Why Impact Procs Are Horrible.

[Snydrex]

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

 

I personally believe that moving targets are always harder to hit, and would suggest a movement = lowered enemy accuracy system, but I'll just stay on topic for now.

 

And DSpite was saying that the melee system would be ruined if "everything" was being stunlocked. That includes warframes, I'm assuming. If I read right, it would become extremely hard to melee attack anything more than single opponents because you could be stunned as well from enemy retaliation or fire from backup units, therefore rendering chanelling and combos useless. Thus "breaking" the melee system.

 

I'm getting so off-track. Okay. Just read my first post all the way through. I said numerous times that my main concern here is shooter satisfaction, and that hypothetical difficulty would be a secondary factor.

 

EDIT: FYI, Stunlocking warframes was never the subject here. I responded to DSpite's first post because he asked me a rhetorical question that was actually an interesting thought to me. I wondered how impact procs affecting warframes would affect difficulty. 

 

Ok. I'm really off-track. I really enjoy the discussion so far, though.

Edited September 8, 2014 by Snydrex

[Azawarau]

 

Are we just going to ignore this perfectly good apple that was wasted :/?

[jarthur]

movement lowering accuracy would work as well

 

my take on DSpite post was that if guns could stun the enemy people wouldn't use melee because the only large advantage melee has over guns is being able to reliable stun lock enemies, but your take is also works.

 

I did read it all the way through, my first post was based on why they wouldn't react when I thought you wanted the reaction to be caused by pain. my second post was that I would find it satisfying to see the enemy slowly getting worn away before death, the extra effect would have just been icing on the cake.

 

i'll add in that i agree that something needs  added for better shooter satisfaction

personally I like the idea of seeing the enemy worn down as I do damage.

 

I was ignoring it because i thought it was based on my idea that one bullet wouldn't move a person, I apologize for using real world physics in a game. no this is not me being rude i seriously need to not use real world physics to prove a point in games it doesn't work.

Edited September 8, 2014 by jarthur

[Snydrex]

Well, in reality, there would be too many factors to apply to one game in terms of firearms and physics applied to them. Projectile velocity, weight, shape and size of the slug, the firing mechanism used, type of weapon, wind speed/ low-gravity situations, ricochet, type of surface collided with, etc.  A firing gun is basically a controlled explosion, and real world physics would have so much to take into account.

 

I don't want to go for something that complex. My main point is that I just don't feel like I'm doing damage. Just subtracting numbers. And as I said in my post, my suggestion simply might not be good enough. But if I don't put something out there, nothing will be done!

[Twistedsparkle]

bullet sponges?
well these are augmented,shielded,mutated and genetically engineered cloned people were talking about they should take few hits if you ask me

also if the enemies should suffer more impactful damage then so should you

[jarthur]

while this is true it is still extremely unsatisfying to watch them just eat most bullets without reacting even when I can see why it could happen. and as was said Syndrex said before if you can come up with something better we would love to hear it.

 

on a side note i need to stop playing devil's advocate

[Qhresh]

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 spon

cough bo prime cough

[Snydrex]

cough bo prime cough

 

Melee weapons were never my concern here...

[HolidayPi3]

I agree. Gunplay needs a ton of work. Another point I'd like to add to the topic is that death animations are really really bad.

The only reason I run punch through on my guns is because most Grineer use the same death animation when dying to puncture weapons, which is the *no matter what direction I get shot from, whether I'm crouching or standing or running, I will POP UP AND FLING MY ARMS UP AND FLAIL AROUND FOR 1.5 SECONDS AND BLOCK ALL SHOTS* death animation. And it kills immersion. I just imagine the Wilhelm scream every time I see it.

[jarthur]

cough bo prime cough

this is why some of us have said that allowing guns to stunlock gets rid of the need for melee. cause why would you use melee when your gun did it better, safer and from range.

 

HolidayPi3 this is why I use a bow for solo runs natural punch throw, and ya that is seriously annoying they should either drop dead like a real person or well something that doesn't block my view. assuming Wilhelm is a borderlands 2 reference.

Edited September 8, 2014 by jarthur

[Snydrex]

I love the input from you guys. Keep it coming!

 

Also, I considered recently that the lack of satisfaction I'm getting may be partially due to enemies' AI.

 

FYI, some melee weapons fail to stunlock, putting usefulness into question. (I'm looking at you, sinking talon...and skana.)

 

EDIT: And, pi3 is talking about this stock scream:

Edited September 9, 2014 by Snydrex

[jarthur]

EDIT: And, pi3 is talking about this stock scream:

haven't seen those before but ya that definitely suits grineer reaction to being shot.

haven't used sinking talon ever and haven't used skana since roughly around the time I started playing back when this game first game out.

