De Focus On Enemy Diversity

[RiperRazor123]

This man deserves a cookie.

[Blatantfool]

 More enemy types are always welcome in my book.

 

 In fact, I'd really prefer that the Game's difficulty in regards to enemy factions was related more to the diversity and types of enemies you can meet then I do the current iteration, in which enemy types are incredibly simple and difficulty is mostly in the fact that they scale upwards very sharply.

 

 Imagine if the Grineer Trooper, their average field unit, was changed like such.

 

- Armed with a Karak + Concussive Grenades (Impact Damage nades)

- Takes reduced damage if shot in the much heavier armor around the shoulders and on his back. This effect is completely ignored if your weapon has at least .7m Punch through effect.

- Can sprint and roll, but doesn't have much stamina so only does either in small amounts.

- Now preforms a Knife Melee attack with relatively low damage that causes puncture proc.

- Has a deployable ballistic shield on their arm. This gauntlet 'pops' and becomes a temporary shield that absorbs damage before shattering. It will deflect melee attacks. It isn't a large shield like their Riot shield toting allies have, but safely hides the face and torso. The Ballistic shield typically has health in the neighborhood of 100-500 HP and has no defensive stats. Each trooper only carries one.

- When within range of an Eximus or Commander, can use a 'Stimpack' to heal itself when hurt. Stimpacks will also remove any status effects, including MPrime.

- When within range of a Riot shield wielding ally, will actively walk in line behind them, huddling for cover and leaning to fire around their ally.

- Will try to fight from good cover, slowly advancing on you. If there are a ton of them they'll completely forget cover and rush you all at once. They get reckless in numbers.

 

 So now their normal, average grunt has a whole bunch of things that make him special and possibly dangerous. Even direct interactions with allies.

 

 And now imagine that each enemy was like this. They each had a short list of things that they brought to the table and a short list of how they'll act with they have certain allies present (or when they don't. Corpus Crewmen should be far more timid if they don't have Proxies nearby for instance.)

 

 If enough enemies got touched up like this they'd be able to add limits to the scaling in-game as we wouldn't need to scale enemies stats through the roof to find challenge.

[Deidaku]

 More enemy types are always welcome in my book.

 

 In fact, I'd really prefer that the Game's difficulty in regards to enemy factions was related more to the diversity and types of enemies you can meet then I do the current iteration, in which enemy types are incredibly simple and difficulty is mostly in the fact that they scale upwards very sharply.

 

 Imagine if the Grineer Trooper, their average field unit, was changed like such.

 

- Armed with a Karak + Concussive Grenades (Impact Damage nades)

- Takes reduced damage if shot in the much heavier armor around the shoulders and on his back. This effect is completely ignored if your weapon has at least .7m Punch through effect.

- Can sprint and roll, but doesn't have much stamina so only does either in small amounts.

- Now preforms a Knife Melee attack with relatively low damage that causes puncture proc.

- Has a deployable ballistic shield on their arm. This gauntlet 'pops' and becomes a temporary shield that absorbs damage before shattering. It will deflect melee attacks. It isn't a large shield like their Riot shield toting allies have, but safely hides the face and torso. The Ballistic shield typically has health in the neighborhood of 100-500 HP and has no defensive stats. Each trooper only carries one.

- When within range of an Eximus or Commander, can use a 'Stimpack' to heal itself when hurt. Stimpacks will also remove any status effects, including MPrime.

- When within range of a Riot shield wielding ally, will actively walk in line behind them, huddling for cover and leaning to fire around their ally.

- Will try to fight from good cover, slowly advancing on you. If there are a ton of them they'll completely forget cover and rush you all at once. They get reckless in numbers.

 

 So now their normal, average grunt has a whole bunch of things that make him special and possibly dangerous. Even direct interactions with allies.

 

 And now imagine that each enemy was like this. They each had a short list of things that they brought to the table and a short list of how they'll act with they have certain allies present (or when they don't. Corpus Crewmen should be far more timid if they don't have Proxies nearby for instance.)

 

 If enough enemies got touched up like this they'd be able to add limits to the scaling in-game as we wouldn't need to scale enemies stats through the roof to find challenge.

Excellent ideas :O

 

Reminds me of combat formation bravo 2.0 XD

 

But yeah that's my point exactly , instead of having pure stats defeat a player, let him be defeated by a lack of skill.

