alloy-armored enemies should be discernible from first glance.

 

Suggested groupings:

 

Ferrite

 

Basically, Ferrite enemies are the ones with lighter-looking armor.

Heavy Gunners have been grouped here because their armor is visually identical to a Ballista's, although having them in Alloy due to their "heavy" nature wouldn't be too bad either.

 

Alloy

 

Basically, every Grineer unit with the heavy, "round" armor uses Alloy.

 

Similar to how Infested vs. Infested Health can be mostly discerned by appearance (i.e. infested Corpus generally use "Infested Health", and infested Grineer generally use "Infested"), Grineer should have their armor types discernible at a glance from an experienced player.

Players should not need to memorize which units were arbitrarily given which armor type.

 

 

____________________________________________________________________

 

 

This thread has been almost exclusively about Grineer, but Corpus share a similar problem with Shields vs. Proto Shields. The general rule for experienced players is that regular, non-Tech Corpus Units use Shields, while everything else uses Proto Shields. However, there is no way to detect this without the Codex or Wiki. It's a big slap in the face for new players.

 

I suggest that, simply, Proto Shields (Corpus Tech, bosses, Stalker, etc.) glow turquoise instead of blue. This should make the differences in shield types much more obvious.

Edited January 19, 2014 by SortaRandom

[AlienTetris]

Atleast this makes some sense..

 

[DarknightK]

To be honest, I abhorrently hate how newer types of health were added (alloy armor, proto shields, "Infested Health" and "Infested" take the cake though.) along with numerous resistances.

 

1) Get rid of resistances. When Steve said he was making sure enemies only had one resistance, all of them now have 3. Way to screw up.

 

2) Start getting rid of some categories. Grineer don't need extra armor. Infested DEFINITELY don't need "Infested Health" and "Infested". Corpus don't need Proto shields.

 

 

Damage 2.0 and resistances are so far the worst I've seen DE pull out of their hat of tricks. They don't even know what they're doing anymore. Hell, I don't even think they're listening to the playerbase.

At this rate, people will just keep posting more and more complaints about the game until they're forced to nerf the resistances because the Feedback section is overflowing with "DE u guize suk, remove resistances lololol nubs".

[bobafetthotmail]

this. For the love of Zod, when the only way to know what works against a specific mob is scanning it 20 times and then taking notes or looking it up on the game's wiki, you should maybe start thinking that everything is too damn arbitrary.

[BadAimbot]

Damage 2.0 is a mess. DE needs to figure out what exactly their goal is, and then make changes towards it. They just seem to be throwing stuff in randomly at this point. Changing the enemies visually to suit the current defense types makes sense, unless they're gonna change them again. In that case, it would be a waste of time. It would be like asking DE to lower the required scans for Crawlers since they're hard to find now, except they're planning on making them more common, so changing the scan amount wouldn't be necessary.

[LordDoom01]

DE does need to simplify the damage system. Each race can have a different versions from each other, but it should be a basic Shield/Armour/Health for all in a single race. Grineer should all have one armour type, Corpus have one shield type, and infested have one health type and one armour type.

 

I'm not against Bosses having a potentially different Health/Armour/Shield type from the troops, but it should still keep to a simple damage system.

Edited December 26, 2013 by LordDoom01

[Monolake]

Yes its a big middle finger to not just new players but everyone who is not a hardcore and nerdy enough to check wiki/forums weekly (and dont even start on the codex, not worth the effort). Unintuitive mess of a system. And whats the benifit of it?  

When you are forced to play the game with unclear rules it feels like you are being cheated.  Its interesting to manage your loadout only when you know what works.

 

DE should work on making the system more transparent and add descriptions to the weapons and mods  INGAME stating like 'this weapon dealing corrosive damage is perfect vs armored Grineers'  or 'impact damage makes this gun a  Corpus killer',  'mod increases heat damage, devastating to cloned Grineer flesh' etc.

Players need to know such things then they will have fun and feel themselves clever tacticians using different weapons and mods for appropriate missions.

Edited December 26, 2013 by Monolake

[shut]

Bump.

[LennoFF]

This must have gotten past me somehow, as I have never even heard of this, lol.  The problem that I think DE will face, is that its going to get so confusing, people will either stop playing or stop caring all together.

 

In Damage 1.0, I would equip heat for infested, do some modifying a bit depending on which faction.  Now, I did a nice 3* crit build on my soma and use that for everything.  I don't even care about all this nonsense to be perfectly honest.  I am not going to worry about which lancer has which armor, I just don't care that much.  Regardless of all these additions with combined elemental, + and - on different factions, etc, and now with different armor and stuff, regardless, my soma does awesome damage and my 6* ogris doesn't seem to care about + or - elemental damage either.  I gave some consideration to the new D2.0 when it was released, but I'm sure I'm not alone in saying, I just don't care. 