If by AI you mean the fact that all enemies either hide and shoot or bum rush you ya this gets boring after a while and makes predicting their actions rather easy. while i would love enemy AI that purposely flanked you into cross fire I feel that most people would not like that change. the infested bum rushing you makes sense, grineer AI kind of makes sense from a genetically degraded human, corpus should definitely have better tactics for crewmen, robots don't care so bum rushing you makes sense but so would tactical decision because they are computers.

[Sev7n]

Mechanics on enemies dont need to be changed. They dont need to start flinching, falling over, etc from weapons.

All that needs to be done is some weapons need to have slash / puncture damage removed and left with impact only. That way the heavy type weapons could actually proc often like they should when being used. More impact mods need to be implemented as well for those who want to make their guns have the stagger cc effect.

 

And if you dont like them being bullet sponges right now then put blast element on your weapon. It's one element too often ignored and probably would solve your issues

[vleessjuu]

So if the issue is that enemies don't really react to being fired upon, why not expand a bit on this idea and implement behavioral reactions? I can imagine some of the tougher Grineer, for example, becoming enraged when you fire on them (especially on their non-weak spots like the armored torso) and trying to charge you or something. Not all reactions have to be of the flinching/staggering type. Having some enemies that become MORE dangerous when shot would make them feel more dangerous and make the game more intense. Other enemies could become more cautious and try save themselves (Corpus Techs, for example?), which would make you feel empowered.

At least, that's how I feel about it.

[Guest]

this is a good idea!

 

i like it!

[Snydrex]

Mechanics on enemies dont need to be changed. They dont need to start flinching, falling over, etc from weapons.

All that needs to be done is some weapons need to have slash / puncture damage removed and left with impact only. That way the heavy type weapons could actually proc often like they should when being used. More impact mods need to be implemented as well for those who want to make their guns have the stagger cc effect.

 

And if you dont like them being bullet sponges right now then put blast element on your weapon. It's one element too often ignored and probably would solve your issues

 

Blast is a blast,(lol) but I wish they'd ragdoll away instead of just falling over.

 

I also think that assigning enemy reactions to one very specific damage proc is damn stupid.

[(PSN)MrNishi]

I thought the specific Damage Proc and associated CC was what separated weapon builds....either building for straight damage or building a weapon for some Utility and CC.

Like AoE Electric procs (Amprex)

But then again people seem to favor Weapons for pure damage builds and just use WarFrame powers for the CC and utility - mainly because guns scale more universally than powers in WarFrame.

I am not sure if giving weapons more CC will dilute powers or if powers need to scale damage wise like guns to create a balance. Allowing Guns or Powers to be either CC or damage source, across the board.

[sekushiiandee]

love the idea but ppl have brought up a lot of good points

 

 

they do die too easily unless its extremely late end game

 

shooting at 20 grineers legs and having 20 grineer crawlers come at you would be hilarious but make it too easy

 

 

anyway the feedback in this thread is great....im sure you guys can come up with a way to make this balanced

[Snydrex]

love the idea but ppl have brought up a lot of good points

 

 

they do die too easily unless its extremely late end game

 

shooting at 20 grineers legs and having 20 grineer crawlers come at you would be hilarious but make it too easy

 

 

anyway the feedback in this thread is great....im sure you guys can come up with a way to make this balanced

 

When people begin Warframe with weak-as-carp weapons, the fact that the enemies don't flinch will leave a horrible first impression, easy to kill or not. I already adressed this. -_-

 

And if you read carefully, the crawler statement had nothing to do with my suggestion. Someone replied as to why having enemies fall over when shot in the leg, or drop weapons when shot in the arm would be making the game too easy.

 

FYI, My suggestion was to give every weapon a passive chance to make enemies stagger.

 

Please read more carefully next time.

[DSpite]

We still have the problem that trash mobs die too easy. If we have a grade level of mobs where the "bullet sponges" had such a behavior, I can see it making more sense. A single burst from a middle-end, not well modded gun will drop a Pluto 25-28 mob in a single well placed burst, you would not get to see anything much.

 

If we had mobs that fitted between the standard mobs and the trash, I think it would be really interesting to make them react to what we do. A Glaive to the face might make them flinch, a Penta nade would change their facing and mess their aiming, a slide melee attack could stagger them etc etc. I mean, If we have to hit the suckers 30 times to drop them, then allowing us to "juggle them" would be entertaining. This would work because they are not bosses and are not trash, so all the "juggling mechanics" are specifically tied to what they are, a dangerous mob that can be managed via such mechanics, but require more work then just unloading ammo in it's general direction.

