Why Impact Procs Are Horrible.

[Snydrex]

I've played a lot of shooters, and I can say that out of them all, Borderlands 2 and Warframe rank low in terms of overall hit-to hit satisfaction. Why? Because the enemies are bullet sponges.

 

A full clip into someone's face won't cause any kind of reaction unless you proc impact or blast, in which case they react to the obvious bodily harm you've inflicted. Otherwise, they just keep shooting. This is really dumb because of two things.

 

One, you're hurting them. They should act like it. When I bury a half-pound laser arrow into someone's spleen without killing them, I want them to actually react to the fact that 30% of their internal organs have just been destroyed, instead of shrugging it off like I just threw a hamster at a tank.

 

Two, from playing shooters for a long time, I know for a fact that player satisfaction comes mostly from enemy reaction. It matters far less how fast a weapon fires, or how much recoil it has, how it sounds, etc... This is a basic shooter mechanic that has been in place since 007. Hell, it's not just shooters that use this. Games like Devil May Cry, Street Fighter, Megaman, All use this to great effect, and this game lacks it.

 

Granted, the deaths are great. Ragdolling across a room from blast, a whole chunk being taken off from impact, those are fine. But they are not what I'm complaining about.

 

And, if the concern is difficulty, and that it'd be too easy to stunlock groups of enemies with a automatic weapon, that should not matter. "Fun" and "Challenging" are NOT bolstering of one another. One doesn't make more of the other. This is the same mistake Borderlands 2 made. The game is a drag. Near impossible to solo. and the enemies are so resistant to your bullets later on that it feels like you're shooting marshmellows.

 

My solution? Give every weapon a passive impact proc chance. Make the enemies react to damage. But then you ask, Then what use is actually applying impact damage proc-ing a-la mods going to do? Easy. Make actual impact damage knock over enemies. Like blast. And replace blast procs from knocking enemies over to light ragdolling. It's more satisfying to see enemies flying in a large sphere away from a large explosion than seeing them all get knocked down from a large explosion.

 

This is my input and suggestion. Agree or disagree, something needs to be done about these sponges.

[zerogear5]

rather then making a impact process why not make enemies react after shooting a part of them enough? Say I shoot the legs this will make them fall, The head makes them rip off their mask or claw at their face, arms could just cause a retreat or lack of accuracy.

[LiquidSorrow]

I want to be able to shoot their weapons to disarm them and have them scurry around to pick em up. :D

[Snydrex]

rather then making a impact process why not make enemies react after shooting a part of them enough? Say I shoot the legs this will make them fall, The head makes them rip off their mask or claw at their face, arms could just cause a retreat or lack of accuracy.

 

That would be way better. I would've suggested something like this, but it seems a little ambitious. If anything, DE should start with what they already have.

 

I'm not disagreeing. That is so great. That would make warframe so much more awesome-er. But it would take a lot of time and effort, something I took into account while writing my topic.

 

EDIT: But that brings up an interesting point. If you could do all that just by shooting people in certain areas, What would be the point of impact procs? Why make them stumble for a secon when you could make them fall with a kneeshot?

 

food for thought.

Edited September 7, 2014 by Snydrex

[COOKINGPAPA]

Great ideas. I'd imagine the game would feel more dynamic too. Although some players would probably find it annoying about their targets swaying more often.

[Owlrrex]

The biggest problem there is most pain-reactions keep people from doing whatever they were doing before. In warframe, that is mostly 'killing you'. To balance paining between every-hit-is-cc and barely noticable is complicated. Sure, leg-hits making them fall over sounds great and realistic. But then, imagine a Soma spraying over 20 grineer on leg-height  - and suddenly you have 20 grineer-crawlers. Not very challenging, either.

Although I agree with your point, especially the second one. I know that one from larping - showing the hits you get and getting the hits you score shown by your fellows.
Back to Warframe. I recently saw a thread about making warframes change their appearance with incoming damage/carnage. Bloodstains, scratches, ripped-of armor pieces. The engine has it, visible at the defense-pods.
This mechanic could give this sense of 'effect' to high-health-targets (so, everything highlevel): Instead of instantly dieing or being incapitated, you slowly tear them apart. Even if it doesn't affect their functionality at first, it still shows you some 'you hit it!' instead of just funny numbers popping up.

