Grinner Rollers, Way Too Annoying?

[Tinn]

My suggestion is to have stun invulnerability for a sufficient amount of time after being stun. Think spawn protection in games where spawnkilling is otherwise a problem.

 

It would also deal with permastun shockwave moas while keeping the grinders.

[MoonicusMaximus]

Ideally you'd always see them coming and always be able to dodge and dispatch them, but everyone makes mistakes, and it's incredibly frustrating to feel like you don't even have a CHANCE to recover from an error.  You know what else is punishing for mistakes?  Simply taking damage.

 

If a grinder were to hit a player and take a chunk out of their shields and then a grineer finishes them off with their gun, they're likely to think something like "S#&$, I should've taken cover sooner."  As it is now if a grinder hits a player and a grineer finishes them off while they're staggering, it's more like "that's not fair, I couldn't even move!"

 

Taking control away from the player isn't necessary for creating challenge, it's just a really frustrating way to do it.  I'd take a damage increase over all the stupid stunning attacks in this game any day.  Or they could jerk your view and screw up your aim or something, but having control completely taken away from you is incredibly frustrating.

 

Everything else in this game punishes you by delivering damage. Having one sort of punishment for player error is a severe lack of variety, and is bad for the game.

 

And of course you'd take a damage increase over "stupid stunning attacks"; stuns are supposed to be annoying, they are supposed to be bad, because it's the game's way of telling you to adapt to your situation and improve your skill. I hate being stunned just as much as the next person, but I know what its there, and rather than complain about it, I get better at the game to deal with it.

 

Not being able to move at all until you die because 8 rollers locked you into a room isn't punishment.

It's the game being cheap as F***.

 

If you're in a room with 8 Grinders, by yourself, then you should use a skill, because it indeed a bad situation. You knew those Grinders were coming. You have the ability to deal with them. Your team has the ability to deal with them, together.

 

If you are playing solo, you shouldn't be seeing 8 Grinders at a time anyway. If you actually do get into a situation like that, you better blow some of that precious energy you've been scrounging up.

 

There are two big issues with grinders:

1) Their actual damage area is much bigger than their hitbox/visual size.

Why is this an issue?  Because you think your safe when it jumps by you but then without warning you start to stagger.  That just leads to frustration because you were outside of its reach, but not the size of its invisible stagger and damage AOE that it uses as its real attack.  If they actually had to touch you to damage/stagger you that would be a lot better than they are currently.

It also means that they can counter you out of the one attack you have to counter them easily: the ground slam.

2) Removing control from the player is always a bad design choice. Especially when it can be done permanently.

Why did I bring this up?  You get more than 2 roller attacking you at once and you are going to be perma-stunlocked.  All you can do is watch as you stagger everywhere while being shot to death and unable to do anything but watch.  The one thing that makes perma-stagger from grinders worse than charm is that at least in those RPGs charm could fail...where here if it hits you, you are going to spend precious seconds staggering around and hoping that it wont hit you again, or a second one wont show up.

The final thing with them is that people for them say that it flushes you out of cover, that it pushes you against the main grineer troops to keep this game from being cover based.  Honestly for me and most of the people I play with it does the opposite.  If there is a grinder we crouch near the biggest pile of small cover we can find simply so the grinders get stuck on them due to pathing and we can take them out.  The best strategy for dealing with them ironically is find more cover.  And it is *never* good game design to have an enemy that the best counter for them is abusing pathing issues, or AI issues with them occasionally just stopping dead once you hop onto a box somewhere.

 

1.) I actually do agree that their attack hitbox is possibly too big for their leap attack, I've noticed this too, but it's very difficult to actually confirm it, so we both might be wrong about it.

 

2.) 2 Grinders will not be able to stunlock you permanently, and not nearly long enough to kill you by themselves. They have sporatic attack patterns and will let you go or even miss a leap on occasion, in which case you need to move your &#! out of there and find a position to deal with them.

 

How you deal with Grinders is your own deal, and your strategy for dealing with them is sound enough; I can't fault you for hiding from them. However, they will not always get caught on level geometry, and you will not always be in a position to exploit their simple AI. If anything, Grinder AI should be improved to avoid getting snagged, but exploiting enemy AI has been a foundation in shooting games since the beginning.

