Mechanics To Consider Avoiding In New Enemy Design

[Arabaxus]

Hi, I would just like to state a few things about enemy mechanics I would prefer are avoided in the design of new enemies. Note that these are characteristics that are not limited to Warframe, but that I think constitute in bad MMO design, and even just bad game design.

 

1. Total Loss of Control

Similar to how Vauban's Bastille affected enemy players prior to the change, extreme/total loss of character control should not be implemented in any way, shape or form. Things such as the ice coated ground in the Orokin Void, only inhibiting movement speed, while players maintain full control, are OK. Things that are not OK include stuns that completely inhibit movement, or massive screen blinding such as Alad V's flashbang thing. Screen inhibiting effects such as the Guardian from Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 are OK because although things are more difficult to see, you can still distinguish different elements on screen, albeit blurry.

 

2. Massive LINGERING AoEs

Now this one is admittedly more subjective and dependent on the nature of the game as is what is massive. Due to the free range of movement in Warframe, AoEs being unavoidable has rarely, if ever, been an issue. What I have had an issue with is large AoEs that linger, such as the Infested Ospreys. To me, the issue was not the AoE or the damage, it was the fact the duration of the AoE and the duration of the DoT effect compounded made it so you took too much damage over time.

 

3. One Hit Kill Moves

This is self-explanatory, but mostly because there is no health-gate system to prevent OHKs from high health. These moves would be fine if we were not able to be killed in one hit if our health were say, above 80% or something, or even as simple as if we were at maximum health.

 

4. Invulnerability Phases for Enemies/Bosses

In example, Sargus Ruk and Lephantis, who cannot take any damage unless their weak spots are exposed. This is more of a personal thing, but I just find such phases cheap and means of artificially elongating boss fights.

 

But yeah that's just me speaking. I can't speak for anyone else.

 

 

[Racter]

+ 1 internets

[Taikaponi]

One kill hit moves are fine, as long as there is a way to dodge them. To be honest, some bosses in this game would actually use such a feature to make the fights more interesting.

[Imaru]

I never really minded lingering AoE's. This may have to do with the fact that I joined when Toxic Ancients still left a fart cloud when they died so I have gotten pretty good at avoiding giant green clouds. Sure they are annoying, but not insurmountable. As for total loss of control, I am on both sides of the fence on this one. On the one hand, it is really annoying to become a tenno ping pong ball on Grineer missions (god damn shield lancers) but it also makes you need to think of a way to get out of it or work as a team a bit more. 

 

Invulnerability is, again, something I can argue both sides of. If you are a centuries old mutant infested zombie thing and one of the trademarks of the infection that made you is heavy armor plating, you are gonna be hard to kill. If you are a genetically degenerate clone bent on getting the best parts for your new battle suit, eehhhh not so much. 

 

And OHK's should really go away forever, even retroactively (PHORID!)

Edited September 20, 2014 by Imaru12

[vaugahn]

Knockdowns and stuns are conditional. They're a good way to enforce a penalty on a player, but they should be 100% avoidable across the board.

 

Basically, we need a (skill based) way to dodge/block/get up fast

Edited September 20, 2014 by vaugahn

[fatpig84]

What should be implemented.

 

1) More knock downs.

 

2) More AOE attacks.

 

3) More attacks that drain energy / bypass shields / Ignore armor

 

4) Enemies that damage by % of your max health or shields. So it doesn't matter how much health or shields you got, if he deals 35% of your maximum hp per attack and drops you in a 3 round burst, your fault for not killing fast enough.

 

6) Stuns.

 

7) More varied enemy tactics which include tossing 20 nades at your direction (which include flashbangs or vortex nades), ability to call air strikes / artillery that instantly kill you in a 25 meter radius, emp etc.

 

8) Enemies with more AOE weapons like the Penta.

 

9) Enemies that counter your spells or debuff them like stalker.

 

10) Enemies that can stop you from parrying by doing unblockable moves like a body slam

 

 

More edgy and hardcore pls !

Edited September 20, 2014 by fatpig84

[Imaru]

What should be implemented.

 

1) More knock downs.

 

2) More AOE attacks.

