Forget Better Ai - We Need Better Dumb Enemies

[KvotheTheArcane1]

Wrong, they better have the ability to one shot us and prevent revives just like stalker.

Punish players for every mistake is the key of the game.

If you are newbie, you better smash your head until you get smarter.

IE like dark souls.

The difference is with dark souls had a skill requirement. You got better, learned from mistakes, and progressed. WF doesn't have that. What your suggesting is more akin to "I wanna be the guy" than a fair challenge. Dark souls was challenging, IWBTG was punishing. Edited June 7, 2014 by KvotheTheArcane1

[Recel]

One of the reasons why he was threatening in early beta was that his charge knocked you down. 

 

He was threatening for the same reason any other mob with a knockdown was threathening. Because it takes away cotrol from the player entierly, exposing you to what ever else is nearby, which in my eye is and always will be artificial difficulty.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Recel

[PeripheralVisionary]

He was threatening for the same reason any other mob with a knockdown was threathening. Because it takes away cotrol from the player entierly, exposing you to what ever else is nearby, which in my eye is and always will be artificial difficulty.

Prioritizing makes for great game play, especially since his shield allows only headshots before.

He was a dangerous but fair foe imo. 

[Recel]

Prioritizing makes for great game play, especially since his shield allows only headshots before.

He was a dangerous but fair foe imo. 

 

Yes, but what I mean is that he should be a threath because of the shield and the ability to stop bullets, not the knockdown.

[notlamprey]

It's a bittersweet feeling to upvote an OP without being able to contribute anything to the thread.

[--Q--uaint]

It's a bittersweet feeling to upvote an OP without being able to contribute anything to the thread.

This.

 

 

Also, mebbe give some of the enemies that hit you less often proc every time? So, Mine Ospreys would always proc blast, Ballistas would always proc pierce, etc.

 

Iunno, it's an idea.

[Renegade343]

Just saw that.

 

Wow, I was really disappointed with that answer. Seemed to get it, and then totally ignored the current lack of skill-based mechanisms by saying:

 

"well the prosecutor was pretty complicated so...next!"

 

Looks like we're getting a ton more enemies that can be instantly 1 shot, and really complicated bosses with hoverboards and invulnerability stages.

 

I'm definitely not done here. Taking to PM's.

We can PM them?

[dragonboss]

Wrong, they better have the ability to one shot us and prevent revives just like stalker.

Punishing players for every mistake is the key of the game.

 

If you are new to them, you better smash your head until you get smarter.

IE like dark souls.

 

And they should start appearing from Jupiter onwards.

Dark Souls' difficulty is entirely different from the "difficulty" found in Warframe. Dark Souls is not about the damage you or your enemy do, it is about learning the enemy pattern and weakness, much like every other Japanese style game. Warframe's enemies are not predictable, nor do they have patterns.

 

Ruk and Vay Hek are examples of this kind of fake challenge. Instead of coming up with an interesting boss fight, we have invulnerable bosses with occasional weak spots. This is always bad and some people mistake things like this as difficulty, whereas in reality its simply cheap.

 

I have never played Dark Souls or Ninja Gaiden on hard, died and felt robbed. If I died it was because I failed to do something properly, not get hit by 100% accurate rocket(old Jackal boss used to do this and the current one to some extent) while doing the only evasive manoeuvres available to me bar Iron Skin.

[dragonboss]

This.

 

 

Also, mebbe give some of the enemies that hit you less often proc every time? So, Mine Ospreys would always proc blast, Ballistas would always proc pierce, etc.

 

Iunno, it's an idea.

 

I'm already not a fan of having bleed damage proc through my full shields, so I'd be careful what I wish for with that.

[CBAROG]

This.

 

 

Also, mebbe give some of the enemies that hit you less often proc every time? So, Mine Ospreys would always proc blast, Ballistas would always proc pierce, etc.

 

Iunno, it's an idea.

Forced proc is never a good thing. So, NOPE, not gonna work.

[Auxeus]

So we should have enemies to be powerful as a player tenno, only dumber. I can deal with it.

