Blood, Sweat, & A Few Tears - Increasing Difficulty Without Hp Sponges

[Mystrunner]

The classic advice on game design, as far as I'm concerned is, "If you want them to love you, make 'em bleed. Don't kill 'em, but hurt 'em. So they come out bruised, bloody, slightly broken, but still standing. They'll love it."

Playing solo has provided me a challenge. I still remember an alert I attempted to solo where I ran out of rifle mags, and had to use every trick in Loki's arsenal to stay alive, barely making it to extraction. Best experience of the game. Other times, that wonderful moment when a dual-locked door slowly opens to reveal NPC troops huddled behind every bit of cover, opening up and filling the screen with light... knowing that every second you're alive is in part due to the fact that your team-makes are furiously trying to take down part of the seemingly unstoppable hoard in front of you... that sort of thing is what I live for in Warframe. 

We need more situations that make us think "Oh S#&$. This is going to be touch-and-go." We need to be forced to think "here's what my 'frame brings to this fight, and if I don't use it right, my team-mates will die, and I will die, and I will be vexed." We need the threat of failure, and it needs to be real. Not the reality of constant failure, but the imminent threat.

 

For specifics... 

 - Enemies need more tactical variety. Things like the Grineer "you come here" teleport are good, or the Corpus's shield drones, they make you have to prioritize targets, they force plans to change. The enemies need combos like we get, they need things that stand out and scream "growing threat"! When Lotus announces there's heavy enemy resistance ahead, that's a fantastic opportunity to hit us with a higher level group of mobs. Make those warnings MEAN something, and not just be a bit of fluff.

 

 - It'd be truly fantastic (and probably very unlikely in code terms) in games with mutliple 'frames to introduce enemies that target specific types of frames. Enemies that debuff armor and actively SEEK OUT heavily armored players. Enemies that heavily nerf weapon damage temporarily, or absorb elemental damage of certain types. Again, against teams, and intelligently. You wouldn't want a mob that can only be killed by "power" damage against a group of Loki's.

 

 - Scaled difficulty. It's pretty obvious to me (and perhaps I'm wrong), but the game is very difficult solo, and with a full group, generally gets to cakewalk territory quickly. It'd be nice if the game would adapt to new players entering the game, by increasing the number or difficulty of enemies, or even alternate between the two.

 

 - A difficulty slider. I know this has been mentioned before, and I think it's a great idea. ME3's multiplayer had level difficulties, and the feeling of clearing a platinum stage was simply fantastic. With increased difficulty comes increased reward as well. Better drops, more cash, so on and so forth. This is why "remove your great mods" does not work as an increase in difficulty. You worked for those mods, so why should you be punished (IE, enjoy the game less) for using them?

 

More to think about. Might post this separately later.

[Notso]

I agree with all of that.

 

I think the enemy AI could be turned up a notch too. Remove the current pseudo-flanking where enemies will spawn behind you to create the illusion you're being flanked. Instead, make enemies use features of maps to flank you instead. The way the RNG makes the maps too could also be altered to help flanking. If you make the maps have more than one viable path to the same objective [lots of cris-crossing], then enemies can use that to their advantage to flank you.

[Morgax]

Would certainly appreciate more tactical experience instead of bullet sponges, knowing devs they probably toss more greneer rollers just for giggles.

OFF: you mentioned Mass Effect multiplayer, kind of miss tech/bio(nothing similar in this universe so far i know) combos, For instance Mag crush + frost bubble ice javelins in 360 cone would be fun.

[Mystrunner]

I agree with all of that.

 

I think the enemy AI could be turned up a notch too. Remove the current pseudo-flanking where enemies will spawn behind you to create the illusion you're being flanked. Instead, make enemies use features of maps to flank you instead. The way the RNG makes the maps too could also be altered to help flanking. If you make the maps have more than one viable path to the same objective [lots of cris-crossing], then enemies can use that to their advantage to flank you.

 

Yeah, it always bothered me slightly when more grunts pop up from a room that had no other entrances and had already been searched. I don't mind if it spawns them a ways off and they trek to catch up, that makes sense... but the AI definitely could use a few more glances at ol' Sun Tsu...

 

Would certainly appreciate more tactical experience instead of bullet sponges, knowing devs they probably toss more greneer rollers just for giggles. OFF: you mentioned Mass Effect multiplayer, kind of miss tech/bio(nothing similar in this universe so far i know) combos, For instance Mag crush + frost bubble ice javelins in 360 cone would be fun.

Yeah, I'd love some inter-class synergy. Not sure how that'd work, but it'd be grand...

[Zymphad76]

Great thread. I'd love to see adjustments to the game rather than increasing your HP and Shield.  Tactical and gamepla and squad play would be better.

[NydusTemplar]

Currently the game is simply too fast, and Tenno are too powerful to ever allow for this sort of thing.  Who needs tactics when one guy can (and will) decimate every enemy on the map and continue on at lightning speed?  Speed is only an overwhelming advantage if you never have to stop moving, and in this game, there are almost no instances of being forced to stop moving.  Rarely, in multiplay, you've got the double doors, and that's great for stopping up that one person running ahead of the group.  However, most of the time, if there's a fight you can't win easily, you just keep running to avoid it.