 

On a seperate note, I totally like your suggested status-changes (impact ->knockdown, blast -> scatter).

Edited September 7, 2014 by Drandko

[Snydrex]

Wow. You guys are pretty insightful. Thanks!

 

Drandko, that is awesome. I would actually like to see a flood of grineer crawlers though XD. I usually prioritize fun over challenge, but that is an issue. How would one deal with that? By restricting punch-through to just damage...?

 

There's got to be something to all this. :S

[tomareomo]

It will be a good change if DE will buff damage done by enemies to balancing things out, btw in borderlands there are reactions if you hit an enemy

[Snydrex]

It will be a good change if DE will buff damage done by enemies to balancing things out, btw in borderlands there are reactions if you hit an enemy

 

Ever played UVHM solo? It's a damn nightmare.

[DSpite]

If we can do it to them, they should be able to do it to us. You really want to be staggered every 2 seconds?

 

Also, if you find Borderlands 2 "near impossible" to solo, you are playing it wrong.

Edited September 7, 2014 by DSpite

[Snydrex]

If we can do it to them, they should be able to do it to us. You really want to be staggered every 2 seconds?

 

Also, if you find Borderlands 2 hard to solo, you are playing it wrong.

 

Zer0 Melee build. Love thumper incuded. How do I do it right?

 

Back on topic, maybe! Being staggered would put a greater emphasis on dodging and taking cover, rather then tanking every shot. 

 

EDIT: Well, maybe I was exaggerating a bit when I said "near impossible" to elaborate, The assault on Digistruct Peak is the only thing that irks me.

 

...But I'm more concerned with shooter satisfaction then difficulty.

Edited September 7, 2014 by Snydrex

[billthebetta]

Ever played UVHM solo? It's a damn nightmare.

I finally got around to bringing my Assassin into UVHM solo(first UVHM toon) and was able to get past Flynt. I die a ton, but so far it hasn't been as bad as I was expecting(granted, slag is used HEAVILY).

...

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop...

 

On topic: I love it. I love and use the Hek because it feels good, and it kills enemies in badass ways. I'd like it to have more effect to Heavy Gunners though. This'd be especially great for fast firing weapons with low damage.

[msterforks]

UVHM is the silliest thing ever. Everything is a bullet sponge, and every enemy that sneezes on you will make you go down.

 

I do find it silly that enemies don't flinch at all. Making every weapon have a stagger proc might be too much, although a flinch proc might not be a bad idea. Void enemies should be excluded from this, though, since they're mindless beings that don't feel pain.

[Niryco]

But flinching might reduce your accuracy because enemies would be constantly moving, this would overall not benefit weapons that already have lower damage as they would miss more making it harder to kill mobs. Furthermore weapons with slower fire-rates and lower damage especially some burst fire weapons would not benefit from this, thus this means with the reactions comes an even harder enemy to kill.

 

One benefit of non-flinching enemies now is that you can train whatever accuracy you have and continously fire at them without missing, but if the enemies are going to be constantly moving from every single bullet in random directions, it is going to make combat much harder. Not to mention there are groups of enemies that might be "dancing" in your face while firing aimbot accuracy projectiles therefore making deaths even more unavoidable and enemies more resilient.

 

This point is only reflected for flinching enemies, enemies that are knocked down on the other hand will surely be easier to kill.

 

Also i didn't get your point on blast damage, so what is going to happen to it?

[Snydrex]

-snip-

 

You're right! this is an issue with games that have more "realistic" gunplay. (*cough* *cough* Killzone 2 *cough*.) But I'd find it more satisfying then having enemies that react to bullets like chucked cotton candy.:/

 

And besides, that factor alone might make up for "lack of difficulty" this mechanic might bring. You have a good point when you say that the aimbot accuracy might lead to faster deaths. I've been trying to make it a point that moving targets are always universally more difficult to track and shoot then one standing still.