 

I mean at super high levels , the hitscan enemies become ridiculously strong if you don't have a rhino or trinity , Myx nyx gets 3 shottet by heavy eximus gunners and I can't do anything about it. It's not challenging it's cheap.

 

 

I like the stimpack idea. Why don't the grineer and corpus have freaking medics btw?

[Blatantfool]

Excellent ideas :O

 

Reminds me of combat formation bravo 2.0 XD

 

But yeah that's my point exactly , instead of having pure stats defeat a player, let him be defeated by a lack of skill.

 

I mean at super high levels , the hitscan enemies become ridiculously strong if you don't have a rhino or trinity , Myx nyx gets 3 shottet by heavy eximus gunners and I can't do anything about it. It's not challenging it's cheap.

 

 

I like the stimpack idea. Why don't the grineer and corpus have freaking medics btw?

 

 Medic units are going to be tricky. Gotta be careful now you implement them.

 

 That is why you'll notice that I lean towards having units be able to use a degree of self healing on their own under specific conditions instead. No need for a medic unit, just implement the threat of enemies being able to recover under specific circumstances. In this case, my 'Trooper 2.0' would be able to Stimpack so long as he had an Ally leader somewhere nearby. 

 

 This creates a neat shift. You could be trading fire only to have a Grineer pop around cover and heal - now you have to address that. You know, because he is able to use Stims, that somewhere around here is either an Eximus or Commander enemy. If you take it out the normal Troopers wont be healing anymore, so mid-firefight you will have a new priority.

 

 Meanwhile, other small interactions are very important. Having a Trooper unit actively attempt to use a Shield-bearing ally as cover while advancing is great stuff. Particularly if he'll be firing around his Ally's shield.

 

 Now imagine if Riot Shield Grineer also interacted with each other, actively trying to walk side by side to maximize the protection their shield gives to Allies following them - while simultaneously the Trooper will duck and cover behind them to advance forwards.

 

 A little goes a long way. And whats cooler is, it is remarkably easy for the player to consider these possibilities while modding their gear, allowing them to go in well prepared for it.

[Kaokasalis]

I hope DE focus on infested and Corpus first as Grineer to me seems to be the most diverse faction at the moment.

[Acos]

Maybe it's because I took a break, but I do feel like enemy diversity has improved greatly since my time away. I would like it if different enemies were a bit more visually distinct, but claiming they don't require a some amount of tactical foresight to fight against is wrong. The bigger problem, in my eyes, is that your one massive, 100e control power is usually sufficient for any encounter. The "press 4 to win' syndrome is the most prevalent reason enemies do not seem as diverse as they are. Not that I still don't want MOAR, mind you, but I find it ever so slightly insulting to imply that nothing has been done since release. When I'm not simply abusing my powers the game can be quite difficult. 

Giving infested too much range sort of ruins what sets that faction apart from the others. They are the zombie swarm, they are meant to be overpowering rather than individually strong. Anything done to increase their diversity would still need to fall within the lines of their theme.  

Edited May 1, 2014 by Acos

[Deidaku]

Maybe it's because I took a break, but I do feel like enemy diversity has improved greatly since my time away. I would like it if different enemies were a bit more visually distinct, but claiming they don't require a some amount of tactical foresight to fight against is wrong. The bigger problem, in my eyes, is that your one massive, 100e control power is usually sufficient for any encounter. The "press 4 to win' syndrome is the most prevalent reason enemies do not seem as diverse as they are. Not that I still don't want MOAR, mind you, but I find it ever so slightly insulting to imply that nothing has been done since release. When I'm not simply abusing my powers the game can be quite difficult. 

Giving infested too much range sort of ruins what sets that faction apart from the others. They are the zombie swarm, they are meant to be overpowering rather than individually strong. Anything done to increase their diversity would still need to fall within the lines of their theme.  

ABout the infested of course. but since they charge you anyway , with the combo counter the more come the easier they die.....thye have almost no way to counter that other than ancients, and they are still too bland and weak and melee you as wekk.

 

Of course I'm not saying give the infested some sniper spitters , but something with enough range to be considered a threat 

[(PSN)BitmapFrogs]

Would love something like the collectors praetorian or abominations... or the cerberus atlas and engineers, etc.