[shut]

This must have gotten past me somehow, as I have never even heard of this, lol.  The problem that I think DE will face, is that its going to get so confusing, people will either stop playing or stop caring all together.

 

In Damage 1.0, I would equip heat for infested, do some modifying a bit depending on which faction.  Now, I did a nice 3* crit build on my soma and use that for everything.  I don't even care about all this nonsense to be perfectly honest.  I am not going to worry about which lancer has which armor, I just don't care that much.  Regardless of all these additions with combined elemental, + and - on different factions, etc, and now with different armor and stuff, regardless, my soma does awesome damage and my 6* ogris doesn't seem to care about + or - elemental damage either.  I gave some consideration to the new D2.0 when it was released, but I'm sure I'm not alone in saying, I just don't care. 

That's part of the problem. With Damage 2.1, DE has made things so arbitrary and complex as to be utterly ludicrous. I don't bother with armor-specific builds either, especially with our limited preset-loadout slots.

 

My suggested tweakings would make the armor types immensely easier for players to discern (no memorization required), but ideally, DE should simplify the system altogether.

[Rabidbluedeath]

This isn't complicated.... 

 

Lancer = Ferrite Elite Lancer = Alloy makes sense. Its elite because of the upgraded armor. 

 

So Eviscerater, Bombard, Napalm and Elite Lancer have Alloy all else is Ferrite. Seems cut and dry to me. Seriously. How is this difficult, the only thing remotely un-intuitive is the eviserator. Maybe I'm weird though. Here is how I look at it.

 

Those 4 units are the tip of the spear, the leading edge. Alloy armor (Steel is my guess) would be better than regular Iron (Ferrite) armor. Only the best units get Alloy because its more expensive. 

 

Even if that is a difficult concept for people you have to memorize a whopping 4 units. Because if its not those is not alloy.

 

Edit: I do like the idea of the proto-shield differing in color from regular shields. 

Edited January 18, 2014 by Rabidbluedeath

[Monolake]

it should be clear from the looks, not from the name

[shut]

This isn't complicated.... 

 

Lancer = Ferrite Elite Lancer = Alloy makes sense. Its elite because of the upgraded armor. 

 

So Eviscerater, Bombard, Napalm and Elite Lancer have Alloy all else is Ferrite. Seems cut and dry to me. Seriously. How is this difficult, the only thing remotely un-intuitive is the eviserator. Maybe I'm weird though. Here is how I look at it.

 

Those 4 units are the tip of the spear, the leading edge. Alloy armor (Steel is my guess) would be better than regular Iron (Ferrite) armor. Only the best units get Alloy because its more expensive. 

 

Even if that is a difficult concept for people you have to memorize a whopping 4 units. Because if its not those is not alloy.

It's arbitrary. How is an Elite Lancer more "tip-of-the-spear" than a Heavy Gunner? Why should Napalms and Bombards have different armor than Troopers, who look near-identical? Why should Eviscerators (who wear visually identical armor to Shield Lancers) share the same armor type as Napalms and Bombards when even Commanders don't? Why should Elite Lancers have different armor from regular Lancers, when there is literally no visual difference other than helmet shape? 

 

There is nothing intuitive about this, at all. Nothing to indicate that there is a difference in enemy armors, and nothing to indicate why. It may be easy to memorize after checking the Wiki or maxing out Codex scans for every Grineer in the game, but it still needs extensive researching and memorizing of arbitrarily-selected values, which should never be needed in a game like this. That is the issue.

 

 

If we went and told a new player that Grineer had two different types of armor, then their first instinct would be to find visual differences between them. The most striking visual differences are "light"-looking armors and "heavy/round"-looking armors. Then they get all confused when they learn that this isn't the case, and that armor appearance has nothing to do with the actual armor types.

Why should it be like this? It accomplishes nothing.

Edited January 18, 2014 by SortaRandom

[Rabidbluedeath]

It's arbitrary. How is an Elite Lancer more "tip-of-the-spear" than a Heavy Gunner? Why should Napalms and Bombards have different armor than Troopers, who look near-identical? Why should Eviscerators (who wear visually identical armor to Shield Lancers) share the same armor type as Napalms and Bombards when even Commanders don't? Why should Elite Lancers have different armor from regular Lancers, when there is literally no visual difference other than helmet shape? 

 

There is nothing intuitive about this, at all. Nothing to indicate that there is a difference in enemy armors, and nothing to indicate why. It may be easy to memorize after checking the Wiki or maxing out Codex scans for every Grineer in the game, but it still needs extensive researching and memorizing of arbitrarily-selected values, which should never be needed in a game like this. That is the issue.