[DiabolusUrsus]

I'm already not a fan of having bleed damage proc through my full shields, so I'd be careful what I wish for with that.

 

Things like poison and bleed need a full rework. I am personally a fan of upping the severity of bleed procs into something to be feared, but making it so that they can only proc when your shields are down. Manage your defenses carefully, and you'll be safe. Poison should take longer to proc, and not actually bypass shields until it does. Standing next to a toxic ancient for half a second shouldn't immediately bypass your shields, but standing there for a second and a half should, and it should hurt a lot more to compensate. 

It would be reasonable to place 75 or even 100% blast procs on Mine Ospreys, because their attacks are entirely avoidable and completely predictable. it would also make them a lot more threatening. Ballistas guaranteeing a puncture would be total bull, though, if not for the fact that puncture is a completely trivial proc that doesn't actually seem to be much more than a visual effect. 

 

Guaranteed procs as a means of making enemies threating is fine... provided you give the player the necessary means to avoid the threat. 

[Viverim]

Wrong, they better have the ability to one shot us and prevent revives just like stalker.

Punishing players for every mistake is the key of the game.

 

If you are new to them, you better smash your head until you get smarter.

IE like dark souls.

 

And they should start appearing from Jupiter onwards.

Anything that one-shots a player isn't a challenge.  It just creates frustration.  It doesn't promote long term health for the game, it only serves to reduce the player base as people rage-quit.  If you only want the super-mega hard-core gamers in this game, by all means see if you can get this implemented.  But I assure you the PS4 version of the game will become a wasteland (remember, this is on more than just computer, and anything they do has to be balanced toward the console gamer crowd just as much as the PC crowd)

 

Also, knockdown and such should be a rare thing for two reasons.  One, while you are stunned/knocked down, the Zerg Swarm gets tons and tons of free shots on you (one of the reasons why many people consider Rhino the only really viable tenno, due to survivability is such situations), and the other is the eternal stun-lock.  No game is fun when all you do is sit on the ground for five seconds helplessly watching your character get stunned and shot into oblivion.

 

That, I think, is the problem.  In seeking "new and challenging" enemies, so far the approach has been very ham-fisted.  Boost damage, make the enemies nigh-invulnerable, etc.  I'm not a huge fan of forced gameplay, but the Prosecutors (whom I have not actually encountered yet, as far as I am aware) sound like... forced gameplay.  Take basic elemental types in all of your weapons and only play with Tenno that have elemental damage unless you want them to be totally unkillable.  Might work okay in a team, assuming your pick-up-groups has all of the damage types covered, but solo, your options just became much more limited. 

 

I think that something which isn't being considered very much is having Solo and Group play operate very differently.  If you did, then you could tailor certain aspects of the enemy mobs to operate in a more group challenging without punishing the solo player.

[Viverim]

Things like poison and bleed need a full rework. I am personally a fan of upping the severity of bleed procs into something to be feared, but making it so that they can only proc when your shields are down. Manage your defenses carefully, and you'll be safe. Poison should take longer to proc, and not actually bypass shields until it does. Standing next to a toxic ancient for half a second shouldn't immediately bypass your shields, but standing there for a second and a half should, and it should hurt a lot more to compensate. 

It would be reasonable to place 75 or even 100% blast procs on Mine Ospreys, because their attacks are entirely avoidable and completely predictable. it would also make them a lot more threatening. Ballistas guaranteeing a puncture would be total bull, though, if not for the fact that puncture is a completely trivial proc that doesn't actually seem to be much more than a visual effect. 

 

Guaranteed procs as a means of making enemies threating is fine... provided you give the player the necessary means to avoid the threat. 

Um, I disagree with your Ballista logic.

 

Penetration would allow them to shoot through cover.  So, you're hiding behind cover, the Ballista starts shooting through the cover, laying multiple bleed effects to you, and you're dead before you know it.

