Infested Leaders

[Amistyrja]

Leaders are pretty cool and all, and making them more unique instead of restatted reskinned enemies with abilities would be a nice long-term goal. I know they're still a new addition to Warframe, so instead of jumping into criticism I'm gonna offer some simple, unfleshed ideas for the Infested faction. As they are, the Infested simply aren't terrifying, intimidating or repulsive enough(aside from the Charger whose design I actually admire). Making unique Leaders for this faction could be a good way to change that while making combat against the Infested more challenging. Aside from being escorted by common Infested and the odd Ancient, I also feel that the Infested Leaders need to be more unique and dangerous in certain ways, so combat against them would actually require more than just a quick trigger finger or pressing 4. So yeah, I'm not gonna stop at this, I'm gonna try and help by giving these ideas here.

 

 

 

Spider

idk bout you guys but other than the Charger, Infested enemies aren't very creepy or monstrous. Let's have a Leader abomination, a grotesque opponent that you may actually have to prioritize your fire upon. An unholy corruption of the human body form.

 

Appearance: Let's take notes from the Charger. A large, upturned Grineer merged with an upturned Corpus, with their combined limbs forming a total of 8, twisted legs. A mass of mutated flesh would bind these two bodies together at the torso. Have the Grineer and Corpus helmets be half-broken or exposed so their origins would be recognizable, while leaving mangled faces of agony visible.

 

Movement: The Spider Leader would move quickly in a straight line but turn rather slowly, so one would have to circle it to keep distance. This would be in contrast to common Infested kiting tactics, which would be to run backwards in a straight line. For added maneuverability, the Spider should also be able to leap onto walls like Hyenas, and even climb along them.

 

Abilities:

8-Legged Charge: The Spider locks on to a Warframe, then makes a beeline charge for it, bowling him/her over if the attack connects. Would be easily avoidable by jumping upwards or rolling out of the way.

Fiber Lock: The Spider spits a ball of webs. If it hits the ground or a wall, it creates an adhesive surface that locks any enemy that touches it in place for 5 seconds(can still attack and use abilities, movement abilities like Slash Dash allow them to escape). If it hits a Tenno, he/she will have their body enveloped in tough fibers that takes them 6 seconds to struggle out of(3 seconds in solo) and have all weapons and abilities restricted during this duration. The web can be broken if a fellow Tenno hits them with a melee attack. Saryn can escape from the web by using Moult, Fiber Lock will also fail on an Ember/Ember Prime with World on Fire active.

 

The Spider is immune to the knockback and stun effects of Impact and Blast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Creeper

Ancients are terribly slow and easy to bait and outrun. All the fast Infested are easily dispatched by AoE damage and melee weapons. Let's have an agile Infested leader who can take a hit.

 

Appearance: A Grineer Scorpion/Ballista with Infested flesh grown around her mechanical arms and legs, and claws on her hands.

 

Movement: The Creeper should be completely silent to help her ambush the Tenno. In addition, she can creep along ceilings upside-down, and when she has chosen a target, can leap rapidly for long distances to close the gap. The Creeper moves around on all fours, making her slightly harder to hit. Due to her low posture, she also takes 33% less damage from all AoE attacks and abilities.

 

Abilities:

Her primary mode of attack would be a pouncing attack which she will attempt to initiate after she has locked onto a target. The Creeper will pounce at a Warframe, much like the common Infested Leaper, but upon hitting a Tenno will pin him/her to the ground. See below link to help picture it.

 

http://youtu.be/xS3WMXvkCSY?t=2m28s

 

While this attack is active, the target Tenno's camera will pan to show the Creeper pinning the Tenno to the ground, then exhaling noxious vapours/electrical currents that do high damage every second for 7 seconds(3 seconds on solo). When the Tenno has been pounced, the attack can be interrupted by a fellow Tenno's melee attack, Wyrm's Crowd Dispersion ability or by Saryn's Moult.

After her pouncing attack has succeeded or been interrupted, she will somersault off and begin pouncing and clawing at the Tenno. Her pounce attack should have a cooldown of 15-25 seconds, and if she is still alive by that duration, will revert to her targeting phase(prowling + target seeking) and prepare to pounce another Tenno again.

 

 

 

 

 

Snapper

Just a thought.

 

Appearance: An upturned human, much like the Charger. His body is encased in an alloy 'shell', much like a tortoise's, bound by tough sinew and fibrous tissue. The head has been replaced by a monstrous set of jaws, and a tail protrudes from the opposite end of the shell.

