You Say You Want Difficulty, But You Really Want Depth

[CaligoIllioneus]

See? This is a difficulty thread which is interesting, lays out actual game design concepts, and actually makes a good argument instead of "anyone who doesn't think this game is utterly trivial is a nub who needs to lrn2play".

 

Why can't other difficulty threads actually be this way? Instead of being oh-so-subtly condescending about anyone who isn't trivially soloing Pluto.

 

Oh come on, cease with those strawmans. For example I was the one who created the previous "The game is too easy" thread, the big one after the patch that inflated our HP and shields. In no moment did I mention that noobs should learn to play or anything like that, despite you always claiming the opposite. And yes, I can in fact solo Pluto and Eris, but it's of no consequence, because I was not speaking out of anecdotal evidence.

 

I did say no amount of depth and AI tweaking could make those enemies remotely challenging because they just did too low damage for how big our HP/shield bars were - this has been changed. The situation has changed, and this thread seems more friendly to developed arguments (unlike the previous one), so I will give my own.

 

Where is the game right now? What is this difficulty I seek?

 

The game is in fact too easy right now, because a player with a good modded weapon and good mods on his warframe can beat the (currently) highest level content solo without much effort. The good gear allows that player to kill a large number of enemies really quickly (which is fine, no one likes bullet sponges) but these enemies don't really pose a good threat to make up for their low durability and, at most, they force the player to use soft cover for a couple of seconds before he keeps going.

 

The problem here is that this can't really be balanced. Upping the damage of the enemies or their hitpoints will simply make these soft cover moments happen more often, and that is not challenge, either. It's just patience, to kill a few enemies and hide, kill a few enemies and hide. It's almost worse than completing a cakewalk mission.

 

So why can't it be balanced? Because it has to do with how the enemies currently do damage. The main source of damage, the main source of danger for the player, is hitscan weapons. These should not be removed - they have a place - but the problem they cause is that they limit the amount of time the player can be out of cover at any given combat situation, despite anything the player can do.

 

So for example you're in a big room with 10 Grineers. The current type of difficulty asks the player to kill these 10 Grineer in a set amount of time, this time being how long it takes for the Grineer to deplete his shields and HP. Upping this damage causes the player to play like it is a cover shooter. Decreasing this damage causes the player to ignore it, kill the group, and move to the next as his shields regenerate.

 

The answer here is that we need another main source of danger in the game - this game is centered around mobility and acrobatics, so I think the answer is dodging

 

We need more missiles, energy waves, and all kinds of really damaging attacks that you can dodge. It's what happens on Dark Souls for example. Other games rely on inflated hitpoints or damage for enemies, Dark Souls asks you to learn to dodge, timing, learning the enemies moves, etc. We need more of this difficulty, because it is not cheap, and it's simply more fun.

 

Hitscan weapon damage should be drastically reduced, and the main danger to Tenno should be these avoidable attacks. Imagine, for example, the Grineer Napalm. His projectiles should be much deadlier and visible, and the patch of fire should be larger, to restrict the space to dodge you have. Right now Grineer Napalms are useless, easy enemies that just live longer due to their hitpoints, and they don't even spawn in a majority of Grineer bases. The enemy concept, however, has a lot of potential.

 

All of these avoidable attacks need to have their stats buffed, and more enemies of this type need to be added.

 

Bosses should also have to rely on these kind of attacks and not on hitscan machine guns or Grineer Rollers, and especially, not in huge, huge HP bars that are a real bore to chew through.

 

When this change happens, we will in fact have a good challenge, becaus it will be on the player's skill (and not only gear) that lies the way to defeat them. Harder difficulty enemies could have attacks that are way faster and thus harder to dodge, and/or more diverse attacks to surprise you.

 

Anyways, this is what I want to see in Warframe.

 

TL;DR: Current game focuses too much on hitscan for difficulty, leading to a situation where it can't be balanced and swings between cover shooter and "really easy game". The answer is attacks that require player input in order to avoid, rather than hitscan attacks that have to be tanked with your stats.