 

If we went and told a new player that Grineer had two different types of armor, then their first instinct would be to find visual differences between them. The most striking visual differences are "light"-looking armors and "heavy/round"-looking armors. Then they get all confused when they learn that this isn't the case, and that armor appearance has nothing to do with the actual armor types.

Why should it be like this? It accomplishes nothing.

Well Heavy gunners spawn from the beginning of the game. So clearly the Elite Lancer is a higher tier in the grineer military. The name difference between elite lancer and lancer should be enough to clue in most players there is something different, and not just the weapon type. It's only arbitrary to you because your focusing on only the look of the unit. I'm not saying there is a right way and a wrong way to look at it I'm saying depending on how you look at it it makes sense. At present there is a distinct line that can be drawn between Alloy and Ferrite. Your Idea provides another distinct line but, to me, would make less sense. If you treat Alloy as an armor type ugrade from ferrite its not that un-intuitive. That would require 1 line in a grineer codex to fix. "Only the grineer elite are issued alloy armor due to its cost." That leaves the commanders as the odd ball out but they are still using Grakata, not Hind, they can't be that important.

 

Furthermore rounded armor could by a style of armor used by units not requiring mobility. Rounded armor would be more ideal for deflecting bullets than the sleeker looking version. The sleeker looking version would be better at moving (why the heavy gunner, with that giant gun, needs it and all the melee have it) I will agree the eviserator is still somewhat un-intuitive.

Edited January 18, 2014 by Rabidbluedeath

[Lord.Finster]

So you stuffed all light Grineer armour in one place and the heavy armour in the other and then claim they have to be different materials?

Sorry, I'm not convinced.

 

I think it is quite plausible for lancers to wear heavy ferrite armour and elite lancers to wear heavy alloy armour of better quality.

The armour is probably made in the same way, just the material is different.

 

What bugs me is in fact that the two armour types differ from one another so radically in terms of elemental weaknesses.

So, alloy armour is acid resistant but doesn't protect from radiation. Whut?

What kind of alloy is that supposed to be? That's video game logic for you.

[shut]

Well Heavy gunners spawn from the beginning of the game.

 

So do Napalms and Bombards.

 

So clearly the Elite Lancer is a higher tier in the grineer military. The name difference between elite lancer and lancer should be enough to clue in most players there is something different, and not just the weapon type. It's only arbitrary to you because your focusing on only the look of the unit. I'm not saying there is a right way and a wrong way to look at it I'm saying depending on how you look at it it makes sense. At present there is a distinct line that can be drawn between Alloy and Ferrite. Your Idea provides another distinct line but, to me, would make less sense. If you treat Alloy as an armor type ugrade from ferrite its not that un-intuitive. That would require 1 line in a grineer codex to fix. "Only the grineer elite are issued alloy armor due to its cost." That leaves the commanders as the odd ball out but they are still using Grakata, not Hind, they can't be that important.

 

Furthermore rounded armor could by a style of armor used by units not requiring mobility. Rounded armor would be more ideal for deflecting bullets than the sleeker looking version. The sleeker looking version would be better at moving (why the heavy gunner, with that giant gun, needs it and all the melee have it) I will agree the eviserator is still somewhat un-intuitive.

 

- Before Damage 2.0, the difference between Elite Lancers and Lancers was that Elite Lancers simply had shields externally stacked on top of their armor, which, statwise, was otherwise identical to a Lancer's. There was never anything to suggest different material.

- If the game treated it as an issue of "Well, alloy's the most expensive", then the players would be left to figure out which Grineer units would warrant the highest-quality armor. Then they'd wonder why common fodder like Elite Lancers have higher-quality armor than truly dangerous, tanky enemies like Heavy Gunners and Commanders, and close-range monsters like Scorches. Sure, the devs could reorganize the armor based on pricing issues, but it would be so much easier and more sensible to base it on visual appearances of armor.

Players should be able to discern armor types on sight, rather than have to figure out "Which of these guys looks like they need their armor the most?". There is no reason why an armor set made out of Alloys should resemble a Ferrite armor set more than another Ferrite armor set.

 

- Basing armor on mobility makes sense, and is already happening to an extent (with the slow-as-hell Napalms being incredibly tanky, etc). Really, though, it's not the armor type that should be related to mobility, but rather its amount (as the game currently does). We don't even know which armor type is heavier than the other unless we make unfounded assumptions about their real-world composition.

 

I stand by my original point. There is no reason to not separate enemy armor types visually. We shouldn't have to be memorizing or slowly figuring out anything as important as basic armor types.

 

 

 

So you stuffed all light Grineer armour in one place and the heavy armour in the other and then claim they have to be different materials?