 

---

 

People seem to think Grinders aren't supposed to be huge problem enemies, probably because of their small, non-intimidating size. But they are, in several ways, akin to something like a Heavy Gunner, or an Ancients. Why do you think you see so many Lancers in comparison to Grinders, something akin to a 10:1 scale? Because they are supposed to be special enemies, and all factional special enemies force you to change your tactics to react them. You don't stand out in the open where a Heavy Gunner can tear through you in seconds, you don't expect to deal with it effortlessly. You don't stand still when an Ancient lumbers towards you, you don't expect to deal with it effortlessly (unless you intend to melee it to death, in which case you better hope it's not a green one). You shouldn't stand still and expect to be able to deal with Grinders effortlessly.

Edited April 18, 2013 by MoonicusMaximus

[Firebat86]

Double tapping shift to roll then jumping and doing an air attack with my scindo one shots them... My sentinel is also incredibly proficient at killing them.  He usually kills one per burst.  Sure there can be cheese mode things where you are in a tiny &#! room and get gang banged, but for the most part you can deal with them.  Just because you don't like an enemy that can do it's job doesn't mean it needs to be removed.  I agree with someone posting about how their attack should hit you in the air, thus making air melee attacks a more effective counter. 

[GeoffFromAccounting]

Double tapping shift to roll then jumping and doing an air attack with my scindo one shots them... My sentinel is also incredibly proficient at killing them.  He usually kills one per burst.  Sure there can be cheese mode things where you are in a tiny &#! room and get gang banged, but for the most part you can deal with them.  Just because you don't like an enemy that can do it's job doesn't mean it needs to be removed.  I agree with someone posting about how their attack should hit you in the air, thus making air melee attacks a more effective counter. 

 

 

you're forgetting one thing: not everyone has sentinels or the Scindo (or wants it), meaning you're basically saying "get the Scindo and a sentinel, and you're good" well, I for one don't like heavy weapons and much prefer my Dual Ether and I also don't have resources or money to get a sent, and we're not saying "OMG THEY MAKE FIGHTS IMPOSSIBLE AND I DON'T LIKE THEM!!1!!11! REMOVE THEM!1!" we're saying that they're too annoying, and atleast should be nerfed so they can't perma-stagger you (for example, any 2+ amount of rollers will attack one after another, thus perma-staggering you being unable to do anything) which is not fun at all, and if Online, and there's multiple rollers, they'll most likely stagger you too much before you can revive anyone that's down, I agreee that since the Corpus have their Shockwave and Railgun Moas and the Infested have their Runners (which I have nicknames "Creepers" for obvious reasons) that the Grineer should get one aswell, but atleast be defeatable and not be able to perma-stagger you, because Shockwave and Railgun Moas only do their stagger effect every-now-and-then, and Runners are a one time stagger, and that the Roller should either A: be more rare B: stagger less often C: not be Rollers and instead be something more targetable or D: explode after a couple staggers (then I would feel that Rollers would then be near copies of the Latchers that Grineer seekers send out, which is something I don't think should happen, but it's there)

[rhoenix]

you're forgetting one thing: not everyone has sentinels or the Scindo (or wants it), meaning you're basically saying "get the Scindo and a sentinel, and you're good" well, I for one don't like heavy weapons and much prefer my Dual Ether and I also don't have resources or money to get a sent, and we're not saying "OMG THEY MAKE FIGHTS IMPOSSIBLE AND I DON'T LIKE THEM!!1!!11! REMOVE THEM!1!" we're saying that they're too annoying, and atleast should be nerfed so they can't perma-stagger you (for example, any 2+ amount of rollers will attack one after another, thus perma-staggering you being unable to do anything) which is not fun at all, and if Online, and there's multiple rollers, they'll most likely stagger you too much before you can revive anyone that's down, I agreee that since the Corpus have their Shockwave and Railgun Moas and the Infested have their Runners (which I have nicknames "Creepers" for obvious reasons) that the Grineer should get one aswell, but atleast be defeatable and not be able to perma-stagger you, because Shockwave and Railgun Moas only do their stagger effect every-now-and-then, and Runners are a one time stagger, and that the Roller should either A: be more rare B: stagger less often C: not be Rollers and instead be something more targetable or D: explode after a couple staggers (then I would feel that Rollers would then be near copies of the Latchers that Grineer seekers send out, which is something I don't think should happen, but it's there)

 

The post you replied to included the tip "double-tapping Shift to roll" as one of the options.  You ignored all other solutions in order to focus on the two solutions you cannot do currently (Scindo or Sentinel), in order to go right back to how you think rollers should be removed.