 

Movement: The Snapper moves slowly, scuttling around on its twisted limbs. When it is retracted into the shell, explosions and melee damage will cause it to bounce and roll, causing damage to enemies it hits.

 

Abilities:

Shell Polish: If the Snapper is afflicted with Molecular Prime, Cold, Sonar, Heat, Corrosive, Slash and Radiation status effects, it can retract into its shell and spin on the spot, immediately shedding all negative status effects while dealing damage to any Tenno unfortunate enough to be close to it.

Acid Bomb: In addition to powerful biting attacks by snapping with its jaws, the Snapper can spit a globule of corrosive acids that inflict splash Corrosive damage, while leaving a lingering Toxin AoE. This ability gives the Snapper a chance to defend itself against ranged enemies, while forcing Tenno in Defense/Mobile Defense to keep on the move.

Shell Solace: Upon reaching 25% health, the Snapper will retract into its shell and regenerate 2% health every second for sixteen seconds. While in its shell, its armour rating is boosted and Blast damage and melee attacks will cause the Snapper to roll over and bounce around in its shell. In non-static missions, this gives the Tenno a chance to easily flee from the Snapper while it is recovering.

 

 

 

 

 

will think of some more sometime. Anyway, point is the Leader idea is nice and could make gameplay a bit more interesting, so you guys should probably expand on it.

Edited February 15, 2014 by Amistyrja

[Phoenix86]

mmh i guess this would belong to the fan concept's section

 

anyway nice ideas

[Amistyrja]

mmh i guess this would belong to the fan concept's section

 

anyway nice ideas

mm im just throwing out concepts if DE needs any fresh ideas, but the feedback here is that the Leader idea for enemies is interesting and if made better could make cooperative play a bit better or reward skilled shooters over AoE bombarders or press4toWin™

[CY13ERPUNK]

warframe needs arachnid/insectoid critters/robots

yes plz

Edited February 14, 2014 by CY13ERPUNK

[Warriorrogue]

Keep the creeper to multiplayer, otherwise, sounds like a good idea.

[Amistyrja]

Keep the creeper to multiplayer, otherwise, sounds like a good idea.

Sounds like a good alternative to lowering the pounce duration if solo I guess. 

 

 

Added a bare concept for 'the Snapper' for ideas of a defensive-themed Leader.

[bl4ckhunter]

apart from the fact that your spider is a mini-lephantis it sounds good

[Kato-san]

Leaders should create a unique aura and have 10x more HP but do 4x less damage, so they like a tank to support their allies with aura.

[XenosInfinity]

Leaders should create a unique aura and have 10x more HP but do 4x less damage, so they like a tank to support their allies with aura.

You've never met a Heavy Gunner leader, have you?

 

I like these ideas, especially the Spider. Reminds me of some of the Tzimisce aberrations in Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. I think I'd enjoy fighting that.

 

(And watching my team's horrified reactions when they realise that the thing on the wall isn't scenery)

[Kato-san]

You've never met a Heavy Gunner leader, have you?

 

I like these ideas, especially the Spider. Reminds me of some of the Tzimisce aberrations in Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. I think I'd enjoy fighting that.

 

(And watching my team's horrified reactions when they realise that the thing on the wall isn't scenery)

 

No its just I rank 15 and kill everything in 1 bullet, so I never even notice I against a leader... Which is why i made the suggestion of 10x more HP less dmg.

[Amistyrja]

apart from the fact that your spider is a mini-lephantis it sounds good

Mmm? Sorry, I fail to see how a mobile enemy with an immobilizing attack is similar to our good friend J2k.

 

Leaders should create a unique aura and have 10x more HP but do 4x less damage, so they like a tank to support their allies with aura.

Perhaps for the Grineer and Corpus, where a Leader could actually form a powerful firing squad. But when it comes to the Infested, these boys simply lack the ranged capabilities to pose a threat to well-armed Tenno, particularly those with AoE sweeping weapons and abilities.

[Halisi]

I like your concepts, I support the idea of more powerful/unique leaders. My only issue is the balancing of them. The leaders like most high level players say are hardly noticeable compared to normal enemies. They die only a little slower. The only notable one so far is the shield leader. Now the shield leader is the only one they kinda got. You know when they are there, my only gripe with them is that for some reason whenever I'm around a shield leader when they have a snowglobe up I get insta killed by nothing that I can see. But yeah, at the other side of the equation if their too powerful then their demoralizing. Why should I fight him if he's going to 2 shot me? DE has to find the balance between Difficulty, Mechanics, & Scaling. I want to do a full breakdown of it later, so I won't go into too much detail now.