 

Earlier today I was trying to do a Loki run.  Now, my Loki only has 250 health with 450 shields.  I was on Earth and I came out  of a tunnel entrance.  I got shot two or three times and had no clue where the enemy was so I couldn't find good cover.  I ran back into the tunnel only to watch over 100 health bleed right off in the next couple of seconds.  Dead.  Seeing as how it wasn't a good day already, I didn't revive and further shut the game off to go do something else.  To me, that's never a good sign for a game I am playing.

[Azamagon]

 

I agree too, but I'm not willing to give up just yet. I still have some hope.

 

Well, most of us have a really miniscule amount of hope left, considering their choices as of "late"

 

I mean, they said Prosecutors were good? Really? Once again they rely on MODDING as the main game challenge. Playing the modding game is not fun. Playing and adapting on the BATTLEFIELD is what makes a game fun. How can they STILL not understand that?!

 

Artificial difficulties (magnetic procs, crazy damage and armor scaling etc) instead of actual challenges as pointed out in this thread, combined with inconsistencies up the wazoo and lack of any real balancing sense... The way they handle this game is just depressing. All I honestly feel from their decisions is that they are either incompetent or greedy money grubbers that ignore our concerns.

EDIT: I'm not saying that to randomly bash them, I'm saying that as a legit concern for the sake of the game. After all, we have pointed out the biggest flaws in the game, with great reasoning and direct examples, yet they STILL don't understand what we mean!

Edited June 7, 2014 by Azamagon

[--Q--uaint]

Um, I disagree with your Ballista logic.

 

Penetration would allow them to shoot through cover.  So, you're hiding behind cover, the Ballista starts shooting through the cover, laying multiple bleed effects to you, and you're dead before you know it.

 

I said Puncture proc. Ideally, they would only ever (and always) get Puncture, since Slash from a Ballista is just horrifyingly terribad.

 

Forcing Ballistas to proc Puncture (again, obviously to the exclusion of other things) would make Ballistas pretty unique, in that a) they dampen your DPS a bit, making you want to focus fire on them and b) it's more obvious when there's one shooting you. (Two consecutive procs of the same type in quick succession don't happen super often, and you really DO want to be aware that there's a Ballista since they have surprisingly high DPS even without bleeds...)

 

 

Also, I'm of the opinion that Toxic Ancients need a rework in light of The Sword Alone. It's really difficult to melee those jerks without losing hp. TBH, toxic damage NOT ignoring shields would be good for balance anyways (making Corpus less of pushovers). I'd also like to see them stop being able to proc toxic with their aura - just let them get it guaranteed via the tentacle.

(and mebbe Healer tentacles would proc Viral? *shudders* I really shouldn't give DE ideas like that....)

[Davoodoo]

Wrong, they better have the ability to one shot us and prevent revives just like stalker.

Punishing players for every mistake is the key of the game.

 

If you are new to them, you better smash your head until you get smarter.

IE like dark souls.

 

And they should start appearing from Jupiter onwards.

In dark souls you had shields and dodges, visible projectiles, telegraphs on every move from enemy.

 

In warframe we have our hp pool, barely working roll, hitscan projectile and only visible telegraph is few units smashing their fist into ground.

 

If you still cant see the difference i will make it easier for you, in dark souls you could avoid everything in warframe what you cant avoid anything and can at best hope that enemy will miss.

[PeripheralVisionary]

Yes, but what I mean is that he should be a threath because of the shield and the ability to stop bullets, not the knockdown.

Artificial difficulty usually refers to level and armor scaling, not special attacks.

If such things weren't of any use to the game,t hen by all means we should take out disruptors for their energy drain.

Heck, all ancients should be nerfed because they give off less of a signal when they use their knock downs. 

[Davoodoo]

Artificial difficulty usually refers to level and armor scaling, not special attacks. 

You forgot to add impossible to avoid auras on leaders, these also qualify as artificial difficulty.

Commander teleports, arc traps and generally everything that might be a threat but cant be avoided.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Davoodoo

[PeripheralVisionary]

You forgot to add impossible to avoid auras on leaders, these also qualify as artificial difficulty.

