Rollers! Feedback, Suggestions And Rants.

[Exhack]

1. As I’ve mentioned before, use them as an opportunity to give blocking a bit more purpose. If a player blocks when a Roller hits them (player has to be facing the Roller), he performs a batting animation that sends the Roller flying a good distance, temporarily disabling the Roller when it lands back on the ground, and deals significant damage. I don’t want it to require a “precision timed” block to perform this as it could be extremely problematic when combined with lag. Requiring the player to be facing the Roller should be enough.

 

2. A harder to implement idea. Change the Roller’s AI so that instead of continuously charging the player at every opportunity, Rollers will attempt to zig zag and circle the player, going in and out of cover, staying a short distance away and making it harder to hit them. Every once in awhile, when it has line of sight to the player, it will stop and start revving up, spinning rapidly on the spot (it is invulnerable in this stage), with sparks flying off the ground around it. After 2 seconds of spinning, it charges in a straight line at the player at double the normal speed, doing medium-high damage and making the victim stumble. If it hits a wall/box, it also creates a short-range shockwave that knocks down players around it (half the Heavy stomp range). After the charge, it’ll be vulnerable again and can’t move for a second before starting to accelerate back to the circling phase. Imagine 4-5 Rollers circling around you like hungry wolves, preparing to strike. That would be fun to fight.

 

This.

 

THIS.

 

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS.

 

The ice maps gave us Downhill Tennoboarding. I want Grineerball next. It would make the game easily a hundred times cooler, especially if deflected balls would be swung at Grineer to give them a taste of their own medicine, and really enrich the experience of fighting those awful little things without 'nerfing' them or 'giving a free lunch to those lame casuals who don't hop on boxes'. Which I am.

[Madotsuki]

Everything i had to say was said by MJ12. Thanks mate, exactly what i had in mind. Also, loving that idea, Exhack. Maybe if the batting method was implemented, you could use the environment to your advantage as well. Slamming a Roller into a wall will do damage to it, and slaming the ball into other enemies deal damage to those enemies (not the roller itself)! Now THAT is fun and challenging!

[Elhazzared]

Okay Elhazzard, tell me something. Why do you love stunlocking? Why do you enjoy having your control taken away from you, and be unable to move your character? How could not allowing the player to play the bloody game be a good design? I played through Borderlands 2 on solo (including most of TVHM), and not a single one of the enemies can stagger me in any way, or stop me from doing anything, yet the enemy variety was endless. Even the most annoying enemy, the Wormhole Thresher, which can suck you into its proximity and continuously damage you with its body spikes until you're dead and you can't outrun the suction, still allows you to attempt to beat the snot out of it up close in a DPS battle so that you at least have a chance to bust out. No matter what happened, you could do something about it. Yet when it comes to the sheer ton of staggers and knockdowns in Warframe, you can't. You can't roll out of it, you can't perform a quick recovery, there's barely any invuln timer, you can only watch as your character stumbles all over the place, gets knocked flat on his &#!, none of your input does anything and then you die. I have no idea why anyone would enjoy stunlock, and quite frankly I'm not interested, because clearly, only an extreme minority actually likes stunlocking.

 

Also, there's a distinct difference between my proposed Grenadiers and common grenades. Common grenades stick to the first surface they touch and immediately explode. Due to idiotic AI, the current troops don't take into account props and cover and will blindly throw their grenade at an arc aimed at the player's feet wherever he is, thus leading to the grenade sticking to the front side of the box and detonating, and leaving the player on the back side of the box safe. With an increase in AI, that can be easily fixed. But the Grenadier, doesn't shoot these sticky grenades. It shoots pipebombs, which can bounce off walls or roll slightly on the ground. And Troopers only throw one or two grenades occasionally. I related to the Grenadier to the TF2 Demoman, because i expect him to be able to unload at least 4 pipebombs before needing a reload, at 1 bomb a second. With each bomb dealing a base 150 damage up close and increases with enemy level, hiding in cover while a Grenadier is launching at you is suicide. Again, with the PROPER AI which takes into account props and doesn't just blindly aim at your feet wherever the hell you are, both pipebombs and grenades can be effective tools to flush you out of cover. Want to add more strategy? Improve AI! Add new enemies to fill holes! Enemies who do not rely on cheap stuns! Rollers are not the only option! BE CREATIVE!

