Revamp Suggestion For The Grineer Commander

[Deidaku]

A lot of people have been complaining about the switch teleport ability that he has.

Imo he shouldn't even have it in the first place.

That ability should be given to another unit , "a grineer spy/covert ops unit.

 

As for the commander : he should you  know....command stuff

 

So here's the deal:

 

Grineer commanders , who'd only spawn in certain maps could call in after a certain amount of time a grineer gunship  or vehicules  / heavy  units that would be a considerable threat to the tenno.

 

So players would have to take him down as quickly as possible before he becomes a major threat

 

What do you guys think?

Edited April 7, 2014 by Deidaku

[Calayne]

Sounds pretty good.

I'd go as far as to say that Grineer in the vicinity should also behave differently with a commander around, ideally. A commander's value is in his ability to maximize the use of his forces.

When a commander is around, strategically speaking, he should stay in the rear with some units, heavy and light, while he calls in a constant stream of reinforcements and spreads out the rest of his forces in coordinated squads.

Now, I'm no genius, but that's what I would do against a bunch of crazyarse killer ninjas, and I had the rank to throw bodies upon bodies at them.

Survival and Defence seem like prime candidates for this sort of behaviour. Maybe a couple with the high ranking bosses, or key Grineer personnel, like Ruk and Tyl Regor, so that the fight is more engaging, and makes more sense lore wise. Leaving your best geneticist alone and vulnerable when you're a degenerating clone army is not the best idea.

[Kaokasalis]

This is better than his current ability. I never understood why a commander would switch teleport a enemy. Sure he might place that one tenno in danger if he gets it to be surrounded by a bunch of Grineer marines but he himself might end up being killed by 3 tenno who was just right next to their ally. It seems more like a suicide ability to me.

[Deidaku]

This is better than his current ability. I never understood why a commander would switch teleport a enemy. Sure he might place that one tenno in danger if he gets it to be surrounded by a bunch of Grineer marines but he himself might end up being killed by 3 tenno who was just right next to their ally. It seems more like a suicide ability to me.

So grineer shoudl also get a kamikaze unit 

(would make sense = they're all super expendable clones)

[Nijuroku]

Why isn't this post gaining enough recognition? +1 to OP.

[Deidaku]

Why isn't this post gaining enough recognition? +1 to OP.

Not enough pictures of devs drawn I guess XD

[Riot_Inducer]

I agree with this, it seems really odd for a "commander" to be doing something like that, really seems like they should have been "leader" units before there were the random leaders. 

 

On a related note, does anyone else feel like Naplams and Bombards are a bit redundant? They're literally the same unit that just fires different projectiles. 

[vanguard0X]

Overall I really like the idea, could bring a real challenge to group missions but I think there might be a problem with people who like to solo missions. Throwing something like this in might force players towards playing in a group and discourage people from soloing say after upper tier 2/ tier 3 where they start to spawn. Granted, this is disregarding any type of potential balancing and the fact commanders are already rare to spawn to begin with. 

 

 

On a related note, does anyone else feel like Naplams and Bombards are a bit redundant? They're literally the same unit that just fires different projectiles. 

 

I can see what you're getting at but I believe the difference was put in place to further distinguish lower and upper tier missions. Pure knock down and high damage, can easily be dealt with, throw in some fire damage that even creates hazards on impact and things start to get more interesting.  

[Noble_Cactus]

I came up with a similar idea a while back. I'll re-paste it here:

 

The problem with a lot of the enemy CC in this game is that there is often no way to avoid it, bar activating a skill at the right moment (which is fun and requires skill, I will admit). Slide past a Shield Lancer five feet to your side? Get slammed when you're behind him. Jump past a Scorpion before she throws her hook? It somehow wraps around behind her and catches you. Tthe worst offender: Shockwave MOAs. Killing them before they get close to you is obviously the safest and most logical option, but sometimes you don't have enough time to do that. So you Sonic Boom or use one of your own CC skills, or you kill it while it's starting to stomp. The MOA falls down, shockwave still comes out. Pain and much frothing at the mouth ensues. Basically, the player is not rewarded for using their skill, which in this case means identifying a threat and reacting to it accordingly to prevent the threat from happening in the first place.

 

Then we have Commanders. There's no 'tell' for when the hurt will begin. It just happens. I don't believe there's a range limit on their teleport, so you can peek out from behind cover or round a corner and suddenly *whiiiiirrrrrrr* you're stuck in a pack of Eviscerators, with no way to have avoided it.