[Aizeol]

I did say no amount of depth and AI tweaking could make those enemies remotely challenging because they just did too low damage for how big our HP/shield bars were - this has been changed. The situation has changed, and this thread seems more friendly to developed arguments (unlike the previous one), so I will give my own.

 

Where is the game right now? What is this difficulty I seek?

 

The problem here is that this can't really be balanced. Upping the damage of the enemies or their hitpoints will simply make these soft cover moments happen more often, and that is not challenge, either. It's just patience, to kill a few enemies and hide, kill a few enemies and hide. It's almost worse than completing a cakewalk mission.

 

So why can't it be balanced? Because it has to do with how the enemies currently do damage. The main source of damage, the main source of danger for the player, is hitscan weapons. These should not be removed - they have a place - but the problem they cause is that they limit the amount of time the player can be out of cover at any given combat situation, despite anything the player can do.

 

The answer here is that we need another main source of danger in the game - this game is centered around mobility and acrobatics, so I think the answer is dodging

 

We need more missiles, energy waves, and all kinds of really damaging attacks that you can dodge. It's what happens on Dark Souls for example. Other games rely on inflated hitpoints or damage for enemies, Dark Souls asks you to learn to dodge, timing, learning the enemies moves, etc. We need more of this difficulty, because it is not cheap, and it's simply more fun.

 

Hitscan weapon damage should be drastically reduced, and the main danger to Tenno should be these avoidable attacks. Imagine, for example, the Grineer Napalm. His projectiles should be much deadlier and visible, and the patch of fire should be larger, to restrict the space to dodge you have. Right now Grineer Napalms are useless, easy enemies that just live longer due to their hitpoints, and they don't even spawn in a majority of Grineer bases. The enemy concept, however, has a lot of potential.

 

All of these avoidable attacks need to have their stats buffed, and more enemies of this type need to be added.

 

 huge HP bars that are a real bore to chew through.

 

This is the most well-developed argument I've seen on this topic.  I first want to thank you for your insight and giving us a much more tangible answer.

 

I hadn't thought of it, but Dark Soul (or Demon's Souls) is a great place to look.  I realized while I was playing that game that it was possible, with enough skill from the player, to beat all of the challenges in that game with the starting arsenal.  This would make the game ridiculously difficult, but possible.  Instead, they gave the players better weaponry that was worthless if the player had no skill.

 

That is what warframe needs.  More skill required at higher levels, but not so much that it is 100% skill based.  Your examples are excellent.

 

If you have a tanky enough frame, a lot of those avoidable attacks won't be that much of a problem, but they are avoidable.

 

This way, the game asks the player to learn attack patters and tells so when they see them in later levels they know what will happen if they don't plan accordingly.

 

Also to MJ12:

 

 

Well the obvious answer would be MP-only enemies or SP-only weaknesses.

 

So, for example, you might have a giant Corpus robot which is only vulnerable to attacks from the rear in MP because of the thick armor plates in front. In SP, you could shoot off the armor plates, kill it by hitting its eyes, or it turns way slower. In MP, not so much.

 

I love this idea.  This is what the game needs, big mini boss type enemies that are only truly frightening if you have a team that refuses to work together.

[Ghobe]

Ehhh, I'm not so much for the idea of having differences in enemy types between mp and sp. Hurts the consistency aspect.

 

I'd rather see certain mission types become sp and mp focused. For example...Spy and Sabotage missions being SP only and have a heavy focus on the stealth gameplay/mechanics that we'll have some year, and then Defense/Raid type missions being focused on MP only. At the same time missions like Exterminate and perhaps even Assassinate could be both SP and MP without much change in the way they're done. This way we have content for the multiplayer in the current form we have, we have content for the stealthy single player, and content for the reckless single player. The only problem I really see is finding a way to map everything out so that the "only" missions aren't completely shutting off content(except MAYBE single player? since you only need to rely on yourself...).

 

Then again though...after having said all of this...this IS supposed to be a co-op focused game.

[Aizeol]

Ehhh, I'm not so much for the idea of having differences in enemy types between mp and sp. Hurts the consistency aspect.