 

I've never played borderlands 2 nor do I really care to play it to be honest since I don't belive any game is worth the price of a triple A, but that's just me anyway. At any rate I will tell you AGAIN why do I seam to love stunlocking. It's not that I love it but in a game where mobility is the most important factor and it's the thing which allows you to survive any encounter easly, something that threatens to take that away is good! Stunlocking till the end of times never happens, sorry but it doesn't. For it to happen you need to be a complete idiot. If in a mobile defense with more grineer than I could count shooting at me and 3 rollers coming after me and let me add that all 3 of them managed to get in attack range before I noticed them, couldn't perma stunlock me. Then sorry, you are just playing this game so @(*()$ wrong to be having a problem with just one or two roller and yes! You only get one or two rollers at the same time at any give point in a mission. Very rarelly you can get 3 but never above that, it's about as rare as getting 3 railgun moas and certainly a lot rarer than getting 3 ancients, but with infested everything staggers your if you let them close enough and you know the funny thing? everything is faster than rollers when we speak about infested.

 

I cannot speak for borderlands 2 once more, but in any shooter that I've played, mobillity was never a great part of it. It's always better to stay quiet, poke my head out and kill stuff. Very rarelly do I have to move to a better position under fire and when I do It's really because you have no other option. Here it's the other way around. Moving from one side to the other, dispaching one or two enemies, then moving to the next point, kill a few more, use an abillity here or there when needed. Above all what allows you to survive in this game is the high amount of mobillity you have. To make the game harder you need enemies that have the abillity to remove that from players. Stuns, knockdowns, staggers, that sort of stuff. This adds more depth to the game, you must adapt to new combat situations in order to maintain your mobillity and thus your advantage.

 

Again your proposals aren't good and when I spoke of there is already grenades, I meant the guys that toss out those seeking grenades that follow you around and stick to you. Yes you could add even another type of grenade to a specific unit but let me tell you what would happen. Someone tosses a pipebomb, you get out of cover, fill him with bullets dirty fast cause it's easy since it's a human based AI and then move to another piece of cover. Problem death with. The rollers can usually be taken out out in 1 or 2 shots depending on the gun you're using and only if you're very skilled or lucky can you take them out without getting out of cover.

 

Now again you say there is no strategy in the current ways oof fighting rollers... Again, getting in a box is a strategy viable if there are few enemies but if there was few to start with, getting on the box was just a convinience, you know, deal with it faster and move on, you wouldn't die in a situation like that anyway... Running away from the roller. Well, you may make it sound like it's a coward thing to do, running from such a stupid weak enemy but really, what would a ninja do? Would it draw the enemy to where he wanted to kill it easly or would he he stay in place quietly just to prove his balls of steel? Think about that for a moment. Last, use an abillity. How is it not strategic to save your energy to use the abillities when you really need them as opposed to just waste it at the first given opportunity just cause using abillities is cool? Do you see a ninja trying to look cool at every opportunity? Why not put them in pink suits and stick neons into them? (please don't even talk to me about the easter's colour palette... just eww!)

 

You seam to be a smart person. Use your damn brain.

[Madotsuki]

I'm sorry i didn't read through your entire post this time but what i did read is that you adore stunlocking in this game because the ability to move fast is the selling point of this game, and thus you want things that take it away from the player.

 

One of the major points of Warframe is fast movement. Wall runs, crazy flips, fast sprints, sliding. That's why it's a game about Space Ninjas, not thick armored space marines that lumber around from cover to cover to poke their heads out and play whack a mole. You however, demand that movement be taken away from players, in a game where movement defines the combat, in the name of "challenge". Do you see the problem here? Taking movement away from players in a game which has fast movement as a selling point? That's like if a cover-based shooter had a mechanic which sends a missile strike down on you every time you stop moving. And it doesn't take "being an idiot" to be stunlocked. All it takes is bad luck and trying to use your melee weapons. You have no idea what Warframe is even about, do you? I think you may have picked up the wrong game if you think Warframe needs more mechanics that take movement away.