Commander teleports, arc traps and generally everything that might be a threat but cant be avoided.

One of the major complaints I've heard in many games for producing endgame content was that buffing enemiy stats was only artificial, with no change in tactic.

[Davoodoo]

One of the major complaints I've heard in many games for producing endgame content was that buffing enemiy stats was only artificial, with no change in tactic.

Cause thats what some companies do.

 

But unavoidable auras are as harming as that. Typical mmo you have healers that will watch over your party so damaging or "mana" draining auras can be a way to make encounter bit more difficult and force players out of their routine.

In game like warframe however its just cheap. You cant stand near enemy or you will lose all your energy at once or be applied with dot that bypasses your defenses(at least it isnt scaling), can you run from enemy?? maybe but youve already got aura debuff applied and even if you run far enough you cant engane that enemy cause hes 2 rooms away.

Same goes for prosecutor resistance auras. Cmon de making enemy nearly completely immune to all dmg except one specific one.

Commanders teleport you as soon as they can see you. Then you end up surrounded by enemies being unable to anything for next second because thats whats obviously fun. Being put among enemies stunned and being slightly confused what happened and where am i now.

Arc traps were mentioned many times, so i will say what we all know, they are placed in a way that means you will be able to spot them only when they hit you and you cant do anything about.

[DSpite]

Im 45 years old. Ive ran and managed LAN sessions for our customers/friends at almost all the stores I worked for.

All the 15-17 year olds used to kick my &#! at COD and all the similar shooters.

I had grown up playing Descent 1/2 and one boss had Tron as his fav game. We challenged them at these games, and they immidiately said "we can kick your &#! at anything" and we then proceeded to absolutely destroy them.

 

Descent is full 3D movement, and they were totally unused to it. I had spend years triple chording, flying backwards through tunnels and practicing playing entire games while rotating, and my boss could do magic with rebounding discs and level timing with shifting walls.

 

What I'm trying to get at, is that you can surprise and challenge players by simply putting them out of their confort zones. As long as we have a game that can be run-and-gunned in a speed fashion from start to finish, it will always lack polish. Warframe in it's current state is very fun for me, but there seems to be little scaling, other then more mobs with more hp, and the odd Diablo type aura.

 

Back in Global Agenda, one mission type was 4 players attacking and 2 players teaming up with the mobs to make the mission fail, and as the mission timer was 15 minutes, they could often slow you down enough to fail the mission. Walking around a corner straight into a turret being buffed from an engi crouching behind more cover, or opening a door and having two sniper players laying into you from across the map was what kept you on your toes, and made you scared of just running around without paying attention, as the mobs were totally predictable.

 

I have no idea what can be done to "fix" the challenge, as I have no idea how to mess with the AI code. I do remember that for Total Annihilation, it was players that modded buildings, AI unit selections for builds and pathfinding to create a far superior AI then the default one (like the Sorian one), and it's easy to just say "Warframe AI needs fixing" to the devs and just leave it at that.

 

I have 350 hours in Dungeon Defenders which means I can switch off my higher brain functions and kill mobs in a tower defense style all day long, but I am hoping that this game will throw more modes of play at us and just replace all my other shooters that I keep popping in and out of. Warfarme for me is a blend of Vegas 2 TH/Global Agenda/Dungeon Defenders/Borderlands/FPS DIablo, and I'm sure as hell hanging around to see it get more interesting.

[PeripheralVisionary]

Cause thats what some companies do.

 

But unavoidable auras are as harming as that. Typical mmo you have healers that will watch over your party so damaging or "mana" draining auras can be a way to make encounter bit more difficult and force players out of their routine.

In game like warframe however its just cheap. You cant stand near enemy or you will lose all your energy at once or be applied with dot that bypasses your defenses(at least it isnt scaling), can you run from enemy?? maybe but youve already got aura debuff applied and even if you run far enough you cant engane that enemy cause hes 2 rooms away.

Same goes for prosecutor resistance auras. Cmon de making enemy nearly completely immune to all dmg except one specific one.

