Be Cautious When Offering More Choice

[SableSonata]

I'm a little hesitant to say this, because I don't want to discourage DE from listening to its players, but sometimes it can hurt the game in the long run, or at least limit its development in some respects.

 

Take, for example, the focus on melee, and the sword alone. Now, this is cool and all, and I'm not suggesting they ignore melee-only players, but being able to only equip a melee weapon limits enemy design, because every enemy must be kill-able using melee alone. And on the flip side, there can be no enemy that must be attacked in melee to defeat.

 

Imagine an enemy that you would have to get behind and execute a melee strike to knock them over and expose a weak spot (or an enemy that has player-like blocking, and can only be defeated by melee). No longer possible, because not everyone has a melee weapon. 

 

An enemy that can only be stunned with firearms, and must be finished off with melee, or an enemy that is immune to melee, or is able to force players to stay at a distance cannot be made, because we can neither guarantee that players will have guns, nor that they will have melee.

 

 

It's hardly the end of the world, I know, but catering to the players here has reduced the ability to introduce interesting and challenging enemies later, because there is no guarantee that a player will have any one of the three main tools to deal with enemies (melee, guns, powers). 

 

I'm not saying don't cater to the players, but I suggest thinking ahead as to what said catering may cause - or restrict - in the future.

[WarOverlord]

The design of a boss is supposed to require strategy and planning, so the should require x weapon used with y skill to defeat.

If you can kill them with anything, they just become another boring boss.

[Sirabot]

Enemy that requires a specific way to kill it? And you lack that way because of choice? Run awaaaaaay.

[immolator1001]

I think we should be ABLE to kill anything with any weapon, that doesn't mean it should be easy.

[(PSN)killerbunny53]

I think we should be ABLE to kill anything with any weapon, that doesn't mean it should be easy.

Exactly My thoughts...  Any weapon, sure maybe a weak spot with less armor, but if you shoot it with any weapon it should do damage.

[Archistopheles]

Take, for example, the focus on melee, and the sword alone. Now, this is cool and all, and I'm not suggesting they ignore melee-only players, but being able to only equip a melee weapon limits enemy design, because every enemy must be kill-able using melee alone.

 

But that's not true. Warframes have powers, and most of us have Sentinels, too.

[SableSonata]

But that's not true. Warframes have powers, and most of us have Sentinels, too.

But not everyone has a sentinel, and since we can unequip all powers, there's no guarantee that any given player has said powers (plus, some frames have no directly-offensive abilities).

 

 

I think we should be ABLE to kill anything with any weapon, that doesn't mean it should be easy.

 

 

That would be ideal, but unfortunately, because of the massive power gap between players and enemies, it's almost impossible to make an enemy that's difficult to kill in a particular way. It either can't be killed that way, or it can, and if it can, it will be easy for any experienced players.

Edited June 19, 2014 by SableSonata

[dragonboss]

The design of a boss is supposed to require strategy and planning, so the should require x weapon used with y skill to defeat.

If you can kill them with anything, they just become another boring boss.

Have you played a Ninja Gaiden game before? You can kill any boss with any weapon, and the fights are far from boring.

 

But not everyone has a sentinel, and since we can unequip all powers, there's no guarantee that any given player has said powers (plus, some frames have no directly-offensive abilities).

 

That would be ideal, but unfortunately, because of the massive power gap between players and enemies, it's almost impossible to make an enemy that's difficult to kill in a particular way. It either can't be killed that way, or it can, and if it can, it will be easy for any experienced players.

You yourself have seen the problem and yet you are overlooking it. The power gap, the power creep is the real problem here, and close to nothing is being done about it. Enemies don't scale properly to our weapons or level, and it just becomes a one-shot-fest either for you or for your enemies.

 

One of the reasons I, and many others like me, like the Ninja Gaiden series is because it is brutally difficult. Now it is entirely possible to go through the entire game on the hardest difficulty without taking damage, provided you're a badass enough ninja to do that, and you can do it because you are given the tools to do it. It takes serious Skill.

 

Warframe on the other hand, technically requires no skill whatsoever, and enemies one-shotting you is not a challenge. Neither is you one-shotting enemies a display of skill. All you need is damage numbers and that's it or get nova and spam 4.

[notionphil]

[lists enemies which can only be defeated in one way]

 

This is why enemy design should REWARD good choices instead of invalidating bad choices.

 

Why make an enemy "invulnerable" to bullets? That just means we're forced to not use bullets on him. No choice.

 

Instead make him have high damage reduction from bullets. So we can choose...do we want to use our "skill" and melee him to death and feel uber? Or try and wear him down, which may take much longer?

[SableSonata]

Have you played a Ninja Gaiden game before? You can kill any boss with any weapon, and the fights are far from boring.

 

You yourself have seen the problem and yet you are overlooking it. The power gap, the power creep is the real problem here, and close to nothing is being done about it. Enemies don't scale properly to our weapons or level, and it just becomes a one-shot-fest either for you or for your enemies.

I'm not overlooking it; it just seems like DE is never going to bother changing it because it would involve nerfing players, which always produces rage, no matter how needed it is. That would be better, but I really don't see it changing, because DE seems to care only about quantity of content, rather than quality.

 

This is why enemy design should REWARD good choices instead of invalidating bad choices.