[Elhazzared]

In any game it's common and in fact it's the right thing to do that some enemies will target specificly your strong points. It is up to you not to let it happen because these enemies are far from invencible. Sorry if this doesn't coups up with your narrow minded view of the game. Also in case you haven't noticed, the principal way to deal with these kinds of enemies is to actually stay mobile rather than being behind cover which again, fits in the way the game is meant to be played. If you stay in cover and try to take these enemies down, not only it's likelly it will fail, but it will drag you out of cover and severely hamper your abillity to move, that's the penalty you have for not doing things right... But again, that just doesn't coups with your narrow minded view.

[Madotsuki]

In any game it's common and in fact it's the right thing to do that some enemies will target specificly your strong points. It is up to you not to let it happen because these enemies are far from invencible. Sorry if this doesn't coups up with your narrow minded view of the game. Also in case you haven't noticed, the principal way to deal with these kinds of enemies is to actually stay mobile rather than being behind cover which again, fits in the way the game is meant to be played. If you stay in cover and try to take these enemies down, not only it's likelly it will fail, but it will drag you out of cover and severely hamper your abillity to move, that's the penalty you have for not doing things right... But again, that just doesn't coups with your narrow minded view.

Oh because i'm not agreeing with you, I'M the one that's narrow minded. Have you even read the other posts in this topic? Rollers do not make you move more! If anything, the only thing they do is keep you IN COVER more so you won't be stunlocked out in the open! But clearly talking to you is pointless, since I'M the one that's narrow-minded for thinking that a game based on fast movement should not have so many stunning mechanics that take the movement away from the player and breaks the pace of the game. I'M the crying baby for thinking that Rollers can be improved, that new units can be introduced, that AI can be spiced up. I'M the useless noob that should STFU because I don't think the game should stay exactly the way it is right now and that nothing should ever be changed.

 

I'm just going to let the devs read this post and decide on their own. I'd love to hear more feedback from other people but I'm done talking to you in particular. You can go back to running away from rollie balls, I'm gonna go play some Devil May Cry.

[Strac_CRO]

where's the "tl;dr" part ?

[Elhazzared]

Oh because i'm not agreeing with you, I'M the one that's narrow minded. Have you even read the other posts in this topic? Rollers do not make you move more! If anything, the only thing they do is keep you IN COVER more so you won't be stunlocked out in the open! But clearly talking to you is pointless, since I'M the one that's narrow-minded for thinking that a game based on fast movement should not have so many stunning mechanics that take the movement away from the player and breaks the pace of the game. I'M the crying baby for thinking that Rollers can be improved, that new units can be introduced, that AI can be spiced up. I'M the useless noob that should STFU because I don't think the game should stay exactly the way it is right now and that nothing should ever be changed.

 

I'm just going to let the devs read this post and decide on their own. I'd love to hear more feedback from other people but I'm done talking to you in particular. You can go back to running away from rollie balls, I'm gonna go play some Devil May Cry.

 

Yes because staggering gets you in cover... It makes so much sense now. When a roller hits you you stay quiet, your warframe isn't somewhat pushed out of the place it was before... How could I not notice it in my 132 hours of playing this game.

And yes, you are the crying baby who thinks that making rollers not doing anything to the point that having them exist or not is all the same. I mean, improving something is making it absolutly worthless right?

 

Now if you came with an idea to change them but that would actually keep them being as useful as they are now, then I'd certainly be saying otherwise but your ideas are. Block and make them not only get stunned, but take damage in the process which not only renders them useless, but is taking use of a bad mechanic which DE is going to get rid of in the near future. The other idea, they roll around you doing absolutly nothing and then they spin in place for 2 seconds doing more nothing while you just sit there quietly killing them with a smile on your face which again, promotes them to being useless. Sorry If I don't see an improvement here.

[Madotsuki]

where's the "tl;dr" part ?

I find it hard to summarise this topic sufficiently. I don't even know what tl;dr means. And come on, how hard is it to read a few paragraphs :/

[Woolytop]

They could also make it so the rollers only hit and stagger you when they're actually attacking (as in jumping at you) rather than have them be little rolling hitboxes. Seriously, why does walking into a roller that's rolling away from me make me stagger?

