Hellions...

[Riasiru]

Are they cheap? By which I mean, are they able to deal damage to the player in a way that a player is unable to effectively avoid? Let me give a few examples of enemies and why they are not cheap before trying the same of Hellion.

 

Lancers; hit scan weapons, hit the player instantly if  they have a line of sight. These are... Not cheap! No, seriously. They're not. You can take cover while your shields are low and have them recharge. This is completely avoidable. 

 

Shield Lancers; that knock down... Ugh, I hate it! So annoying... Still, all you need to do is keep your distance, kill them before they get close enough, or dodge it. (Dodging can be fickle with lag.) Frustrating at times, but not cheap.

 

Napalm; Fire! FIRE EVERYWHERE!!!... Kinda hard not to step in it sometimes, especially when the AoE is surprisingly large. Still, you can avoid it if you're at all careful. The initial splash, however, is quite wide. Still not cheap.

 

Bombard; The rockets are hilariously easy to dodge when you get a feel for them. Move left as they near you, then move right. Zig zagging between them while shooting the Bombard. Not cheap. Not at all. Though hiding behind cover doesn't work due to the splash.

 

Heavy Gunner; see Lancers.

 

Eviscerator; his attacks have travel time and he is terrible at leading targets. Circle strafing outside of arms reach is usually enough to make him miss wildly. Not cheap... Just don't get hit. While easy to avoid, those blade hurt!

 

Butcher; see Shield Lancer, but even less cheap because bwaahahahaha! Seriously? Does anyone honestly think they're cheap? They're amusing if anything. Any hit they get in on me they've earned and I gladly tip my hat to them.

 

And finally, Frontier Hellion; visually indistinct from the frontier lancer when seen from the front. Even more so a night when visibility is poor. You'll need to keep an eye at the top of the screen to see if what you're aiming at is one of them and not a normal lancer.

 

Cheap point 1; pretends to be a weakling to seal club unsuspecting players.

 

If these guys jump into the air and you are not aware of it, they have a bombard style attack which is near impossible to avoid due to the speed of the projectiles and the splash. They also appear to carpet bomb rather than home in on players, resulting in a wide area of destruction. You can't hide behind cover as the splash will hit you anyway. Your best bet is to turn and run as fast as you can. If there is more than one, this is especially true.

 

Cheap point 2; nearly unavoidable power attack... Let's call it the noobtube on roids.

 

Last but not least, if you failed to figure out you are fighting a Hellion and kill it quickly, it doesn't just roll over and die like a proper enemy. Oh no, they jettison their jetpacks right in your face. This will get you killed rather fast. It's nearly instant, giving no time to dodge. I can't even follow the path of the jetpacks half the time. Just a flash of the contrail and boom, damage. The only up side to this is he can kill his own allies in the process... Rarely...

 

Cheap point 3; OMG, the noob is running martyrdom, too!

 

So, easily mistaken for much less dangerous enemy you see in mass. Has a kill all move that's nearly unavoidable. Oh, and has a good chance of critically wounding you on death if you are anywhere within spitting distance... I'm gonna call it cheap. Good news, however, you only have to fight them on Earth... Which is sad, because Earth's tile set is one of the prettiest in the game and the Hellion is the only thing about it I don't like... Oh, there's the Arid Hellion on Phobos, too, but who cares about Phobos?

 

I hate to be the sort that complains about something without any way of suggesting a fix, but right now I'm flustered. The first and most notable thing, though. MAKE IT VISUALLY DISTINCT FROM THE FRONT. Seriously... A color shift is all I'm asking for. Make it red like the Napalm. They have completely different profiles from the front... At least I know to get the hell back when I see him. That alone would at least give me a chance to realize if I shoot him when he pops around the corner I'm probably going to die cause of his martyrdom perk and I can realize that I need to book it the other direction instead.

 

I'm not asking for them to be removed. Just that I can distinguish them from the cannon fodder at a glance from the direction I'm mostly likely to see them from. I'm aware that jetpack is HUGE.... From the side... From the front, however, it's barely a sliver of an arch above their head that's mostly black and blends in at night... Kinda hard to spot during the day, too, but not nearly as impossible.

Edited March 22, 2014 by Riasiru

[Hawk_of_the_Reborn]

I have absolutely no problems killing Hellions...actually they are so much easier to kill than Bombards and Napalms.

[RyanGo]

I would like to see mroe visual distinction on elite lancers and normal lancers as well, just as a quality of life thing. It was nice that they color-coded the corpus so its easier to tell snipers and prodmen from normal crewmen. even the shotgunners on jupiter are pretty easy to tell apart from a distance.

But if you lined up a lancer, an elite lancer, and a helion I wouldn't be able to tell whose who quickly. This is admittedly more important on helions since lancers and elite lancers rarely mingle (or do they? Case in point, I have no idea)

TLDR (wasn't that long anyway) Grineer units need a bit more distinguisability

[(PSN)ariaandkia]

considering how elite lancers are essentially high level lancers, they really don't mingle.

 

Honestly, color coding would be great except...   Aren't the point of their "uniforms" for camouflage?  Seeing how they are made to blend in with the background...

[Lorane_Airwing]

considering how elite lancers are essentially high level lancers, they really don't mingle.

 

Honestly, color coding would be great except...   Aren't the point of their "uniforms" for camouflage?  Seeing how they are made to blend in with the background...

It's possible they could have the shoulder pads of arid grineer? Something to at least give them a unique silhouette while still retaining their forest cameo.

[Silver_Fox75]

Someone else who agrees their cheap? Finally! No other enemy in the game, besides those damn scorched, beaks my iron skin that fast. It's ridiculous!

[Riasiru]

considering how elite lancers are essentially high level lancers, they really don't mingle.

 

Honestly, color coding would be great except...   Aren't the point of their "uniforms" for camouflage?  Seeing how they are made to blend in with the background...

The thing about logic and game design is that they don't always mingle well. While logically, blending in is a valid point, from a game design stand point, however, it's a horrible idea unless you design the enemy specifically around that trait. Imagine if you would if boomers in L4D looked like every other zombie in the game, moved like every other zombie in the game (most of the time) and only revealed themselves to you when you looked at their back, they did some weird movement exclusive to them that they don't always do, puked in your face, or exploded when you shot them...

 

Do see why having them distinguishable is important?

[(PSN)ariaandkia]

The thing about logic and game design is that they don't always mingle well. While logically, blending in is a valid point, from a game design stand point, however, it's a horrible idea unless you design the enemy specifically around that trait. Imagine if you would if boomers in L4D looked like every other zombie in the game, moved like every other zombie in the game (most of the time) and only revealed themselves to you when you looked at their back, they did some weird movement exclusive to them that they don't always do, puked in your face, or exploded when you shot them...

 

Do see why having them distinguishable is important?

Did I say that being distinguishable is not important?  I'm just saying that part of the reason for their coloration is probably the camo and it could be that you are expected to treat all of them as dangerous (Granted, for me, I treat them all the same since even with color coding, it can be hard for me to tell them apart-I actually find them by sound).

[nekrojiji]

Stop using google translate on big texts.