 

3) More attacks that drain energy / bypass shields / Ignore armor

 

4) Enemies that damage by % of your max health or shields. So it doesn't matter how much health or shields you got, if he deals 35% of your maximum hp per attack and drops you in a 3 round burst, your fault for not killing fast enough.

 

6) Stuns.

 

7) More varied enemy tactics which include tossing 20 nades at your direction, ability to call air strikes, artillery, emp etc.

 

8) Enemies with more AOE weapons like the Penta.

 

9) Enemies that counter your spells or debuff them like stalker.

 

10) Enemies that can stop you from parrying by doing unblockable moves like a body slam

 

 

More edgy and hardcore pls !

A lot of your ideas feel trolly, but a lot also don't. It is too late at night early in the morning to be thinking about this for me.

[fatpig84]

A lot of your ideas feel trolly, but a lot also don't. It is too late at night early in the morning to be thinking about this for me.

Don't worry.

Just take a nap and come back to it later XD

[Arabaxus]

Knockdowns and stuns are conditional. They're a good way to enforce a penalty on a player, but they should be 100% avoidable across the board.

 

Basically, we need a (skill based) way to dodge/block/get up fast

 

Agreed.

[Kthal]

Invulnerability phases in boss-fights is essentially how boss fights generally differ from normal encounters, while it can be done badly, DE (I find) typically do them reasonably well.

 

OHKs are only really going to happen lategame, and are not forced, or if you get hit by a bleed/toxic proc with a low health frame, but that is a different issue needing fixing.

 

The Mutalist Ospreys have been nerf-buff-nerf-buffed enough. At this point, the cloud lasts for a few seconds and will only do significant damage at very high levels. I don't pay too much attention to them as the clouds are visible enough to avoid.

 

Total loss of control... needs fixing. Tenno need some response aside from bandaid mods. An un-prompted QTE with the roll key (an ugly description) triggering a backflip would fit perfectly.

[BloodRhythm]

Many of your points have had situation when they were issues in Waframe but they have been quickly fixed. Nervos or napalms instakilling pods comes to mind. Currently though, the game has none of the mentioned.

 

Things that are not OK include stuns that completely inhibit movement, or massive screen blinding such as Alad V's flashbang thing.

Alad Vs "flashbang" is really short duration so it's not too bad and you can still move so if you were aware of your position before it happened, you can react accordingly.

 

 

2. Massive LINGERING AoEs

Now this one is admittedly more subjective and dependent on the nature of the game as is what is massive. Due to the free range of movement in Warframe, AoEs being unavoidable has rarely, if ever, been an issue. What I have had an issue with is large AoEs that linger, such as the Infested Ospreys. To me, the issue was not the AoE or the damage, it was the fact the duration of the AoE and the duration of the DoT effect compounded made it so you took too much damage over time.

As you yourself pointed out, this game has incredibly free movement so you always have a chance of getting away from AOEs so this isn't an issue unless they go absolutely overboard with it.

 

3. One Hit Kill Moves

This is self-explanatory, but mostly because there is no health-gate system to prevent OHKs from high health. These moves would be fine if we were not able to be killed in one hit if our health were say, above 80% or something, or even as simple as if we were at maximum health.

Only unavoidable OHK I can think of would be Phorids roar attack on higher levels but that is only if you haven't modded accordingly so it is completely avoidable.

 

 

4. Invulnerability Phases for Enemies/Bosses

In example, Sargus Ruk and Lephantis, who cannot take any damage unless their weak spots are exposed. This is more of a personal thing, but I just find such phases cheap and means of artificially elongating boss fights.

 If bosses don't have any gimmicks to them then it's just blind unloading of your gun to them and that's not very interesting. Only Lephantis seems to have bit of just waiting around. Other bosses have a way to provoke them out of their invulnerable phase or the phase is really short.  I'm all for making boss fights more interesting and by the looks of it, that's what DE is going for already so no issues here either.

 

 

Knockdowns and stuns are conditional. They're a good way to enforce a penalty on a player, but they should be 100% avoidable across the board.

 

Basically, we need a (skill based) way to dodge/block/get up fast

We already have all that except player controlled knockdown recovery.