[Elhazzared]

Because and this would probably be the only cause for a bit of rage even if not many. The animations don't display correctly. It's rolling away from you but the blades are still there, get close enough and so long as it's attack isn't on cooldown, it will attack you.

[Mfne]

Let's have a look at another unit that heavily relies on staggering, the Infested Chargers. They are not nearly as problematic because unlike Rollers, they can be hit with any weapon.

They do not force the player into a particular playstyle, i.e. the need to carry a rapid-fire rifle or shotgun just to deal with one specific unit.

They are exposed and in melee range while they carry out the stagger attack, unlike the Roller which basically is a hit-and-run type enemy.

I'd say the Charger, while definitely a threat in large numbers, is a well-rounded unit that doesn't mainly frustrate the player and doesn't interrupt game flow too much while staggering.

Generally speaking, I think way too many units in this game use stun techniques. What we are missing are creative ways to disrupt the player, and present a challenge without being totally annoying.

The Infested Disruptor for example, it is a nice idea to have visual disturbance. The game is missing things like this badly. On the other hand, the unit also in my opinion has the problem of being all-in-one, it stuns, it takes away energy, it can be quite fast, it removes shield.

It could be, for the sake of variety, be split into three separate units, one that takes away clear vision, one that takes away energy (and not all energy at once, too many frames rely on energy or they are completely useless), one that removes shields.

This is how you give variety to the game, without having overly aggravating enemies. A game first and foremost needs to be fun to play.

Edited April 17, 2013 by Mfne

[Madotsuki]

Let's have a look at another unit that heavily relies on staggering, the Infested Chargers. They are not nearly as problematic because unlike Rollers, they can be hit with any weapon. They do not force the player into a particular playstyle, i.e. the need to carry a rapid-fire rifle or shotgun just to deal with one specific unit. They are exposed and in melee range while they carry out the stagger attack, unlike the Roller which basically is a hit-and-run type enemy. I'd say the Charger, while definitely a threat in large numbers, is a well-rounded unit that doesn't mainly frustrate the player and doesn't interrupt game flow too much while staggering. Generally speaking, I think way too many units in this game use stun techniques. What we are missing are creative ways to disrupt the player, and present a challenge without being totally annoying. The Infested Disruptor for example, it is a nice idea to have visual disturbance. The game is missing things like this badly. On the other hand, the unit also in my opinion has the problem of being all-in-one, it stuns, it takes away energy, it can be quite fast, it removes shield. It could be, for the sake of variety, be split into three separate units, one that takes away clear vision, one that takes away energy (and not all energy at once, too many frames rely on energy or they are completely useless), one that removes shields. This is how you give variety to the game, without having overly aggravating enemies. A game first and foremost needs to be fun to play.

Agreed. As long as players are given a slight invuln period after each stagger, the current chargers are a very well-rounded enemy IMO, despite how some other people don't like them. Although I disagree that the Disruptor's abilities should be split. Reduce the amount of shield and energy taken on hit to a percentage instead of all in one strike, but don't reduce the number of its abilities.

 

And also, "A game first and foremost needs to be fun to play". Yes, yes and yes. Thank you.

[Elhazzared]

Let's have a look at another unit that heavily relies on staggering, the Infested Chargers. They are not nearly as problematic because unlike Rollers, they can be hit with any weapon.

They do not force the player into a particular playstyle, i.e. the need to carry a rapid-fire rifle or shotgun just to deal with one specific unit.

They are exposed and in melee range while they carry out the stagger attack, unlike the Roller which basically is a hit-and-run type enemy.

I'd say the Charger, while definitely a threat in large numbers, is a well-rounded unit that doesn't mainly frustrate the player and doesn't interrupt game flow too much while staggering.

Generally speaking, I think way too many units in this game use stun techniques. What we are missing are creative ways to disrupt the player, and present a challenge without being totally annoying.

The Infested Disruptor for example, it is a nice idea to have visual disturbance. The game is missing things like this badly. On the other hand, the unit also in my opinion has the problem of being all-in-one, it stuns, it takes away energy, it can be quite fast, it removes shield.

It could be, for the sake of variety, be split into three separate units, one that takes away clear vision, one that takes away energy (and not all energy at once, too many frames rely on energy or they are completely useless), one that removes shields.

