Meditations On Realism

[Wyrd42]

There are certain conceits necessary for a game to be playable that fly in the face of realism, such as the random life support drops in survival missions.  As such, a reduced level of realism in some aspects makes for a more appealing game.  On the other hand, adding a little realism to different parts of the game can add depth and believability to the game.  The purpose of this post/thread is to remark on a few points where I feel more or less realism could benefit the game.1

 

Survival is the first area I'd like to bring up.  In all survival missions, you are told that your opponents have shut off the life support.  This is patently ridiculous on any planetary mission, and bizarre when applied to the infestation.  Some suggestions I have thought up include:

"The Grineer/Corpus have released a toxin into the air.  You will have to rely on your frame's life support reserves.  More life support is incoming."

"Infested spores/toxins have saturated the air. You will have to rely on your frame's life support reserves.  More life support is incoming."

On ships, Grineer and Corpus shutting off life support does make sense.  The Infested, though, are treated nigh universally as being nearly mindless, so I suggest a variant message for them:

"Infestation growth has compromised the ship's life support systems.  You will have to rely on your frame's life support reserves.  More life support is incoming."

In all of these cases, I left the ending two phrases the same intentionally, as that is the part that starts into the game aspects.  A further suggestion for her next message:

"You may be able to scavenge emergency life support from enemies and containers."

This addresses the search for life support while still maintaining some connection to what the game is supposed to be representing.  The containers part is something I add because it seems very few people know that you can find life support in them.  If you are not supposed to be able to do that, well, I've been finding them for the last couple of weeks so you might have a bug.

 

Sabotage missions against Corpus sometimes have the description that we need to sabotage their resource efforts to prevent them from developing energy weapons.  This is, again, ridiculous.  I suggest instead that when Corpus hold those points, you say that what they are mining there is essential to making energy weapons, so taking out their operations will put a crimp in their manufacturing abilities.  Also, as a teacher, I have trouble with the following line:

"You've managed to thwart potentially dangerous discoveries from being realized."

This is grammatically incorrect in a manner that makes me wonder if the person who wrote it is a native English speaker.  The phrasing as follows adjusts this to be grammatically correct

"You've managed to thwart potentially dangerous research." Alternatively, "You've managed to keep potentially dangerous discoveries from being realized."

I suspect I've not worded this well, as I keep trying to rephrase how I'm describing the issue.  I'm medically disabled at this point, and the meds I'm on for my health issues really screw with my ability to focus and pull up specific ideas. In this case, the exact phrasing for why the sentence as is is incorrect keeps eluding me.

 

I understand why you don't have it, as it would make enemy ai significantly more difficult to manage, but I would like to occasionally see an enemy turn and run for their lives.  Some female enemies would be nice as well, just to have more variety in targets.

 

On later missions, the Grineer and Corpus both start using electric traps.  That they use the same technology is fine, but the real issue comes up in invasion missions.  The first half of an invasion mission is done on your ally's side of the battle.  Here, it makes sense for those traps to attack your enemy and not attack you; it simply represents your ally giving you a fof idc 2.  The second half of the map, however, is done in your opponent's zone.  The traps there targeting your enemy instead of you makes for a significant disadvantage to your opponent, as you will often enter an area only to see all of your enemies unable to act while you slaughter them because they are busy dancing to an electric beat.

 

The bonus challenges are a simple thing added to make things a little more interesting.  They don't really need to be realistic, but making a few changes could make actually succeeding in them more realistic or more enticing to players.  This should probably get it's own thread somewhere; I strongly suspect that such a thread exists, but I lack the patience and energy to hunt it down right now.  As things stand, getting 10 stealth kills is essentially impossible on any defense, survival, and/or infestation missions, even more so if you have multiple players.  The only way I know of to get stealth kills in these conditions is to kill enemies while bleeding out.  Could we get a variation on this?  Such as changing it to 10 stealth kills while playing solo, and a revive one(or more) ally for missions with multiple players.  I also suggest adding a small credit bonus to them, so even people who are using maxed out frames and weapons can get something from completing them.

 

I had more, but my focus is leaving me, and my mind is getting fuzzy.  I'll try to add on other bits as I recall them.

 

 

1.  I'm quite aware that my natural inclination will make this seem like a dissertation being submitted for consideration rather than the simple feedback I intend.  What can I say?  I'm a former teacher, and some habits die hard.

2.  Friend or foe identification code

[baron1357]

i love the survival idea as when im playing dark sector survivals  i wonder how the infested  managed to shut off life support

[WhisperByte]

Screw realism!!!

 

And now I can read the OP

 

My stance remains unchanged

 

But your ideas sound good but it's just not financially viable (or so it seems) for the DEvs to update and polish old content at the moment so I don't see any of that being implemented this year. Still +1

 

About enemies running for their lives: there is already such AI behavior coded in the game (Terrify) so I doubt it would be too hard to implement.

Edited June 27, 2014 by WhisperByte

[OniDax]

Well, it doesn't make sense for your enemies to turn off life support. Because that should kill your enemies as well. The operative doing the raiding should do this.

[Wyrd42]

Well, it doesn't make sense for your enemies to turn off life support. Because that should kill your enemies as well. The operative doing the raiding should do this.