 

I'd rather see certain mission types become sp and mp focused. For example...Spy and Sabotage missions being SP only and have a heavy focus on the stealth gameplay/mechanics that we'll have some year, and then Defense/Raid type missions being focused on MP only. At the same time missions like Exterminate and perhaps even Assassinate could be both SP and MP without much change in the way they're done. This way we have content for the multiplayer in the current form we have, we have content for the stealthy single player, and content for the reckless single player. The only problem I really see is finding a way to map everything out so that the "only" missions aren't completely shutting off content(except MAYBE single player? since you only need to rely on yourself...).

 

Then again though...after having said all of this...this IS supposed to be a co-op focused game.

 

The consistency wouldn't be hugely affected.  Besides, how can the station HEK is on change every time you go there?  That is a bigger consistency bug to me.

 

 

Basically it could work like this, the "levels" are actually areas of space, so each time you go a level there it isn't really a singular place, but a bundle of stations/ships/outposts.

 

This way, when you are soloing it you have the same objective but the Lotus has sent you to an area that is more appropriate for a single operative.

 

This would only happen when you are playing in solo-mode however, as it would be completely unbalanced the moment you add another player.  The same could happen for online play.  The Lotus sends you somewhere that requires a team and if you are the only one at the moment she says something to the affect of "Don't worry, back up is coming" to let you know the game is open to other player to join.

[Kaiku]

I agree with OP of some others who have replied; this game relies too much on dealing damage and sustaining damage.

 

Things I'm currently expecting from this game:

 

Being able to avoid damage more easily and that being the basic tactic. This game already has a huge potential for that, so why give us so much HP and Shields? Why not more speed and agility instead.

 

Enemies with dodgeable projectiles. Otherwise, as it's now, Grineer Lancers will hit you on that instant when you're in their sight.

Corpus is doing nicely with their laser rifles. You can dodge them.

 

A bit more stealth: If no enemy sees me, I expect them not to know where I exactly am.

Maybe they should act in the same way when a player goes invisible: They start looking around and come to see if you're still there where you were the last time they saw you.

This would give us a chance to get behind them without them noticing.

 

Less ammo for the most powerful weapons.

This is mostly the case with Hek and Strun. And Bronco.

These weapons deal high damage with a single shot which makes their ammo consumption really low and you don't have to worry about being out of ammo if there's a heavy unit ahead.

 

Also, light units, the basic cannon fodder, shouldn't even drop that much ammo, but heavies and ancients should drop ammo even more.

This would give more challenge, as you should use your weaker weapons; melee and pistols for the light units, and then your primary weapon for heavies. Not just mow your way through of everything with your Hek.

And not just for the sake of challenge, but also for variation.

Ofc, nothing stops you using your melee weapon as much as you want, but this would give a bit more meaning to it.

 

"I'm saving my ammo!" I often hear, but I don't know why I would save ammo if I've got plenty and I can easily get more.

[Story4]

I agree with you and the grineer lancers for example already have a way of getting you out of cover, the grenades. They just need to be used more often. I also agree with you on the dodge thing, only problem is that the space is fairly limited for you to dodge except a few places, and if you ever do dodge out of cover (on the rare chance that an enemy throws a grenade at you) the other enemies will hit you instantly if you dodge so you'll just have to go to another cover. Maybe the best way to do it was if enemies won't hit you if you dodge or if they actually missed once in a while. The Grineer Lancer IMO has a better aim even than the player, if a real human was in his place i don't think that he would have hit the Tenno that often. Maybe Rhino because he is slow, but the others running so fast, dodging and wall-running shouldn't be hit that often.

[Ghobe]

the other enemies will hit you instantly if you dodge so you'll just have to go to another cover. Maybe the best way to do it was if enemies won't hit you if you dodge or if they actually missed once in a while.

Although this topic is about making the game harder, this is one thing that should be in the game. Using your dodges(wall run, slide, wall jump, fling, etc) should cause your enemies accuracy on you to drop dramatically, more-so the more complicated the dodge is(slide having the least effect, but still an effect).