This is how you give variety to the game, without having overly aggravating enemies. A game first and foremost needs to be fun to play.

 

I can hit rollers with any weapon. Really, put the weapon in my hands and I'll hit them with it. Now, are some weapons more reliable to hit them with? Yes, there are. The same way there are weapons better suited to deal with chargers than others and they actually tend to also be fast firing weapons because chargers come at you in groups.

 

While the dogs stay there just attacking there are 2 things that you have to keep in mind and the first of all being that they are different units from different factions, they have to work differently. another thing is that while you expect a dog to jump and bite you and not let go, you don't expect a huge metallic ball to roll against you and stop near you, it will obviously keep rolling around and hitting you every now and then.

 

You say the chargers don't disrupt the game flow too much by constantly staggering while the rollers do. Rollers are rarelly found in anything more than pairs, they also have a cooldown on their attacks so they stagger every now and then. Dogs don't, they have very fast attack speeds and at least half of their attacks will stagger you. Now why is this sometimes less noticable? Because maybe by bad game design on this small part, if you're using mellee attacks and are midswing, you won't be staggered which makes no sense, if you are hit by something strong enough to stagger you then it should stagger you, it's only logical but DE decided to give us a small break there. Not that I feel it needed. Still, a dog alone staggers you more times than 2 rollers. Just kill everything in a map, let a dog hit you repeatedly and see how much stagger you get, then compare it to the next time you find 2 rollers.

 

I will agree there should be more ideas to disrupt a character other than just stagger and stuns but quite frankly, I cannot think of any being as efficient as that and while more things should come into play, that is still no reason to take out what's already in play unless it would raise the game dificulty too much.

 

I'd also like to point out that you deal with chargers and for the most part infested, in the same way you deal with rollers. You get on box if it's viable, you kite them around while shooting at them, you use an abillity. Why is this acceptable for infested and not for one single grineer unit is beyond me.

 

Lastly. Yes a game should be fun to play. As for me, I have fun with warframe, if I didn't, i wouldn't play. I don't know about everyone asking for nerf this nerf that, but quite frankly, if these people are not having fun, why are they even playing in the first place?

[Mfne]

Avoiding the chargers by jumping on the nearest box is a prime example of players resorting to incredibly cheesy tactics that just exploit AI weaknesses.

For a minority this might be fun, but at the end of the day it is nothing more than poor game mechanics. For this particular situation, a solution could be to give like half the chargers that spawn some kind of additional "acid spit" ranged attack. Or let them be able to lunge about 8 feet in the air and take a bite or something.

There are more problems like this, for example being able to avoid a huge pack of chargers by just running circles around one, most of them will keep missing you while you merrily hack them to pieces with melee attacks. It works, but it is cheesy nonetheless.


Anyway, a matured game concept should not show the above mentioned weaknesses. The tactics players develop should not revolve around exploiting flaws in game mechanics.

 

Edited April 17, 2013 by Mfne

[Elhazzared]

All units have strenghts and weakness. The fact that chargers have a relativelly wide turn is there for some balancing reason. So can you kite them around and mellee them? Yes, but if a guy explodes near you then you're suddenly surrounded, not to mention that in more enclosed spaces this is not a possibillity.

 

Jumping on a box is exploiting? Well I don't know about you, but the fact that if you get on a place high enough impedes a mellee attack from connecting is hardly exploiting, its good game design. You are able to jump about 2 meters high in the air, the warframe pretty much assists you with that. The fact that enemies can't is again good design.

 

Why do you think Infested come at you in the numbers they do? They take all of this into account. If you couldn't get up in boxes, use kiting in certain situations then you can be sure that they wouldn't come at you in half the numbers they do cause it would be impossible to deal with them.

[Madotsuki]

Avoiding the chargers by jumping on the nearest box is a prime example of players resorting to incredibly cheesy tactics that just exploit AI weaknesses.

For a minority this might be fun, but at the end of the day it is nothing more than poor game mechanics. For this particular situation, a solution could be to give like half the chargers that spawn some kind of additional "acid spit" ranged attack. Or let them be able to lunge about 8 feet in the air and take a bite or something.