 

You mentioned ME3 MP.  The only reason the enemies were dangerous was because you didn't have a way to just ignore them eternally.  You had to fight every Banshee, every Praetorian, every Phantom, and every Geth Prime eventually.  In this game, you don't even have to fight anyone, and you don't even need to be stealthy.  Just press and hold the run button, and press jump when necessary.  Everything else is optional unless absolutely required for completion.  The only way to ever have meaningful teamwork in this game is to enforce it.

 

Basically, no amount of unique units designed to create target priority requirements or enemy combos will ever matter if you never have to fight them.  Sure, on extermation missions it'll matter, but that's alot of development resources for just one mission type. Enemies need more reliable ways to interrupt lock down hacks, and lockdown needs to be more prevelant.  Dual doors need to be more common, and enemies need to stack on the other side since they know its a choke point the Tenno has to go thru.  Real tactics and strategies.  And why the heck don't they lock down and breach the hull to try and get rid of the Tenno, or flood the area with something harmful?  Plenty of opportunities for it.

 

I agree that having enemies spawn in a room just cleared, or just spawn right behind you literally, is kinda crap.  There should be a 'no spawn' cooldown on each and every tile where a Tenno has just been.  Something like 1-3 minutes.  That way, you don't have people hanging back and killing endlessly, missing extraction.  Sure, they can spawn a tile behind, and they can spawn a tile ahead, but not in the same tile.  Only obvious exception is the Moa dispensers, and other things that make sense.

 

Please bare in mind that I am absolutely not calling for a nerf on frames.  What I am saying is that this game will never encourage teamwork if you never require a team.  Its just that simple.  Also, to be fair, playing On-line is atrocious most of the time, with lag making it seem like your weapons aren't actually doing anything, and hitting enemies unnecessarily challenging.  Any changes to require teamwork would have to:

 

A) Be available by choice, not by default.

B) Increase the rewards granted so that its worth the trouble.

Edited April 12, 2013 by NydusTemplar

[Zelmanov]

I think partial difficulty increase can come from the way the maps are generated, have them generate randomly, yes, but have it done in "blocks" a opposed to linear rooms. As of now th game spawns linear paths with side rooms that act as monster closets for the enemy to come out. Make it so that those side rooms are alternate paths to the same objective. the game rarely thinks more than one room ahead. Make it think 2-3 rooms ahead, create room combos. Not onlydoes it make variety but give a better sense of place, like the rooms make sense as to why they lead into each others.

 

I ahve seen the beginning of this on the planetside tile set, there are grate systems in rooms taht bypass lockdown doors (yes, there are, I was surprised when I found one) which are accessible via wall running, etc. MORE OF THESE

[Djerem]

Hey Mystrunner, I also think that Warframe needs better difficulty settings and i concur with you on most of your idead... but here are my reaction to them:

 

Enemies need more tactical variety. [...] The enemies need combos like we get [...]

 Of course it would be great but keep in mind that adding to their tactical capacities and individual powers will need a better AI and that working n the AI takes a lot of time so i guess we will have to be patient but it might eventually come.

 

[...] to introduce enemies that target specific types of frames [...] You wouldn't want a mob that can only be killed by "power" damage against a group of Loki's.

Good idead but yes you would actually want some ennemies that could be killed easily only by some warframes (others would have a VERY hard time)... this would give a full meaning to the "cooperative" aspect of the game i think.

 

A difficulty slider. [...] With increased difficulty comes increased reward as well. Better drops, more cash, so on and so forth.

That is the same idea i had the first time i played the game! However i don't agree when increased difficulty should give better drops. According to me, only the credit reward should be scaled according to difficulty... that's already a lot! Otherwise people would just farm the easier missions on the hardest setting.

 

On top of that there should be a HARDCORE mode whith "friendly fire", no "revive/raise", less ammo/energy drops and loss of all mod drops upon death but that would give a great reward to players!

Edited April 13, 2013 by Djerem

[Madotsuki]

I agree with the OP completely :o Though i suppose frame-specific enemies would be a little too hard to work in, and probably would screw over solo players :/

[Pappus]

I have yet to see an AI that really challenges competent FPS players. This is something not achievable by humanity at this point. Maybe if game designers and military tacticians cooperated, it might be doable to kick it up a notch, but as it is you can just scrap the idea as it won't happen.

 

You have to understand, that game developers are just normal people and they just aren't able to code a good AI and even if you have an actually good idea it is likely to need way too much CPU power.

 

For example how to make it clear to the AI if the player is in cover or just not in line of sight. How to recognize what the players tries to achieve? Obviously the AI needs an answer to every tactical decision the player makes.

 

You would be doing better rooting for something like player invasion where, e.g. 4 players can become enemies. Not by playing their warframe but by actually selecting e.g. heavy grineer ( not the commander or grief incoming ) or corpus units and spawn around the middle of the way. Oh and obviously not on extermination maps.