[HvcTerr]

I think we should take a minute and ask: "What would look awesome if this were a movie?"

 

I'd like to see more wall running and acrobatics. Yes, have enemy AI be magically-less-accurate when trying to track a player moving at significant speed. This encourages a possible playstyle of staying in constant motion.

 

Then make blocking more useful or practical. Have it only drain stamina when you're actively deflecting things. 

Edited April 15, 2013 by HvcTerr

[Kaiku]

I think we should take a minute and ask: "What would look awesome if this were a movie?"

 

I'd like to see more wall running and acrobatics. Yes, have enemy AI be magically-less-accurate when trying to track a player moving at significant speed. This encourages a possible playstyle of staying in constant motion.

 

Then make blocking more useful or practical. Have it only drain stamina when you're actively deflecting things. 

Doesn't really have to be "magical" just a bit more realistic.

Like, enemies could try to predict your movement, but if you do unpredictable fast manouvers they'll miss.

[HvcTerr]

Doesn't really have to be "magical" just a bit more realistic. Like, enemies could try to predict your movement, but if you do unpredictable fast manouvers they'll miss.

Certain moves like wall-running are highly predictable, but still ought to confer a "you're moving like a parkour ninja" benefit.

 

 

If you base it too much on prediction, then you reward players who just stand and shoot the enemy while sidestepping back and forth to cause more the enemy shots to overcorrect to the sides.

 

But if you instead base it on velocity, then you reward players who try to stay in constant motion.

Edited April 15, 2013 by HvcTerr

[Makemap]

Too much bashers who think this game is easy just because they have a tank warframe and good mods. Just take a look at infestation now on Saturn for starters. They got too hard.

[Xilver7]

I agree. But the devs have a lot on their plate right now, so getting a lot of depth will take a really long time. Though when depth comes, this game is gonna be a whole lot more fun.

[Thelonious]

I dont get it. Most of what is proposed in this topic is already in the game, to some extent of course.

 

I read dodging, and dodging big attacks especially. You can already do that. You already have the moves to dodge sideways while aiming, and it works quite well with the right timing, especially against thoe napalm grineers.

I myself manage to kill Kela without her rocket launcher being able to hit me much with those moves. And if you have a teamate in your back who carefully takes care of her rollers, it's even easier.

 

There, teamplay and dodging.

 

For packs of normal grunts, there are many things you can do before resorting to cover.

Blocking works wonder to get near enemies without enduring too much damage, but it requires skill to actually manage your stamina pool. You have to pay attention to the enemy moves and time it with their attacks, not before. Otherwise it's just another passive shield.

 

There, skill.

 

Using enemy bodies for cover works too. There's a post atm on the disadvantages of allies blocking bullets. Works for enemies too, you know.

 

There, positioning.

 

Strafing works wonders against grineers bratons, but only at long range. They only have that much accuracy, and their aimbot program does not lead targets.

Corpus bullets (or plasma bolts, whatever), on the other hand, are much slower and much more easily dodgeable by just strafing left and right, even at short range. You take less than half the bullets by doing that, while reloading for example.

 

There, dodging, again.

 

And then, abilities of course, depending on your frame. But then, you realize some frame are just better than others for that. That's why you have teamates after all.

 

There, teamplay, again.

 

And I saw something about grenades too.

Unfortunatly grenades were a little like you described, a few months ago. They were thrown often, with pinpoint accuracy (even from the other side of the room), and would just instagib you if you were even an inch too close from the explosion.

People complained, they were nerfed. Even Kela had some of those when she was implemented. Hard-hitting, accurate grenades, on top of rollers and rockets in the face. Nerfed too.

Problem is that they're quite hard to see. I guess it would have been harder to create a special "call of duty-style" grenade warning UI, than to simply tweak the AI/damage to get rid of the problem. Maybe it'll change back, who knows.

 

 

All of this is nice, and can/will be improved with time. I'm sure it's one of the priorities of DE atm anyway. But there's already a good base you can play with to find depth yourself in the game. Cause it's definitly here.