[Deidaku]

Would love something like the collectors praetorian or abominations... or the cerberus atlas and engineers, etc.

I was expecting the corpus to be similiar to cerberus in that way , having engineers repair stuff , mechs , and so on

[Acos]

ABout the infested of course. but since they charge you anyway , with the combo counter the more come the easier they die.....thye have almost no way to counter that other than ancients, and they are still too bland and weak and melee you as wekk.

 

Of course I'm not saying give the infested some sniper spitters , but something with enough range to be considered a threat 

I might counter this argument by stating that ancients are a threat, although you may need to play on a higher difficulty to see it (seems to be around level 35-40, for me). Consider that most Tenno live and die around their CC abilities, and that the infested are a faction that can suddenly and completely shut down your ability to distribute CC. It is not uncommon to be fighting the infested when a Disruptor shows up from behind, knocks you over, and steals all your energy. You are now on the floor with a swarm of angry ankle biters with no great method of retaliation aside from running away and hoping your meager personal defenses (shields, whatever terrible armor you have) hold.

One of the things I generally think they got right is that they moved disruption from being an Infested-only gimmick. Now that every faction has a method of shutting you down you are occasionally forced to fight them without relying heavily on your super powers, which really does allow the development team to have enemies that are diverse and tricky. 

At the same time, I always want to caution against making enemies such tactical masters that they become impossible to defeat. At the end of the day we are still one to four tenno, and for the game to be enjoyable a player has to be mostly winning. Stupid AI kind of comes with the territory. It should be good enough that it requires us to react, but we shouldn't be going up against highly trained marines every encounter either. In that vein, I would limit highly tactical units by their rate of appearance as the difficulty of a mission is ultimately decided upon by them. Never get rid of cannon-fodder either; cannon-fodder is mostly there to make you feel good and give you a valid reason to flex aoe abilities/weapons. 

[Ritchel]

i want enemy generals that is above 20 feet in height. owait. wont happen

[HillsAndTheSea]

-snip-

 

 

the thing is, grineer already use shield lancers as mobile cover, and most enemies (sans infested) generally do have decent ai.

ranged units tend to use cover when available (including shield lancers), sometimes blindfire and or use suppression, and tend to throw grenades to flush you out if you stay in cover to long.

 

obviously there are exceptions,  as gametype with a goofy spawnrate will tend to ruin the whole squad dynamic, and most melee units are as dumb as a bag of rocks

 

but the true problem will always be that using either AoE, punch-through, and or abilities basically negates any and all forms of tactics used by the enemy..

 

it does not matter how smart they are if all i have to do is literally press one button at any time to outsmart them.

[CryoClaw]

and yet the dar sectors seem to be top priority.

 

I'm dissapointed by that. They should strengthen the core foundations of the game , ( now Movement, stealth and enemies are elft) before adding new tilesets and more mechanics. hell the UI is old now!

Completely agree

[Deidaku]

I might counter this argument by stating that ancients are a threat, although you may need to play on a higher difficulty to see it (seems to be around level 35-40, for me). Consider that most Tenno live and die around their CC abilities, and that the infested are a faction that can suddenly and completely shut down your ability to distribute CC. It is not uncommon to be fighting the infested when a Disruptor shows up from behind, knocks you over, and steals all your energy. You are now on the floor with a swarm of angry ankle biters with no great method of retaliation aside from running away and hoping your meager personal defenses (shields, whatever terrible armor you have) hold.

One of the things I generally think they got right is that they moved disruption from being an Infested-only gimmick. Now that every faction has a method of shutting you down you are occasionally forced to fight them without relying heavily on your super powers, which really does allow the development team to have enemies that are diverse and tricky. 

At the same time, I always want to caution against making enemies such tactical masters that they become impossible to defeat. At the end of the day we are still one to four tenno, and for the game to be enjoyable a player has to be mostly winning. Stupid AI kind of comes with the territory. It should be good enough that it requires us to react, but we shouldn't be going up against highly trained marines every encounter either. In that vein, I would limit highly tactical units by their rate of appearance as the difficulty of a mission is ultimately decided upon by them. Never get rid of cannon-fodder either; cannon-fodder is mostly there to make you feel good and give you a valid reason to flex aoe abilities/weapons. 

Of course i'm not saying get rid of cannon fodder, but the whole game is cannon and sword fodder right now, that's the problem!