 

And to answer your question, I suggested that blast damage throw enemies around, like the Jat Kitaag's slam, for example.

[MechaTails]

Just to toss it out there, how a weapon feels is way more important to me than how the enemy reacts on hit in a game like warframe, where the enemies die so quickly. I cant enjoy the hit animations anyway because they die in the first few shots, so I enjoy the rumble the Supra or the Hind makes in my hands instead. In BL2 the enemy hit animations are enjoyable because you're battling long enough to see them often. Of course, thats because theyre @(*()$ bullet sponges, and im in no way suggesting that for warframe, i hate that.

 

I think the idea of simply adding the impact proc to all bullet based weapons works fine. Just the proc, not the damage, have it proc like 10% of the time. That quick flinch makes me feel like im actually affecting the enemies. Weapons with a focus on impact damage can have a higher chance to proc it, like 25%, except they would also still do damage on the proc.

 

Laser based weapons wouldnt proc impact, their special thing would be that they have a chance to ignore armor and they do more damage to energy shields or whatever.

Edited September 7, 2014 by DarkTails

[Babalenong]

imo warframe really need to ditch out death animations, they are very obstructive and they should be just changed to ragdoll effects. especially how the death animations usually blocks out our bullets, thus making hitting enemies in a straight line harder than hitting enemies in a horizontal line

 

also i think instead of making the weapons always do impact proc, the enemies should stagger everytime their health get reduced by 1/4, except for infested(because they cant feel pain?) so you can really feel you are doing some damage

Edited September 7, 2014 by Babalenong

[Monolake]

 Everything within the 'normal' game  dies in 2 seconds even to poorly modded or noob weapons. 

Bulletsponges only come after ~40 min in endless missions. 

 

So  you dont need pain animation when everything dies as quickly.

Edited September 7, 2014 by Monolake

[Snydrex]

-snippy-

 

Yeah, I should've clarified. I don't want proc damage, either. just the effect. And lasers are a whole different breed of pain, so I agree with both those points. I don't use a controller, so I just see a lot of green when I'm using a supra. (lol)

 

 

imo warframe really need to ditch out death animations, they are very obstructive and they should be just changed to ragdoll effects. especially how the death animations usually blocks out our bullets, thus making hitting enemies in a straight line harder than hitting enemies in a horizontal line

 

also i think instead of making the weapons always do impact proc, the enemies should stagger everytime their health get reduced by 1/4, except for infested(because they cant feel pain?) so you can really feel you are doing some damage

 

It's my opinion that assigning reactions to attacks to one specific elemental proc is ridiculous. I didn't have a problem with death animations because despite the obstruction, they still looked (moderately) satisfying. And 1/4 health loss on any enemy that got proc'd would make weapons like the twin vipers, which proc impact fairly easily, horrendously overpowered. There's a reason why viral damage only 1/2s enemy HP temporarily.

 

 

 Everything within the 'normal' game  dies in 2 seconds even to poorly modded or noob weapons. 

Bulletsponges only come after ~40 min in endless missions. 

 

So  you dont need pain animation when everything dies as quickly.

 

I've already stated that my concern lies in hit-to hit satisfaction. I'm not concerned with deaths, even when it comes to low-level enemies. The Lato suffers from this the most, because it doesn't feel like a gun. You hear the shot, you see the bullet hit, you don't see anything but numbers. This was a abysmal first impression for me when I first began playing warframe.

 

TL:DR I'm trying to think of ways that shooting things in general could be more fun. The difficulty scaling/armor is already broken, so let's just say that hypothetically, difficulty isn't one of my concerns at this point.

[Azawarau]

I was thinking guns needed this too but then i thought itd just promote more spray and pray and make other status procs less useful

[DSpite]

Zer0 Melee build. Love thumper incuded. How do I do it right?

 

Back on topic, maybe! Being staggered would put a greater emphasis on dodging and taking cover, rather then tanking every shot. 

 

EDIT: Well, maybe I was exaggerating a bit when I said "near impossible" to elaborate, The assault on Digistruct Peak is the only thing that irks me.