There are more problems like this, for example being able to avoid a huge pack of chargers by just running circles around one, most of them will keep missing you while you merrily hack them to pieces with melee attacks. It works, but it is cheesy nonetheless.

Anyway, a matured game concept should not show the above mentioned weaknesses. The tactics players develop should not revolve around exploiting flaws in game mechanics.

 

Exactly, I can't believe I've seen people who defend jumping on the nearest box as a "legit strategy" that requires "awareness of your surroundings". Concerning the whole "acid spit" thing, I actually think it would be a good idea to add a different Infested unit that can use ranged attacks, such as acid spit or armor piercing thorns. Has to be non-hitscan straight-flying projectiles though. It can be an "uncommon" unit, like Leapers. (I define common as stuff like Lancers/Troopers/Chargers/Runners, and uncommon as stuff like shield lancers/seekers/railgun moas.) It would be nice if chargers could at least jump up a little to get at box-standers though. They can jump into air vents, why not at players hiding on props? It's really silly how enemies get stuck on basic terrain so much. On the other hand, i don't exactly think the "running circles" move is exploitative of the AI though, even if it is a little cheesy.

[Tsukinoki]

Exactly, I can't believe I've seen people who defend jumping on the nearest box as a "legit strategy" that requires "awareness of your surroundings". Concerning the whole "acid spit" thing, I actually think it would be a good idea to add a different Infested unit that can use ranged attacks, such as acid spit or armor piercing thorns. Has to be non-hitscan straight-flying projectiles though. It can be an "uncommon" unit, like Leapers. (I define common as stuff like Lancers/Troopers/Chargers/Runners, and uncommon as stuff like shield lancers/seekers/railgun moas.) It would be nice if chargers could at least jump up a little to get at box-standers though. They can jump into air vents, why not at players hiding on props? It's really silly how enemies get stuck on basic terrain so much. On the other hand, i don't exactly think the "running circles" move is exploitative of the AI though, even if it is a little cheesy.

Really I would like to see more units added to every faction of the game, but the grineer arguably need it the most as they don't have a counter for some things like the infested or corpus do, outside of the grinder. And really the grinder needs to be fixed because the two main strategies to deal with it are:

A) hop onto a box and watch it stop at the base so you can line up a shot and shoot

Or B) Run near stairs and other small obstacles to hopefully get it caught so you can shoot it.

No where is it good game design to FORCE a player to use certain weapons when a specific combo, such as paris and lex, works on 100% of other enemies. And it is not good game design to take control away from the player...especially when the enemy can permanently remove control until you are dead.

Its like the old "Charm" moves in some RPG games. They would allow the enemy to take complete control of your units. And if they cast it on all of them you would be forced to sit back and watch as your team ripped each other apart and the game over screen popped up. In groups of 3 or more the grinders can do roughly the same thing: force you to sit there and hope that you die quickly so you can revive and kill it. Neither of those mechanics are that fun. They are hard to deal with but frustrating. And it is possible to have difficulty without frustration.

Real difficulty would involve changing the AI of the grineer, their squad make-ups, and adding more variety. An example is make it so that commanders appear in squads with say 2 shielders and a balista who stay near it to block shots and deal ranged damage, switch teleporting you right next to them for some fast damage. Make that balista one or two heavy gunners and have the AI advance them through the room to flush you out of cover while staying behind the shields for protection and you have a second squad with different tactics that you have to deal with differently.

Add in a grenadier that shoots high damaging grenades to punish you for staying in cover, give him regenerating shields or something so he can take some hits and deal some damage before going down. Give the balista more movement options, such as super jumps or something so they can quickly get into actual sniping positions to deal some damage. Hell give them a short duration cloak and have them cloak upon seeing you, run into proper cover and start taking pot-shots, and the cloak doesnt even have to be able to be used all that often.

Add in "Heavy" shield units that are slow to turn around but good luck hitting them from the front at all and have units use them as mobile cover while taking pot-shots at the team, or even the grenadiers launching their grenades over the shields forcing you to use your mobility to get behind the shield.

Make beefy flamethrower units with limited range but very high damage that use flanking tactics in squads to get behind the tenno...and then you'll see people flushed from cover simply to get out of the fire.