 

This would also fit in line with my idea of injecting more interesting mobs into the game, and with say Borderlands mobs.

 

When I first saw Shield Lancers I assumed that you could not hurt them directly, but you could keep them from firing at you by firing at them, forcing them to keep their shields up. I now know it does not work like that but I would PREFER if they had. That would be an example of a reactive mob. They could be killed with correct timing, flanking, or jumping over and shooting them, maybe even jump-kicking their shields or knocking the shield out explosively. The fact you can practically kill them directly with ANY gun is kinda letdown :(

 

... I'm not quite sure if this is a direction DE is aiming at though.

Edited September 10, 2014 by DSpite

[Snydrex]

We still have the problem that trash mobs die too easy. If we have a grade level of mobs where the "bullet sponges" had such a behavior, I can see it making more sense. A single burst from a middle-end, not well modded gun will drop a Pluto 25-28 mob in a single well placed burst, you would not get to see anything much.

 

If we had mobs that fitted between the standard mobs and the trash, I think it would be really interesting to make them react to what we do. A Glaive to the face might make them flinch, a Penta nade would change their facing and mess their aiming, a slide melee attack could stagger them etc etc. I mean, If we have to hit the suckers 30 times to drop them, then allowing us to "juggle them" would be entertaining. This would work because they are not bosses and are not trash, so all the "juggling mechanics" are specifically tied to what they are, a dangerous mob that can be managed via such mechanics, but require more work then just unloading ammo in it's general direction.

 

This would also fit in line with my idea of injecting more interesting mobs into the game, and with say Borderlands mobs.

 

When I first saw Shield Lancers I assumed that you could not hurt them directly, but you could keep them from firing at you by firing at them, forcing them to keep their shields up. I now know it does not work like that but I would PREFER if they had. That would be an example of a reactive mob. They could be killed with correct timing, flanking, or jumping over and shooting them, maybe even jump-kicking their shields or knocking the shield out explosively. The fact you can practically kill them directly with ANY gun is kinda letdown :(

 

... I'm not quite sure if this is a direction DE is aiming at though.

 

 

Not bad. Not bad at all...

 

Reminds me of the metal gear series, where you had many ways to "play" with your enemies.

 

And, on a completely unrelated note, I love killing shield lancers with a mid-air slide kick and a ground finisher. It fails occasionally, and my Warframe sometimes wallruns up the shield instead.

[notionphil]

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.

 

Why would any of this matter if shooting someone with any auto rifle would permanently stunlock them?

 

No status procs would be required anyway. Every auto or continuous weapon would be perma stun.

[DSpite]

Why would any of this matter if shooting someone with any auto rifle would permanently stunlock them?

 

No status procs would be required anyway. Every auto or continuous weapon would be perma stun.

 

I don't think it necessarily has to be a stunlock. if firing at a Heavy Gunner lowered their accuracy, then it's a damage reduction of sorts. Even a Flux Rifle does a constant stagger to targets while you hold the beam on them.

[Sev7n]

Blast is a blast,(lol) but I wish they'd ragdoll away instead of just falling over.

 

I also think that assigning enemy reactions to one very specific damage proc is damn stupid.

How is it stupid that the procs are doing what they are supposed to?

If enemies are able to be staggered or stun locked from any gun because of where the bullets hit then what is the point of impact? It would become completely useless and most likely have to be removed. <And that i find to be more ridiculous.

 

And blast does not need a ragdoll effect. It creates a strong enough explosion to knock enemies down in a small aoe but not enough to throw them.

Did you ever even think about how things would work if they were ragdolled from explosion? People could equip blast element dex furis's and sweep an entire room of enemies off the map. How blast works now is fine and should stay where it is.

 

 

 

FYI, My suggestion was to give every weapon a passive chance to make enemies stagger.

 

And FYI almost every weapon does have a passive chance to make enemies stagger, its called impact. The only issue is there is little way to buff its proc chance on most weapons at the moment.

[notionphil]

I don't think it necessarily has to be a stunlock. if firing at a Heavy Gunner lowered their accuracy, then it's a damage reduction of sorts. Even a Flux Rifle does a constant stagger to targets while you hold the beam on them.

 

Flux is one weapon, and has a number of drawbacks to offset that stagger.

 

The issue is that many of the best primary weapons have a high fire rate, and as such would benefit even more from this change. We'd be making the boltor prime and soma even better than they already are, while making snipers and weapons like the sybaris comparatively worse.

 

I love the idea of different types of weapons having certain advantages, but it should be balanced within the overall scheme of things, not slapped on bc its cool a year and a half after creating the weapon types.

 

Here is an example of how to do add traits to weapons: Balance 2.0 - The Cost Of Power