 

It does make sense if the enemies have their own life support.  That is where the enemies dropping survival packs comes in--their own life support is in good enough shape you can basically steal the breath of life from them.  That is also why I like it that containers can also drop it, because emergency life support makes a heck of a lot more sense than some of the stuff that you run into in those crates and lockers.

 

This does remind me of something else I wanted to mention:  I love the fact that this game includes explosive decompression, and the fact that you have to hack the systems to get out of the automated sealing of the area is a big bonus.  What I don't like is that the decompression keeps on going and going.  The wind should die down after a short time, and the reduced sound should switch to complete silence.  Altering game mechanics would be needlessly complex, but I think making any fires in the affected area become just hot coals during the decompression would be a wonderful bit of attention to detail.  It's still hot, so walking on it will still hurt you, but no open flame while you have no air.

Edited June 27, 2014 by Wyrd42

[SSI_Indifference]

Excellent points Wyrd42!

 

One I would like to add, along the same vein, is the evac rooms.  The single-liset corpus room makes a certain degree of sense, as it might have been the docking point for an escape pod, or something else.  Many of the others, however, are less explainable.  If I were the Corpus or Grineer, I would have those larger rooms trapped to the point of instant-death for any enemy stepping foot inside.

 

I would like to see those rooms altered to be points of forced entry, when on a ship, and hijacked docking bays densely packed with enemies in bases if the former is not an option.  The forced entry shouldn't necessarily be the devastation we see with the grineer boarding pods during invasion missions, but more of a stealthy insertion.  The liset latches on to the ship like a lamprey, and then cuts through the outer hull beneath it to insert the warframe dock.  In said case, you could use any room or hallway as an exit, just with a glowing hole outlining the liset's insert. 

Also, should the liset be attacked while you are running your mission, it could detach and decompress a region of the ship, and you must make your way to the new breach point.  This would give us another minor point of variation in missions, akin to the "Change of plans. . ." we get on occasion.

 

Grate Prime would also be an acceptable way to satiate my need for consistency, or rather, it would shut me up temporarily.

[Wyrd42]

Another one just came to mind: exterminate missions.  The current messages describe them as being a very large group of enemies, yet in practice, these levels have the least enemies, as they have no respawns, no reinforcements.  Alternative wordings:

"This outpost has become cut off from their supply lines.  Kill everything."

"Scans show this ship has only a skeleton crew.  Remove them."

"My scans show a limited garrison.  Forget your original mission, kill them all so our agents can go through the area at their leisure."

"We've caught this outbreak in its early stages.  Kill all aggressive infested so the area can be cleansed."

 

This also bring me to the ending messages, which rarely fit.  "I can detect no further life forms," is ridiculous on levels where you have Grineer or Corpus allies against the infested.  It's also pretty silly on any of the planets, especially Earth, where the kubrow are far deadlier than any unit fielded by Grineer, Corpus, or the infested.  I fear the day you introduce infested kubrow and sand skates, but it is a good fear :)*  Alternatively:

"All targets accounted for."

"You've eliminated all hostile opposition."

"There are no remaining targets on my scans.  Good work."

 

 

*I also want  a kubrow sentinel, because that would be awesome.

[Archistopheles]

Also, as a teacher, I have trouble with the following line:

"You've managed to thwart potentially dangerous discoveries from being realized."

This is grammatically incorrect in a manner that makes me wonder if the person who wrote it is a native English speaker.  The phrasing as follows adjusts this to be grammatically correct

"You've managed to thwart potentially dangerous research." Alternatively, "You've managed to keep potentially dangerous discoveries from being realized."

I suspect I've not worded this well, as I keep trying to rephrase how I'm describing the issue.  I'm medically disabled at this point, and the meds I'm on for my health issues really screw with my ability to focus and pull up specific ideas. In this case, the exact phrasing for why the sentence as is is incorrect keeps eluding me.

 

Have you played against Sargus Ruk lately? He's still "adorning the latest body modifications"

[Wyrd42]

Have you played against Sargus Ruk lately? He's still "adorning the latest body modifications"

 

Yes, that was another one I wanted to mention, it had just slipped my mind.  Sporting the latest would work just fine.  While they would get a lot of noise for it, I wish game companies like this were willing to run their lines through some native English speakers before committing them to the expense of paying the voice actor/actress.  Posting the script in the forum would get them all the opinions they could ever need, some of which would even be relevant =)

 

Also, I suppose there are female enemies in the Grineer heavy gunner and Scorpion, but since you can quite literally blast their face off, leaving a gaping, empty helmet, while not disabling them, or even slowing them down, they don't really count to me.  I'd also like to see civilians, or the evidence of their existence.  The maps are a little too cold and sterile as is.

 

Another thing I'd like to see:  Pirates.  Some renegade group not big enough to compete with any of the factions, sometimes your ally, sometimes your enemy, never holding a location for long...  this sounds like fun to me.  Then again, we are Space Ninja, and Space Ninja versus Space Pirate needs to happen.

 

The invasion missions currently have both sides offering rewards, with a clear reminder from the Lotus that we chose to fight alongside one or the other.  I want to see an occasional Tenno fighting against me.  I doubt it will happen, for the simple reason of how confusing it would be to keep track of friend and foe, but it would be neat.