 

Real problem is, you only have to use those kind of ninja moves when playing solo on high level planets, or boss levels.

Anywhere else your base shield/hp is enough to facetank anything, and in co-op games the cumulated firepower just melts everything in sight. There's the problem of gear scaling. Most weapons are still way too powerful when maxed out. Getting rid of Mod stacking wasn't enough (especially when you give a single U7 mod the stats of 5 U6 mods at once ><)

And honestly IMO the addition of passive stat gain when leveling was a mistake. Game was much more challenging for me when you only had so much shield/hp, and had to work hard to increase it. 

There's no reason for it now that drop rates were fixed (well, for commons at least...). A good mod tutorial would have been more beneficial for new players. 

 

But that's another issue.

[Ronyn]

Right now the game doesn't get any harder than the level.....15-20ish areas(no more new enemy types)? Beyond that it's just higher health/damage which is...not difficulty. So where exactly am I to assume this will hold true?

Thsi statement is confused.

What makes an enemy more difficult can be as simple as them hitting harder and taking more hits to kill.

When looking at two of the same enemy types, the one with the higher HP and stronger guns is by definition more difficult to kill. 

 

New enemy types dont indicate how hard or eay they would be, just that they are different....

that is actually a point toward more variety. Variety is a part of what creates depth. 

[Ghobe]

What makes an enemy more difficult can be as simple as them hitting harder and taking more hits to kill.

No this makes an enemy scale. If an enemy has 200 health and deals 20 damage, and another enemy has 240 health and deals 24 damage. Am I really going to notice when my gun still does 51 damage 6x a second to the face against my 600 shields? No. Will I notice a difference when an enemy suddenly teleports me into the middle of a room surrounded by enemies? Oh hell yes.

[GTG3000]

DAMN YOU TO HECK!

Now I absolutely has to watch all those videos.

Why are you doing this to me, internet?!

 

On a related not, though, wasn't the point of the OP obvious all along, or am I the only one suffering from crippling self awareness?

Edited April 16, 2013 by GTG3000

[SomethingCrazy]

I agree with everything the OP stated.

 

Edited April 16, 2013 by SomethingCrazy

[Dashx]

This is actually a pretty good topic about this subject. I think more depth and variety would make the game much better and the gameplay would look less repetitive.

[Ronyn]

No this makes an enemy scale. If an enemy has 200 health and deals 20 damage, and another enemy has 240 health and deals 24 damage. Am I really going to notice when my gun still does 51 damage 6x a second to the face against my 600 shields? No. Will I notice a difference when an enemy suddenly teleports me into the middle of a room surrounded by enemies? Oh hell yes.

Respectfully, youre still missing it.

When youre talking about small scaling it may not be noticed ( 5 or 10 percent increse isnt going to cut it),

but when the scaling gets big enough to effect your play it is clearly more challenging. 

 

If an enemy takes twice as many hits to kill and can take you out in half as many shots....he is harder. period.

You have less room for error, you will be punished harder for being exposed, you will be required to play better to defeat it.

That is the nature of it.

 

Scaling can and does lead to higher difficulty. That is its purpose.

 

Now, a new enemy type will make you notice the difference because its new.

New is not automatically more difficult. It can be harder, the same or even easier than other enemies.

That is dependant on its level of power.

 

New is automatically more variety though.

[neKroMancer]

I think that varieties and progression toward difficulties are tied together. Right now, the game offers little extra layer of depth and varieties when you venture into higher level area simply because the basic designs are overused. Grineer lancers are everywhere. They should be basic enemy in few first low level area but obsolete in higher area and be replaced with some special forces which use different tactic/weapon/power.

Corpus and Infest suffer even worse fate due to the fact that they both lack real heavy unit. The 3 ancients appeared in Lares, Mercury, which is supposed to be an extended tutorial filled with runners and chargers. Corpus crewman and Moar proxy are placed in every level.

This lack of varieties contribute to two things

1. Lack of depth and difficulty. Once you learn the basic, you practically don't have to learn anything again.

2. The sense of progression in the game. Harder planet filled with more mechanics and enemies that use them would be better than higher level area filled with higher HP/damage trash mobs which employ the same tactic power. You know that you're in a harder area by the look of the enemies', not because of little number indicating their level.