 

Why make an enemy "invulnerable" to bullets? That just means we're forced to not use bullets on him. No choice.

 

Instead make him have high damage reduction from bullets. So we can choose...do we want to use our "skill" and melee him to death and feel uber? Or try and wear him down, which may take much longer?

We can't do that because of the absurd range of player power. Like I said, if it can be killed, it will almost certainly be easy to kill. If you make an enemy resist certain damage, all it does is make them nearly impossible for newer players if they only use that method, because an experienced player is going to be doing dozens of times more damage, so either said enemy is going to be a joke to experienced players, or it's going to be the bane of newer players, with no inbetween - the only 'balance' that can be made is at what specific point they suddenly shift from being nigh-invincible to being pathetic.

[notionphil]

We can't do that because of the absurd range of player power. Like I said, if it can be killed, it will almost certainly be easy to kill.

 

If you make an enemy resist certain damage, all it does is make them nearly impossible for newer players if they only use that method, because an experienced player is going to be doing dozens of times more damage, so either said enemy is going to be a joke to experienced players, or it's going to be the bane of newer players, with no inbetween - the only 'balance' that can be made is at what specific point they suddenly shift from being nigh-invincible to being pathetic.

 

Uhm...Not every enemy needs to be on every level. Most games have totally different mobs on level 1 and level 99.

 

This can be accomplished via variants, via new mob types etc. That isn't an issue at all, and DE understands that and is starting to implement it which is why we have T4 Vor.

[SableSonata]

Uhm...Not every enemy needs to be on every level. Most games have totally different mobs on level 1 and level 99.

 

This can be accomplished via variants, via new mob types etc. That isn't an issue at all, and DE understands that and is starting to implement it which is why we have T4 Vor.

I don't get the Vor thing. For experienced players, T4 Vor is a joke, and for less-experienced players, he's a total bullet sponge nightmare. Like I said, they didn't make him a challenging enemy; they just set the level at which he flips between being nigh-invincible and being a joke higher. 

 

With the current system, it doesn't matter how high level you're expected to be, they're virtually never going to be anything other than 'almost invincible' or 'completely pathetic'. They're never going to be challenging because 99% of the population is going to be either too underpowered to deal with them, or too overpowered to be challenged by them.

[notionphil]

I don't get the Vor thing. For experienced players, T4 Vor is a joke, and for less-experienced players, he's a total bullet sponge nightmare. Like I said, they didn't make him a challenging enemy; they just set the level at which he flips between being nigh-invincible and being a joke higher. 

 

With the current system, it doesn't matter how high level you're expected to be, they're virtually never going to be anything other than 'almost invincible' or 'completely pathetic'. They're never going to be challenging because 99% of the population is going to be either too underpowered to deal with them, or too overpowered to be challenged by them.

 

There is a maximum power cap in the game.

 

And it's not that hard to attain.

a cpl forma Boltor Prime/Soma/Penta/Phage/Brakk/Ogris/Latron P/Bow + Rhino/Nyx/Loki/Nova + Most decent mods

 

A player can get that equipment in a few weeks time, maybe 2,3 months at the most. A reasonable % of the active player base has access to that tier equipment.

 

DE can and will start making endgame challenges that are approprate for that loadout. Vor was a first step IMO.

 

Now, if you're talking about lower than max_cap? Yes, there is no balance, and no logical progression. You are 100% right there.

 

So yes, all content will be either "almost invincible" or "completely pathetic" during your ascent to the endgame, until DE adds real weapon tiers and apporpriately locks them, and stops making mods RNG based. But once you're at endgame, it's simple for DE to balance content bc they know your max cap.

 

And if you're less than max cap, you shouldn't be at endgame content.

Edited June 19, 2014 by notionphil

[SableSonata]

To be honest, I'd rather have more than 10 weapons and 4 frames at the endgame. Especially when all of said weapons are pretty unappealing to me.

 

There is absolutely no need for weapon teirs unless you mean prime/vandal/wraith/dex weapons being higher teir than their counterpart. Otherwise, all teired weapons do is waste tons of content by making it throwaway. 

 

 

But that's all beside the point, balancing for the end-game doesn't change the fact that 95% of the game is completely unchallenging to 90% of the players, and in all that content, there is no way to add challenge because there is no constants to balance around, and without said constants, enemies can't be made legitimately challenging; just have their UP/OP threshold adjusted.

 

There is no place that will be balanced, because the endgame we have is 30+ minutes of T4S, and because enemy health increases exponentially, it will be balanced for a few minutes of that, at most. For most players, with high-end gear, you'll spend 25 minutes with pathetic, unchallenging enemies, 5 minutes or so of challenge, then everything after that is tedious bullet sponges, where, again, high resistances to certain weapon/damage types would make them nearly unkillable by said damage type.

 

Plus, endgame is now limited to the most boring faction on the most boring tileset with tedious grinding in the most boring game type to even get a chance at the key that will allow you to reach endgame content after 30 minutes of tedious, unchallenging enemies. For endgame content to be possible, everything else is made tedious and boring. 

[CY13ERPUNK]

OP makes fine points, but dont forget we've got frame powers as well

 

and IMHO these kind of choices really should be making DE design better enemy AI that can respond to different attacks and at the same time be vulnerable to several different tactics as well