[vaugahn]

We already have all that except player controlled knockdown recovery.

 

Not really. Unless you have your melee out you can't block fast enough to stop most knockdowns. Our dodges are super janky too, they need a rework.

 

Ideally I'd like the R key to be a quick block/shot, that lets us block when our primary/secondary is out and shoot our secondary when our melee is out. That would be adequate until the dodge rolls get fixed.

[Vastaren]

Alad Vs "flashbang" is really short duration so it's not too bad and you can still move so if you were aware of your position before it happened, you can react accordingly.

It's still an example of an unavoidable punishment on the player for doing nothing wrong. He'll periodically do one of these until you kill him, which I find is a really effective way to annoy a lot of people. It takes away player control, removes the ability to deal with threats, and ultimately is not my type of challenge.

 

Only unavoidable OHK I can think of would be Phorids roar attack on higher levels but that is only if you haven't modded accordingly so it is completely avoidable.

I'll have to disagree with the extent to which gearing is relied upon over ingame skill. OHKs from max health are never fun, especially since Phorid's darts are nigh-invisible on my screen. There are way better abilities Phorid can use to kill the player, and implying that gearing and modding should alleviate an OHK seems like an empty and unfulfilling solution.

[BloodRhythm]

I'll have to disagree with the extent to which gearing is relied upon over ingame skill. OHKs from max health are never fun, especially since Phorid's darts are nigh-invisible on my screen. There are way better abilities Phorid can use to kill the player, and implying that gearing and modding should alleviate an OHK seems like an empty and unfulfilling solution.

What I mean is that it's obviously a high level encounter and the player character should be high level too. It's a bit silly to assume you should be able to defeat everything as a lvl0.

Only other example is very long survival/defence/etc but those are just an extra challenge and kinda out of the regular balancing consideration.

[Vastaren]

What I mean is that it's obviously a high level encounter and the player character should be high level too. It's a bit silly to assume you should be able to defeat everything as a lvl0.

Not always - for example, the Jackal on Venus (who scales with conclave anyway!) has a ridiculous OHK both on high and low-level players. My point is that modding and gearing shouldn't be the sole determining factor on OHKs, but that doesn't necessarily preclude occasional OHKs for those with gear or mods not up to the standards in higher-level content. I don't expect to see MR2-4s in a Pluto Outbreak, much less prevent OHKs on their behalf, but I don't think we should encourage the mechanic in itself, not as a result of scaling, on the basis that gearing and modding should prevent it.

Edited September 20, 2014 by Vastaren

[BloodRhythm]

Not always - for example, the Jackal on Venus (who scales with conclave anyway!) has a ridiculous OHK both on high and low-level players. My point is that modding and gearing shouldn't be the sole determining factor on OHKs, but that doesn't necessarily preclude occasional OHKs for those with gear or mods not up to the standards in higher-level content. I don't expect to see MR2-4s in a Pluto Outbreak, much less prevent OHKs on their behalf, but I don't think we should encourage the mechanic in itself, not as a result of scaling, on the basis that gearing and modding should prevent it.

 

What OHK does Jackal have? Missiles and grenades both have very clear signals when they're coming and are easily avoidable.

 

What I'm hoping for is people to realize that all the moving, running, and jumping around in warframe is skill based dodging. Just because we don't have a dedicated "get out of trouble" button, doesn't mean there isn't skill based dodging. I'd argue it's more skill based since you are actually utilizing base game mechanics combined with the awareness of your enemies and surrounding to achieve that goal, rather than just pressing one button at a predetermined time.

[Vastaren]

What OHK does Jackal have? Missiles and grenades both have very clear signals when they're coming and are easily avoidable.

 

What I'm hoping for is people to realize that all the moving, running, and jumping around in warframe is skill based dodging. Just because we don't have a dedicated "get out of trouble" button, doesn't mean there isn't skill based dodging. I'd argue it's more skill based since you are actually utilizing base game mechanics combined with the awareness of your enemies and surrounding to achieve that goal, rather than just pressing one button at a predetermined time.

Jackal doesn't have an OHK, my mistake.