I wish DE would take a look at this subject in future update and perhaps, dedicate one update for this aspect of the game. The game need it, badly.

[Ghobe]

Respectfully, youre still missing it.

When youre talking about small scaling it may not be noticed ( 5 or 10 percent increse isnt going to cut it),

but when the scaling gets big enough to effect your play it is clearly more challenging. 

 

If an enemy takes twice as many hits to kill and can take you out in half as many shots....he is harder. period.

You have less room for error, you will be punished harder for being exposed, you will be required to play better to defeat it.

That is the nature of it.

 

Scaling can and does lead to higher difficulty. That is its purpose.

 

Now, a new enemy type will make you notice the difference because its new.

New is not automatically more difficult. It can be harder, the same or even easier than other enemies.

That is dependant on its level of power.

 

New is automatically more variety though.

Welp look at it this way then. An enemy with 24000 health and 60 damage a shot firing 3 shots a second is not any harder imo than an enemy with 240 health and 20 damage a shot 6 shots a second. Why? With how our abilities work, there is no difference. In both cases I have 600 shields, neither can deplete them and neither can keep the pressure on me once i back behind cover to recover any lost shields. Neither are strategically challenging. Yes the one takes dramatically longer to bring down, but that does not make him harder. If you'd like me to use the ever-popular wow as an example, in Firelands there was a boss by the name of Baleroc that could literally hit for millions of damage, while you had Ragnaros who at best could crack for 200k, yet Ragnaros was the harder boss of the two because he had a much wider array of mechanics. You will not find a single person who says Baleroc is harder than Ragnaros(outside of a troll).

 

When you only raise numbers of health/damage/speed or lower numbers along the lines of cooldowns/recovery....all you do is approach "stupid difficulty" as I call it. It's one thing to play a contra style game, it's another to play a game like warframe and reach a point where suddenly it's at contra-level difficulty, but you don't have the awareness you could have in that game. If I started getting 1-2 shot by lancers, I wouldn't call it difficult, I'd call it stupid.

Edited April 16, 2013 by Ghobe

[Ronyn]

Look, I completely agree that I'd rather fight enemies whos difficulty raised due to increased combat actions and tactics than just meatsheilds that can one shot me. I'm on your side there.

Still....

 

Welp look at it this way then. An enemy with 24000 health and 60 damage a shot firing 3 shots a second is not any harder imo than an enemy with 240 health and 20 damage a shot 6 shots a second. Why? With how our abilities work, there is no difference. In both cases I have 600 shields, neither can deplete them and neither can keep the pressure on me once i back behind cover to recover any lost shields. Neither are strategically challenging. Yes the one takes dramatically longer to bring down, but that does not make him harder.

Your saying that because you can hide from damage and replenish sheilds the enemies are not getting harder.

You will be spending more time retreating and in cover against an enemy that is scaled up....because he is more threatening.

Now multiply that by the number of enemies in a room and the extra time they survive by their general advancement tactics.

that is "harder".

 

 

When you only raise numbers of health/damage/speed or lower numbers along the lines of cooldowns/recovery....all you do is approach "stupid difficulty" as I call it. It's one thing to play a contra style game, it's another to play a game like warframe and reach a point where suddenly it's at contra-level difficulty, but you don't have the awareness you could have in that game. If I started getting 1-2 shot by lancers, I wouldn't call it difficult, I'd call it stupid.

It may be "stupid difficulty", it may be just plain "stupid"...

but scaled up enemies are in fact harder than their weaker counterparts.

[zachdaemoo]

+1

 

Sticky this.

[stacey69]

The learning curve isnt right at the moment. I see people all day modding up elements and some even not using serration and hornet strike for instance. People complaining about having 100 pages of mods. Some players online are experienced and pick things up quickly, others are slower in learning about games. At the moment there is a big gap between inexperienced players and more experienced players. I hear all day about nerf this nerf that change this change that. Really people need to be helped in some way to show them into the game in a lot smoother fashion.