Commanders teleport you as soon as they can see you. Then you end up surrounded by enemies being unable to anything for next second because thats whats obviously fun. Being put among enemies stunned and being slightly confused what happened and where am i now.

Arc traps were mentioned many times, so i will say what we all know, they are placed in a way that means you will be able to spot them only when they hit you and you cant do anything about.

In my opinion teleporting and most other stuff isn't cheap by nature, but merely something that needs tweaking. 

Edited June 8, 2014 by PeripheralVisionary

[Renegade343]

In my opinion teleporting and most other stuff isn't cheap by nature, but merely something that needs tweaking. 

Telegraphing. One of the most optimal solutions for aware players to see and react against enemies using abilities/charging up for an attack. 

[fatpig84]

Anything that one-shots a player isn't a challenge.  It just creates frustration.  It doesn't promote long term health for the game, it only serves to reduce the player base as people rage-quit.  If you only want the super-mega hard-core gamers in this game, by all means see if you can get this implemented.  But I assure you the PS4 version of the game will become a wasteland (remember, this is on more than just computer, and anything they do has to be balanced toward the console gamer crowd just as much as the PC crowd)

 

Also, knockdown and such should be a rare thing for two reasons.  One, while you are stunned/knocked down, the Zerg Swarm gets tons and tons of free shots on you (one of the reasons why many people consider Rhino the only really viable tenno, due to survivability is such situations), and the other is the eternal stun-lock.  No game is fun when all you do is sit on the ground for five seconds helplessly watching your character get stunned and shot into oblivion.

 

That, I think, is the problem.  In seeking "new and challenging" enemies, so far the approach has been very ham-fisted.  Boost damage, make the enemies nigh-invulnerable, etc.  I'm not a huge fan of forced gameplay, but the Prosecutors (whom I have not actually encountered yet, as far as I am aware) sound like... forced gameplay.  Take basic elemental types in all of your weapons and only play with Tenno that have elemental damage unless you want them to be totally unkillable.  Might work okay in a team, assuming your pick-up-groups has all of the damage types covered, but solo, your options just became much more limited. 

 

I think that something which isn't being considered very much is having Solo and Group play operate very differently.  If you did, then you could tailor certain aspects of the enemy mobs to operate in a more group challenging without punishing the solo player.

 

I main a disarm Loki.

Not invisibility.

 

My Invisibility last only either 5 seconds (if I go 555 shields / 213 heatlh) or 10 seconds (225 shields / 213 health). 

I kill myself more often with the angstrum/penta/ogris/stug than my enemies actually killing me.

 

And before alerts were "rework" (bah it was nerfed) I solo level 60+ Grineer defense alerts. Where it can go as high as level 68 during the initial release of Damage 2.0. And you cannot have long invisibility because Napalms will nearly 2 shot the cryo back then.

 

And I consider my skill level isn't anywhere good as some to of the other MR14 to MR16.

 

 

Grineer have by far the most knock downs, but barring the scorpion and Heavy (don't go near them duh), most are highly telegraphed.

Shield lancers have their obvious charges,. And of course rollers with their leaps.

 

In fact, I have more issues with pre-nerf Eviserators (they were nerfed twice btw once in damage 1.0 and another in 2.0) than any form of knock down.

 

Jackal, old Hyena and Phorid for example. All of them do have 1 shot kill type attacks. But against anyone with a clue, the players can avoid them harmlessly. In fact for Jackal, it did not stop players from farming the crap out of it for Rhino.

 

Now the only real Hyena that is a threat is the energy drain one. The rest are just joke.

Rhino does it even easier since 1 stomp disables them for epic lulz.

 

 

But I have to make it clear. While I do support 1 shot attacks, they should be telegraphed.

So if you choose to stand under other Jackal's air burst or tank 2 of old Hyena's rockets to the face, it is your own fault

 

So do give us 1 shot attacks, but make it telegraphed. So we  have ample time to dodge or move.

It won't be anything different from what you all have done before.

 

Just gotta move a little way out.

Edited June 8, 2014 by fatpig84