All of those can add variety and challenge to the grineer forces, and they would actually be FUN to fight and figure out. Especially if we have the grineer spawn in various squads. Afterall they are a military organization, so why not have them spawn in different squads of enemies that can work well together like a real military?

The grinder doesn't even fit in with the rest of the grineer units or design and quite a lot of people dont find them fun, just frustrating. And when it invalidates weapon choices and FORCES you to use a specific type of weapon you may hate that is not good game design. That would be like enemies requiring you to have a bronco because nothing else damages them.

The key to good game design is to have challenge, but avoid making it frustrating. Add more units, improve their AI, give them more/new/unique abilities and you will find them fun and challenging to fight.

I mean, wouldn't it be fun to be going up against one of the commander squads I mentioned and then find out that you cant use cover because there are balista's somewhere shooting at you from cover while moving around invisible? That would add challenge and fun while making USE of your mobility.

The game should not take away one of the core elements that keeps it fun, its mobility, it should make the player USE it or want to use it to get past things.

[Madotsuki]

(lots of stuff)

Fully agree. More squad variety and enemy variety is a much better option.

 

Heavy Grenadiers: i've mentioned these in the thread before, so i won't repeat again.

 

Grineer Juggernauts (heavy shield lancers): This idea i got from a different thread. Details here: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/23915-new-enemies-ideas/

 

Not sure how i feel about Flamethrower units. Sounds interesting though.

 

As for Ballista cloaking, I think cloaking tech should be restricted to Corpus. I'd like Ballista's with jetpacks though XD

[Tsukinoki]

As for Ballista cloaking, I think cloaking tech should be restricted to Corpus. I'd like Ballista's with jetpacks though XD

Im just trying to think of abilities that would fit the ballista. They are supposed to snipers and snipers are generally sneaky and fast moving. So Give them more mobility options, though I think jetpacks would just make them easier targets unless they used them for hops for quick movement, and options to make them sneakier/harder to hit.

Hell, give them the flameblades teleport ability but make it so that they can teleport from cover to cover as that would cover mobility and still be kinda stealthy as they just jump around from cover to cover to find the best vantage point.

But in the end make the grineer focus on squad tactics and squad cohesion. Why? They are a fraking military organization and should act like one.

[MoonicusMaximus]

Those 'extra layers' of depth they add to Grineer are encouraging the exact opposite kind of gameplay that's fun in Warframe.

 

You keep saying "if the Grineer didn't have rollers they'd boil down to 'hide in cover, get free headshots". This is what Grinders boil them down to, not the Grineer themselves. Because yes, cover-cheesing was optimal compared to, say, acrobatic kung-fu melee massacres, and would let you cheese high-level Grineer with low-level weapons and warframes. But it was a hell of a lot less fun and when people are given multiple options a significant number of people will choose the most fun one, practicality be damned. Then DE added Grinders. Which, because of their specific movement mode and what they do... make charging into melee way the hell less fun. So congratulations. You've encouraged guys to hide behind cover forever until they (tediously) kill every single Grinder that's spawned, because Grinders are frustrating as hell. You also encourage guys to stand on top of boxes and facetank everything instead of staying on the ground and mobile where Grinders can get them.

Rollers don't encourage cover-hiding, unless you just want to stand there behind a box and tank hits while shooting blindly at it. It encourages movement to safer areas a distance away from ranged Grineer units in order to deal with it, while those ranged Grineer will undoubtable chase you to catch up. Does that mean you are forced to run into an already cleared room to deal with them? Of course not; there is always space for you to run to avoid gunfire, even if for only a few seconds, which is all one should need to take care of a Roller.

 

I don't really see how you can think of the spamming, swing-wildly-while-running-in-circles melee vs group gameplay is any more fun than the gunplay. There is absolutely nothing stopping you from swinging willy-nilly in melee too, even when rollers are on the field. I just got done with a Grineer mobile defense map and there were Rollers everywhere. It didn't stop me from playing how I wanted (a mix of both gunplay and swordplay) because I knew how to react to them; I moved to an optimal position to shoot them, or if I was also dealing with Grineer close-quarters, I dropped a skill to give myself breathing room. Rollers add a single complexity to situations that, if removed, detracts from the experience. I have never once hopped atop a box to deal with Rollers, but I also regularly pop them with a Paris, so maybe I'm just better than most? I don't like to think of myself that way but perhaps that's just the case.