 

This happened to Diablo 3. 11million or so bought the game. 10 million couldnt handle inferno in any shape or form so it was changed to be more user friendly. When this happened millions of people walked away from the game as for 2-3 months you could only play inferno in its heavily nerfed state. They intruduced multiplayer levels 1-10 but it was to late and most had left the game. I can see this happening to Warframe.

 

At low levels have the maps and areas as they are but show the new players parts of maps where they need to wall jump/run more so when they are playing high level they are more mobile and used to it. Let them fight more waves than just a few at a time so Pluto doesnt shock them so much. Just off set the damage to their shields so they dont die all the time. Get them used to facing waves of enemies from front and behind. This will improve their gameplay and help stop rushers ruining a lot of peoples games. Rushers will have to wait on other players or face to many enemies to handle. If people are going to walk away from your game, let it be the bad players, not the good ones who just need time to learn.

 

Add level 55+ squads to locations but not just as pluto alerts, for more experienced players to play. Forgetting about end game is one of the worst things you can do as these are the players who will find loop holes and bugs more often, making the game better for the less inexperienced as they past through in the following weeks ahead. A the moment most of my mods fit in warframes, ie: maxed or perfect for their weapon/frame so i do a lot of damage and move very quickly through maps. I need to be challenged. Made to think about what gun to use with what mods are best. Force me to think and use cover or even let a tank char move in first while i cover behind or protect a trinity unit.

 

 It feels to me like the devs are being carried away by twitch tv and being popular and giving the wrong gamers the wrong things at the moment. Give guns, give new maps etc. People dont realise the maps already out there can be used to wall jump to places faster or better sniping positions etc but no one cares about sniping positions because its to easy to use your new shiny gun and charge into the mobs. People need to learn the maps and understand the guns and melee they have to use and they are not doing this because the learning curve and difficulty is wrong.

 

This game has graphics, gameplay, depth and the most important thing that made World of warcraft so good... Comminuty. All this will be gone in no time at all unless the game changes. Improve the learning curve for new players and help them learn about modding correctly and quickly. Maybe add this to the rank challenges. Give older better geared players harder challenges, even near impossibles one if need be. Youll still see people doing the insane stuff just to be world first etc etc.

 

Anyway great game and hope i didnt wall of txt crit you. Sorry about my spelling i didnt go to school very often :)

[neKroMancer]

Welp look at it this way then. An enemy with 24000 health and 60 damage a shot firing 3 shots a second is not any harder imo than an enemy with 240 health and 20 damage a shot 6 shots a second. Why? With how our abilities work, there is no difference. In both cases I have 600 shields, neither can deplete them and neither can keep the pressure on me once i back behind cover to recover any lost shields. Neither are strategically challenging. Yes the one takes dramatically longer to bring down, but that does not make him harder. If you'd like me to use the ever-popular wow as an example, in Firelands there was a boss by the name of Baleroc that could literally hit for millions of damage, while you had Ragnaros who at best could crack for 200k, yet Ragnaros was the harder boss of the two because he had a much wider array of mechanics. You will not find a single person who says Baleroc is harder than Ragnaros(outside of a troll).

 

When you only raise numbers of health/damage/speed or lower numbers along the lines of cooldowns/recovery....all you do is approach "stupid difficulty" as I call it. It's one thing to play a contra style game, it's another to play a game like warframe and reach a point where suddenly it's at contra-level difficulty, but you don't have the awareness you could have in that game. If I started getting 1-2 shot by lancers, I wouldn't call it difficult, I'd call it stupid.

This I agree with. Number is one pf the factors that create difficulty. All we need is enough to scale a bit higher than players' level and number appropriate to the particular area. However, it doesn't serve to increase a real difficulty since it doesn't have 'quality' in design. It's the same Grineer from Mercury cloned to fight you over and over again.

Varieties and numerical increase in enemies' stat are two things that make difficulty. Taking a look at RPG games from any given period, they don't feature a single enemy design recycled over and over again until the end of the game.