 

Heck, as stated earlier, the teleport doesn't even make sense for a Commander. A commander would more likely be sitting behind his troops, taking shots with a Grinlok or Marelok (perfect opportunity to integrate these weapons into the Grineer loadout!) while directing his troops. "Frank!" could signal that some Grineer will now attempt to work their way to the rear of your party to try to flank you. A fall back command would do just that, a pincer command would mean Grineer would try to enclose you, throw grenades could signal to his fellow troops to toss a bunch of explosives at you in an attempt to break you up, etc. Given how certain tilesets are constructed, this might not be so elegant in practice. But it would reward attentive players for what will happen next and make our beloved input-reading AI just a little more threatening. It would make players attempt to regain control of the fighting. In other words, it would make combat more engaging. And Commanders would still be high-threat targets, because cutting off the 'head' of command would cause regular troops to revert to their bumbling selves.These commands would have to be more intelligible than the bastardized Grineer language so players could know what's coming, of course. Borderlands 2 tried to do this with its Nomad units, but it doesn't work out very well in practice because you usually kill them before anything significant happens (the only one that causes any noticeable difference in combat is "Toss grenades!").

 

Now what would the switch teleport fit better? Some kind of Grineer Saboteur/Sapper unit. Perhaps a stealthier female Grineer who 'marks' a target by turning a player red or making a symbol hover above their head before the Saboteur teleports. If a player doesn't find some kind of cover or other way to break her line of sight in a second or so, she will switch places with the player and drop them into a crowd of her friends. Meanwhile, she plants a bomb or another explosive at the location of her teleport, then teleports back out. The bomb could have a chance to cause knockdown, but could also be 'disarmed' through some method. Maybe shooting at it. Such a unit would need refinement, but could also make gameplay more engaging by

 

1. Providing the player with another high-threat, but weak, target that would disrupt the flow of combat if not dealt with in time

2. Punish bad/unaware players for not using basic RPG/shooter skills: line of sight and awareness of one's surroundings. Attentive players would be able to avoid the trap in all but the most chaotic situations.

 

For balance, only one Saboteur could spawn in a given pack of mobs.

[Deidaku]

I came up with a similar idea a while back. I'll re-paste it here:

 

The problem with a lot of the enemy CC in this game is that there is often no way to avoid it, bar activating a skill at the right moment (which is fun and requires skill, I will admit). Slide past a Shield Lancer five feet to your side? Get slammed when you're behind him. Jump past a Scorpion before she throws her hook? It somehow wraps around behind her and catches you. Tthe worst offender: Shockwave MOAs. Killing them before they get close to you is obviously the safest and most logical option, but sometimes you don't have enough time to do that. So you Sonic Boom or use one of your own CC skills, or you kill it while it's starting to stomp. The MOA falls down, shockwave still comes out. Pain and much frothing at the mouth ensues. Basically, the player is not rewarded for using their skill, which in this case means identifying a threat and reacting to it accordingly to prevent the threat from happening in the first place.

 

Then we have Commanders. There's no 'tell' for when the hurt will begin. It just happens. I don't believe there's a range limit on their teleport, so you can peek out from behind cover or round a corner and suddenly *whiiiiirrrrrrr* you're stuck in a pack of Eviscerators, with no way to have avoided it.

 

Heck, as stated earlier, the teleport doesn't even make sense for a Commander. A commander would more likely be sitting behind his troops, taking shots with a Grinlok or Marelok (perfect opportunity to integrate these weapons into the Grineer loadout!) while directing his troops. "Frank!" could signal that some Grineer will now attempt to work their way to the rear of your party to try to flank you. A fall back command would do just that, a pincer command would mean Grineer would try to enclose you, throw grenades could signal to his fellow troops to toss a bunch of explosives at you in an attempt to break you up, etc. Given how certain tilesets are constructed, this might not be so elegant in practice. But it would reward attentive players for what will happen next and make our beloved input-reading AI just a little more threatening. It would make players attempt to regain control of the fighting. In other words, it would make combat more engaging. And Commanders would still be high-threat targets, because cutting off the 'head' of command would cause regular troops to revert to their bumbling selves.These commands would have to be more intelligible than the bastardized Grineer language so players could know what's coming, of course. Borderlands 2 tried to do this with its Nomad units, but it doesn't work out very well in practice because you usually kill them before anything significant happens (the only one that causes any noticeable difference in combat is "Toss grenades!").

 

Now what would the switch teleport fit better? Some kind of Grineer Saboteur/Sapper unit. Perhaps a stealthier female Grineer who 'marks' a target by turning a player red or making a symbol hover above their head before the Saboteur teleports. If a player doesn't find some kind of cover or other way to break her line of sight in a second or so, she will switch places with the player and drop them into a crowd of her friends. Meanwhile, she plants a bomb or another explosive at the location of her teleport, then teleports back out. The bomb could have a chance to cause knockdown, but could also be 'disarmed' through some method. Maybe shooting at it. Such a unit would need refinement, but could also make gameplay more engaging by

 

1. Providing the player with another high-threat, but weak, target that would disrupt the flow of combat if not dealt with in time

2. Punish bad/unaware players for not using basic RPG/shooter skills: line of sight and awareness of one's surroundings. Attentive players would be able to avoid the trap in all but the most chaotic situations.

 

For balance, only one Saboteur could spawn in a given pack of mobs.

Awesome saboteur concept :O

 

I hope DE considers it at some point :)