Sorry, I'm not convinced.

 

I think it is quite plausible for lancers to wear heavy ferrite armour and elite lancers to wear heavy alloy armour of better quality.

The armour is probably made in the same way, just the material is different.

 

What bugs me is in fact that the two armour types differ from one another so radically in terms of elemental weaknesses.

So, alloy armour is acid resistant but doesn't protect from radiation. Whut?

What kind of alloy is that supposed to be? That's video game logic for you.

Separating light Grineer and heavy Grineer based on armor type makes infinitely more sense than having Grineer armor of one material looking 100% identical to Grineer armor of another material. I'll agree that the latter is explainable using real-world logic (despite the fact that the separation is perfectly explainable as well), but remember that this is a video game. Gameplay is far, far more important, and the current system does nothing to improve gameplay.

Edited January 19, 2014 by SortaRandom

[Babalenong]

these armor type thing really irritates me, makes the game unnecessarily complex and makes new players even harder to get into the game. i dont ever care about these armor type anymore, i just use corrosive for grineers, thats all i dont want to waste time trying to get the ~perfect build~

[Akrocius]

IMO, all units should have 2 types of surface. One is common to all units in that faction, and the second depends on the "class" of unit. That way, you have at least one damage type you can use to be generally effective against the faction, but still have room to maximize against each class of unit. Resistance percentages can be tweaked to make balance work, maybe the the common weakness give a 35-50% damage boost and the specific one give 75%.

 

Examples :

All Grineer have Cloned Flesh, Light / Medium units have Ferrite armor and Heavies have Alloy, (only exception are Rollers / Regulators and Latchers, which can be Ferrite and Robotic)

All Corpus have Shields, Crewmen have Flesh and MOAs / Ospreys have Robotic

To be honest, I'd prefer to see Infested only have one surface type per unit, but have higher health to offset it. Light infested can have Infested Flesh and Ancients can have Fossilized.

Corrupted resistance can correspond to whatever the non-corrupted unit has.

 

This would help solve 2 problems with the current damage system. One, players will be able to tell at a glance which elements they should be using against which units. Second, newer players that don't have huge mod libraries will be able to build something at least effective enough to use and not be gimped.

[Taranis49]

The Grineer troops (e.g. the Lancer/Elite Lancer) aren't even the worst example of what's wrong with Damage 2.0's current iteration.

 

Toxic Ancient and Ancient Disruptor: "Fossilized" type... Healer Ancient? "Infested Sinew", oh it gets even better: Corrupted Ancient Healer? Fossilized like the Toxic and Disruptor :-P

 

Seriously, it seems like even DE forgot which resistance type belonged with a given enemy.

[Deidaku]

the amount of complexity is too damn high

 

[seiryuo]

Alloy for Elite Lancers makes sense - it's to make the survivals less difficult(they've got the same weakness as Napalms and Bombards making them easier to kill).
As for confusing armor types wouldn't be easier to just label units in game as Heavy/Medium/Light armor under their names?
 

Toxic Ancient and Ancient Disruptor: "Fossilized" type... Healer Ancient? "Infested Sinew", oh it gets even better: Corrupted Ancient Healer? Fossilized like the Toxic and Disruptor :-P

Ye, this one is weird

[DarknightK]

Like I said, get rid of the Extra Resistances, they complex the game waaay to much as they are.

 

Additionally, add more Weaknesses and chop off a resistance from each Health/Armor/Shield type.

 

Damage 2.x is supposed to make all weapons more viable, however it clearly fails to accomplish this task.

 

To be honest, I'd rather prefer if Weaknesses/Resistances didn't have such a profound impact on Gameplay as they do now. It might make some weapons more viable.

[BadAimbot]

Damage 2.x is supposed to make all weapons more viable, however it clearly fails to accomplish this task.

 

Actually, it was supposed to make elemental damage more interesting (they could have easily fixed Armor Ignoring with the old system). There are very few weapons in the game that are held back by their damage type. The direction I would like to see with weaknesses is the same as yours though; less emphasis on damage, so we can have more emphasis on procs.

[Madotsuki]

Would've made far more sense to have divided all health types into 4 groups.

 

Flesh - Health of organic enemies, including Grineers, Corpus Crewmen, and Infested.

 

Robotics - Health of robotic structures, such as Corpus proxies, Grineer support drones etc.

 

Armor - Non-regenerating "shield". Equipped on all Grineers, as well as elite units of Corpus and Infested.

 

Shield - Regenerating shield. Equipped on all Corpus, as well as elite units of Grineer. NEVER found on Infested.

 

And then assign elemental weaknesses/resistances to each health type, and call that a day. Complexity in simplicity.