 

Yes, we get that you don't like rollers.  We are pointing out that there are easy ways to deal with them.

 

Moreover, as has been stated a few times in this thread, you can simply shoot them or strike them with a good melee weapon that can destroy a roller with a single strike.  Swords work for this nicely so far (I've used DHS and DES for this), but I have not yet tried it with daggers.  Lastly, they have very few hit points relative to their level, so a good AoE will take care of all the ones in the area.

[HexCaliber]

Run into a corner, let it follow you then wall run out or jump over, it sits in the corner waiting to be shot, you can also jam them against the environment in the same way, they cant handle stairs for S#&$. Also if you have a melee weapon with a half decent aoe range like gram or Bo, with some practice its fairly easy to get them as they approach. There are ways to deal with them despite their being a bloody nuisance.

[Onite]

Only problem with rollers is the melee ones that just get spammed by grineer that are outside of LOS and drop them nonstop, the rollers themselves just stun lock you over and over. Its not a huge threat, its just annoying.

[Kronk]

I see a lot of this "stunlocking is bad" and "taking control away from the player is bad" malarky, but nobody ever seems to be able to give a reason beyond "I don't like it", let alone a solution. Being hit by a stun is a punishment for not reacting quick enough, and it's a harsh one, but is entirely avoidable if you've the skill to deal with the elements being thrown at you.

 

i would love to agree, but i dont think that rollers are entirely avoidable. they aren't avoidable intuitively and are just avoidable, when they are coming at you from far away or due to bugs, which kinde takes awa the meaning of their challenging idea.

sometimes there are 2 rollers and they come from the side, like mentioned above they constantly chainstagger you. this is not a ninja way of beeing asskicked.

grindgeering problem1:

i always avoid one roller, with aiming at it with 2ndmousebutton and shift+direction for a sideway dodge. after avoiding it, i have to turn around and shoot it. pretty challenging, because its already on its way back, giving me almost no time to shoot.

solution:

after a FAILED attack of the roller, it needs much more time to readjust, giving you the opportunity,because you are the ninja who succeeded at the moment.

grindgeering problem2:

a roller aproaches you from clos distance or more than one rollers surround you. you cant do poo.

solution:

you last chance to not get your &#! whooped by the rollers. BLOCK.

blocking rollers should negate the stunlock, even if the damage is still dealt. blocking could be the perfect last chance to avoid stunlock to be able to dodge or attack the next roller etc.

there must be a more decent and fitting aproach to actually successfully evade or block rollers.

it'll still stay the same challenge.

stunlock is a great challenge to implement in the game, but only if the player has a fair chance and some different difficult ways with different grades of rewards to avoid them.

(standing on a box is always lame btw.)

thank you

Edited April 19, 2013 by Kronk

[GeoffFromAccounting]

The post you replied to included the tip "double-tapping Shift to roll" as one of the options.  You ignored all other solutions in order to focus on the two solutions you cannot do currently (Scindo or Sentinel), in order to go right back to how you think rollers should be removed.

 

Yes, we get that you don't like rollers.  We are pointing out that there are easy ways to deal with them.

 

Moreover, as has been stated a few times in this thread, you can simply shoot them or strike them with a good melee weapon that can destroy a roller with a single strike.  Swords work for this nicely so far (I've used DHS and DES for this), but I have not yet tried it with daggers.  Lastly, they have very few hit points relative to their level, so a good AoE will take care of all the ones in the area.

 

 

whoops, I swear I quoted the right thing, either way, like I said, I'm saying "keep rollers, just make 'em less annoying" not saying "OMG REMOVE THEM!!11!1"

 

EDIT: no, I quoted the right thing, and plus doing a (barrel) roll doesn't do too much as Rollers are quite fast aswell

Edited April 19, 2013 by Ninjaboy00