 

Yeah, in a way they are stopping you from playing how you want 100% of the time. But part of any game is reacting to challenges the game provides for you. There's nothing stopping you from swinging away at Grineer groups like a hyperactive fool, but if there are Rollers present and you're not careful with your movements and attacks, you'll be punished for it. There are always several options to you as a player when dealing with the scenarios Warframe throws at you, and I don't want any complexity from my fights gone just because some people have a difficult time doing anything but facerolling through things while mashing E.

 

 

You know what Madotsuki's ides for new units do? They actually prevent cover-cheesing instead of encouraging it further. This is what people actually want, instead of, you know, a unit which is best dealt with by hiding in cramped corners of the map waiting for them to get stuck on terrain because a badass space ninja's greatest fear is a militarized volleyball. Look at the open beta trailer. Notice the distinct lack of random stunlocks from beachballs. Nobody is playing the game because you can get randomly stunlocked by softballs. They are playing because you can cut down hundreds of guys with a huge sword and a shotgun while turning on godmode for a short period of time and walking through enough bullets to sink a battleship.

 

I don't have a problem with adding new units. I do have a problem with changing Rollers as they are right now, 70% because I enjoy smaller challenges within my gameplay, and 30% because I really like watching people complain about them. It makes the act of killing them that much more enjoyable, knowing that this enemy type that is universally despised has been dealt with by my own hand. But right now we're talking about rollers, not new units. Take new unit discussion to a thread made for them.

 

I play Warframe to be entertained and challenged. Godmodding through content sounds horribly boring, and if you want to do that, the earlier levels allow you to do so; all the enemies are weak and do next to no damage. I too enjoy a good carefree romp occasionally, but most of the time, I want to be challenged, which brings me entertainment; these low-level Grineer maps with nothing but Lancers and Troopers get incredibly boring very quickly, because I'm never challenged by them; I can shoot them easily, I can engage them in melee easily.

 

 

I find it hilarious that the people who advocate most for higher difficulty in Warframe are often the people who beg and plead for Grinders (and the prevalence of terrible gimmicky stunlock enemies in general) to stay the same. As long as they stay the same, you will never get actual difficulty. You know why? Because they force you to play a certain unintuitive way to actually have something resembling fun instead of staggerlock frustration. That means a lot of people will find the game 'hard' because it's either "stand on a crate and trivialize everything/facetank everything" or "die from stunlock and get really mad". This means that anything that prevents 'facetanking everything while standing still' automatically breaks the game into unplayability for a significant percentage of the playerbase because they simply don't have the reactions to handle gimmicky fast-moving small-hitbox HP piles which stunlock you after a single hit.

 

People want Grinders to stay in-game because they too enjoy the challenge they add to combat. They don't FORCE YOU to do anything, you are still entirely capable of playing the way you want with varying success. Your idea of fun seems to be the ability to just walk through everything, and while others may agree to such notions, I do not; as I said before, my enjoyment is derived from challenge, and the deprivation of challenge makes things boring and unfun. You always have multiple options when dealing with Rollers, some more effective than others. There is no "stand on crate or die" forced standard to fighting Grineer with Rollers mixed in; that in itself is an incredibly bad strategy if there are ranged Grineer in view, as you'll get mowed down in seconds.

 

And although I don't really want to go down this road, if you're unable to shoot Rollers, you need to change your tactics or just get better at shooting. They are not a difficult enemy. They will roll straight at you to attack you if you put distance between yourself and them, and because of that they are very easy to shoot in this circumstance; it just requires position from you to accomplish. Or you can just say "F- it" and use a skill. Or you can jump on top of a box and shoot them. Or you can wallrun, leap off and pop it with a Paris arrow in mid-air.

[Riskbreaker]

grineers are classic military fraction,nothing new to expect from them,i think rollers is a try to break that military cliche.idk should they be removed or no,but im sure one thing,they are freakin mosquitos lol

[Tsukinoki]

Since someone suggested making its own topic for replacing the rollers with new units: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/30581-replace-grinders-with-more-grineer-unit-variety-and-squad-ai/