 

I'm agreeing with you here that moving, running, jumping around and overall mobility is a legitimate form of what we see an an umbrella term 'skill-based dodging'. I dislike the overreliance on P4TW (press-4-to-win) as a viable strategy for most, if not all missions and encounters. However, that won't change the fact that OHKs are an unfair mechanic to use, whatever options we may have. Gearing and modding shouldn't determine survival through one, and neither should telling people to use skill-based dodging deflect that fact either. OHKs are a bad idea because they are not proportionate to mistakes players make, are often done with no opportunity for feedback, and generally lead to an unpleasant experience.

[BloodRhythm]

Jackal doesn't have an OHK, my mistake.

 

I'm agreeing with you here that moving, running, jumping around and overall mobility is a legitimate form of what we see an an umbrella term 'skill-based dodging'. I dislike the overreliance on P4TW (press-4-to-win) as a viable strategy for most, if not all missions and encounters. However, that won't change the fact that OHKs are an unfair mechanic to use, whatever options we may have. Gearing and modding shouldn't determine survival through one, and neither should telling people to use skill-based dodging deflect that fact either. OHKs are a bad idea because they are not proportionate to mistakes players make, are often done with no opportunity for feedback, and generally lead to an unpleasant experience.

 I will agree that unavoidable OHKs are unfair and shouln't be in the game. There is however a difference between OHK and high level enemy doing lots of damage and your character simply being too low level to bear it.

It is a character building game too in the end and you will need a combination of both a reasonably powerful character and player skill. I see nothing wrong with that.

[Kthal]

On the note of Jackal, the one change needed is those pits at the edge of the room...

 

It is entirely possible to get hit by one shockwave, get knocked into a pit, respawn back on solid ground to recover at the exact moment the next shockwave hits you. Perpetual stunlock, while getting hit by rockets.

[Marthrym]

What I mean is that it's obviously a high level encounter and the player character should be high level too. It's a bit silly to assume you should be able to defeat everything as a lvl0.

There are no "high" level players. Our frames and most abilities (especially damage based) and weapons are limited. Rank 30 MAX. Enemies in endless missions aren't "limited". Frames, most abilities and most of the "older" weapons are balanced around the leveled content. That's why the risk of getting OHKO there is negligible. Because there actually is balance.

Endless missions are the biggest problem of warframe. They simply wreck balance. Enemies are not limited. Players still are. Devs feels forced to create gear that breaks balance with leveled content, and then people use that gear in leveled content. And then the whole "NERF X TOO OP!/ BUFF Y TOO WEAK!" shenanigans show up, and the devs struggle with a broken balance forever.

 

In most leveled missions, the stuns/knockdowns/fart clouds etc. are not too detrimental to our survival because most enemies still have "reasonable" stats, or rather, their stats are more in line with ours. They won't take half your shield with 3 hitscan projectiles.

But that's not the issue here. The issue is, we have 0 tools at our disposal to counter these. Band-aid mods are just that : band-aids. And they make players lazy to boot. Give the "power" back to the player. Not with dumbed down QTEs, but with real mechanics. Handspring shouldn't exist for instance, we're ninjas for Lotus' sake, not toddlers.^^'

 

Also, using extremes to support one's opinions might not be the best idea...^^'

Edited September 20, 2014 by Marthrym

[Othergrunty]

Did someone ever tell you the definition of insanity?

...

Joke aside.

People here are telling them about these cheap enemy gimicks for more than a year now and they not only keep throwing them in, they add more and call it an improvement, like the Prosecutors.

 

However you are wording your concerns well and any time this is brought up again it might convince a change in their development tactics. So good post.

 

Knockdowns and stuns are conditional. They're a good way to enforce a penalty on a player, but they should be 100% avoidable across the board.

 

Basically, we need a (skill based) way to dodge/block/get up fast

 

That's one of these things i wish they had started to work on a long time ago. Unavoidable or spammed knockdown has been an annoyance since the game went beta and it has become more and more common. It's one of the reasons why so many people just permanently run around with Rhino. I'm not against it, but leaving the players without and kind of controll or mechanic to overcome it (mods don't count) quicker makes it a bad system.

 

Scott recently said that he considered adding such a mechanic, but we have yet to hear if they haven't dropped the idea again.