My Thoughts On The Current Enemy Types And How They Could Be Improved

[tdDaz]

I've been having a gret time so far in Warframe and I just wanted to write down some thoughts about the enemies in the game and some ideas for expanding their tools and gameplay, what do you think?

[Grineer]

The issue I have with the Grineer is that there is not much cooperation or interplay between the various enemy types currently, unlike the Corpus for example. I think the addition of some sort of support unit could go a long way to spice up the combat with this enemy type.

Something along the lines of a combat enginner or something similar. They could errect temporary cover walls for their allies, heal wounded soldiers etc. Similar to the shield drone for the Corpus in a lot of ways, changing the status of its close allies and reconfiguring the players priorities when they appear on the battlefield.

Minor things : Freaking seeker mines and freaking large seeker mines! There must be a less irritating way to get the player to come out of cover and attack the Grineer!? :D Give a grineer a harpoon gun that can pull the player out of cover or something? :) Heavy gunners / bombads tend to stop shooting or are very hesitant to start shooting in most cases. It is very common to simply stand in front of them and take them down while they just stare at you.

[infestation]

Infestation is actually very fun and interesting in it's current state. The addition I would like to see is to make the Ancient Healer's actually heal their allies. I assume the green pulse they emit is some sort of healing wave that heals their allies (??) but currently it seems utterly useless at doing so. I would suggest a consideral buff to this ability so that the Ancient Healer is further diversified from the Toxic variant.

I would like to see the toxic variant itself have a different attack from the Ancient Healer. Perhaps if it hits with its attack it poisons the player rather than sucks energy away (let the Ancient Healer suck energy still! -Maybe the more energy it sucks from players the more effective it's heals are!)

Minor things : No crawlers in defence missions! :) Gameplay mechanic when standing on the "infested grass" spawned in the levels??? Maybe it alerts nearby infested to your location??

[Corpus]

My favourite of the 3 enemy types. Some changes that could make them more interesting is to allow the bomb drones to throw their orange bombs a short/medium distance so they can be used to flush the player out from cover in a fun way.

I would like to see the green legged walkers (common variety) have some sort of ability added, as currently they just move and shoot which seems too similar to the Corpus infantryman. I'm drawing a blank right now regarding ideas however :|

Minor things : Perhaps add a way to shut down the Corpus walker producing structures attached to most of the walls in Corpus maps?

[Common issues]

Something I have noticed occur far more often and far less transparently in version 7.x than in 6.x is the spawning mechanics for enemies. It is possible and repeatedly so to turn your head 180 degrees and then instantly turn back to your previous direction and in that short time an enemy or two could have spawned outside of your vision.

Perhaps related to the above is the seemingly increased "back-spawning" of enemies behind the player as they progress. I understand that occasionally a backspawned squad of enemies can change up combat and keep the player on their toes, and in 6.x this felt quite good, however in 7.x it happens way to frequently to the point where I will wait in an area for the backspawned enemies to come through the door behind me in just about every new tile I enter. Very frustrating!

Defence mission balance : Grineer toughest by far! Mostly due to the design of the Grineer defence mission level and the fact that 90% of their attacks are ranged attacks. I think the area you fight in needs a redesign so that the Grineer have to get closer before they have LOS on the defence target and can start shooting, currently they beging shooting practically the same second they spawn into the map which gives the player little to no time to react.

In comparison, Infestation defence missions are by far the easiest, due to them being 90% melee enemies. You can kill most of them before they even reach the defence target. Perhaps again the level could be altered here to increase their survivability on the way to the defence target? Some more walls or pillars to block the player's LOS from the defence target area.

Corpus actually feel pretty good in defence missions. Their outdoor map feels the best balanced with some long ranged alleys and more close range nooks. The height differences help here also to keep things varied. If the Infestation could be brought up to Corpus level difficulty and the Grineer brought down to Corpus level then I think things would feel a bit better.

Thanks for making warframe, it's fun as hell!

[Venarge]

You can be excited for the the 4th race ;) Nobody knows exactly what they are. Only their name. Sentients? I( got no subtitles at the moment I heard their name, sorry =S) but they will definitly be there. For your suggestion, I really like your ideas =)

[WonbadEthic]

Here's something i would like to address with some AI characters.

The corpus Walkers should be modified so that when i hit them with a weapon very much capable of staggering something, they should actually BE staggered and give ME some breathing room. I've lost track of the amount of times i went down, because a walker decided that buckshot straight to his face wasn't going to faze him today.

The Infested Charger is amung the most stupidly overpowered opponent i"ve faced, and I once had to fight a Stalker. These things need to SLOW THE HELL DOWN. When i'm low on health and my sheilds are gone i want to at least have a chance to turn my camera around and retreat fire, but NO. SOMEONE decided that those damned dogs ahould swarm like flies to crap and pounce multiple times in quick succession!

Honestly, these are the only problems i've had with enemy characters. And i think the female grineer are an interesting touch. I also hope to see some inprovements and variety to the corpus army.

[tdDaz]

I had a lot of trouble with Infested until I started putting freeze mods in all my weapons for Infested missions. That single mod, even un-upgraded, single handedly makes Infested so much easier to deal with. Simply tag a bunch of them with freeze rounds and you can move around freely and deal with each one in turn. This tactic is fantastic against the chargers as you can now outrun them or dodge their melee attacks.

Interesting that there is a 4th enemy faction type in the works! I had no idea, that is very cool to hear.

[tdDaz]

Some more brainfarts for the Grineer enemies:

Grineer Commander switch teleport skill : Make it have a short cast time and be targeted on the floor where the player is standing. This gives players a very short window to dodge the skill or at least see it coming and can prepare. Could be hilarious to push an enemy into the skill instead and have the Commander swap places with them :)

Seeker Mines : One at a time, when they attach to a player they "suck" the player towards to Grineer that threw it?

Higher level enemies of all types & factions : Perhaps they gain elemental effects on some of their attacks at high level? I feel the gameplay doesn't change enough as you climb through the level ranges. It actually gets quite easy once you reach a certain point (so far at least), defence missions notwithstanding, enemies need some more bite or tricks to take the player down!