 

...But I'm more concerned with shooter satisfaction then difficulty.

 

I would personally prefer not to "dodge and take cover" BECAUSE suddenly there is "stagger". In Global Agenda, use of cover was to minimize exposure to multiple lines of fire, break LOS to Spiders that could tractor and pull you, and to make enemies retarget.

 

If these mechanics were there from the start, I'd play them, but it would not seem a good idea to mangle the current ones to replace them with something else. DE have a direction of sorts, I want them to charge ahead, not backtrack and make drastic combat mechanics changes that were never there to start with, like cover system, or a major slowdown in combat flow.

 

In order to measure "shooter satisfaction" you would have to give specific examples. The only thing I find "a bad experience" is simply situations where I'm getting shot at and because of visuals, or level design, I find it hard to get enough situational awareness to respond.

 

If you just make everything stagger, you can basically say goodbye to the entire melee system.

[jarthur]

while I agree that some sort of reaction to damage would be nice, I also can see why the enemies don't have them

 

grineer: the are clones and suffer from genetic decay who is to say this hasn't destroyed their pain response to the point that they can't feel pain.

 

corpus: they are robots/proxies they don't feel pain,fear of death or anything else for that matter, why would they react to being shot.

 

infested: they behave like animal you hurt a cornered animal and it will do everything it a can to hurt you back until it physically can't, for those that say                    infested are not cornered let say their acting like a mother bear and you are between her and her cubs you'll get the same reaction.

 

so I think that a system based of some sort of kinetic energy might make more sense a single bullet wouldn't actually make you move but say 20 in a short time would

[traybong111]

I hate to be that guy but UVHM with melee Zer0 shouldn't have been that hard (coming from an idiot who tried soloing DigiPeak with sniper Zer0).

But other than that I agree, the kills and shooting in Warframe is much less satisfying than it should be, and I find it to be in worse situation than BL2. I've clocked in 1000+ hours in that title and bandits going IS THAT A ROBOT OR NOT when I execute one of them keeps me going back. Warframe, for obvious reasons of fighting aliens that normally die under 2 seconds before they become bullet sponges, can't really have that kind of satisfying auditory reaction. This isn't about weapons feedback anymore but I'd rather have that annoying radio Grineer guy do some death screams for Grineer marines, it'd free so much pent-up rage that I'll get hopelessly addicted.

[Snydrex]

while I agree that some sort of reaction to damage would be nice, I also can see why the enemies don't have them

 

grineer: the are clones and suffer from genetic decay who is to say this hasn't destroyed their pain response to the point that they can't feel pain.

 

corpus: they are robots/proxies they don't feel pain,fear of death or anything else for that matter, why would they react to being shot.

 

infested: they behave like animal you hurt a cornered animal and it will do everything it a can to hurt you back until it physically can't, for those that say                    infested are not cornered let say their acting like a mother bear and you are between her and her cubs you'll get the same reaction.

 

so I think that a system based of some sort of kinetic energy might make more sense a single bullet wouldn't actually make you move but say 20 in a short time would

I'm really not concerned about pain here.

 

-snip-

 

You bring up good points.

 

I agree with you when you say that you don't want DE to backpedal in order to make a new system, because as I said, it seems ambitious. They should stick with what assets they have now. Which is also why I'm suggesting this rather than "add limping, wounds, shock paralysis" and stuff.

 

As for examples, stuff like this pleases me.

 

I wasn't suggesting that the player gets staggered with every shot. That wasn't my point. My point is that this game seems like numbers. You make numbers to take away from other numbers until they or you have no numbers. And making weapons feel like they have force behind them rather then potato gun rounds will help pull that mindset out.

 

And, hearing people complaining that the melee system itself is OP, but I digress. The melee system is fine, in my view.

[jarthur]

very well i'll ignore the use of the words like flinch.

 

anyways I really liked the idea of the damage being physically displayed and was thinking that having the enemy slow down, and lose accuracy as they take more damage would be interesting having it affect players would not cause you to automatically die either.

 

your second clip looks like the enemy is being stun locked which as DSpite said before would kill the entire melee system