Infested... Now Becoming The Bane Of Our Existence (De Plz)

[Aesthetic_Dialectic]

Honestly the enemies in the OP are fine IMO, it's the @(*()$ Parasitic Eximus that get me. Those things PASSIVELY DRAIN ENERGY SUPER FAST and take forever to die.

[Loswaith]

While I only agree with some of what the OP says, the core is that the infested are simply less fun to play against (fun being the point of the game). Whether they are cheesy, difficuilt or easy is simply all adding up to this less fun bracket.

 

Previously they were a faction you could slaughter whole hordes of during battle, sure they were mostly mindless but it was/is fun from the alternate approach of the battles with the grineer and corpus.  Their threat wasn't in an individual unit strength but in sheer numbers.  It's also part of what helped to make the Tenno feel powerful and an actual threat to the infestation as a whole.  A single Tenno could slaughter hundres of infested without breaking their stride, where members of the other factions were swarmed and consumed (hence a lot of infested with grineer/corpus features) trying to do the same thing.

 

 

The change to anchients just made them slightly weaker eximus on the whole, and less unique in my opinion.

On the grappling hook:  The grappling hook makes little sence for the anchients for the most part, ill explain as we go through the types.

 

Anchient Healers: The healers should be more about staying back and supporting the other infested units, they dont want threats in their face as their strength lies in enhancing and keeping alive the other infested about them.  They are in essence a more passive unit.  Personaly I like the damage reduction aura, though I think it is a bit to heavy on the amount taking into account stacking.  50% would be enough with the stacking, in that 2 would mean 75% and 3 would mean 87.5% damage reduction (close to the 90% but allows scalling with greater numbers).

Given healers show up more frequently at lower level missions the reduced DR actually means the infested that are more challenging for newer players almost to the point of going over the top.

 

Anchient Disruptors:  The disruptors are more the mid level agressor style of the anchients.  They only really want enemies closer so they can dssrupt them, so why even bother dragging them close to dissrupt them, when a longer reaching attack with say a scholasic type whip can sweap a target off its feat and/or potentially dissurpt them as well while leaving the dissruptor without an enemy right in threatening range.  This not only empowers the other infested (strengthing that swarm mentality) to attack the downed enemy, but keeps the dissruptor in a position to cause more chaos in the battle.

 

Toxic Anchients: The toxics are typically the most agressive in nature of the infested and these guys want their enemies close so the toxic cloud exuding from them can infect the target.  Thus the grappeling hook to drag enemies close makes a lot more sence for them to have.

 

This breaks the anchients into 3 distinct roles, each with different tactics making them more unique rather than just being an anchient with a slight variance.

 

Anchient Eximus:  Since the change the eximus have all but blended back into being just another slightly tougher anchient rather than an actually unique variety of anchient themselves.  Personally I bearly notice eximus from normal anchients anymore.  This is where they could be truely unique by taking some of the more powerful aspects of the current anchients but making them distinct from them.

For example the dissruptors aura, makes for a very good and unique feature in imparting other infested with energy damaging attacks, or the healers heavy damage reduction auras.

While these aspects with the typical anchient numbers are more annoying than fun (and have a tendancy to just be less special because of the frequency), they can be more interesting given the less frequent appearance of eximus while adding to making the threat of the eximus that much greater.  Thus making the infested swarm that much more dangerous while those eximus are alive.

 

 

On Toxic Dependance:

One of the key issues though is that infested rely heavily on mostly toxic damage when other damage types like corrosive could help them out as well.  A key issue is that the toxic damage for infested mostly behaves like a gas thus making the gas/toxin damage types much the same in principle for infested.

 

Enemies like the toxic crawlers could quickly inflate and then explode when killed thus giving a tell so those with melee have a chance to get away from area before getting consumed by the toxic gas cloud.

While the cloud left by the mutalists could be a corrosive shower they spray in their wake instead rather than another lingering toxic gas cloud effect.

 

 

At the end of the day a way to make infested more unique and fun is the better goal before making them (artificiially) more difficuilt.

Edited October 2, 2014 by Loswaith

[DPV111]

For me the most annoying is the eximus energy drain auras. I want to lose because the enemies are strong, not because of an emasculating mechanic like that.

[GinKenshin]

I almost chocked to death because of how hard LOLed reading this XD the 

though I agree with what you said, but there's a point why infested rule the DSs, because they're the HARD mod of this game

[ZeGreymane]

I'm pretty agree for toxic ancient how are abusively annoying whith that "fart", oneshotting my banshee at far range.

The range and the fact that we haven't got any visual clue of range or incoming fart don't help to counter.

We just can die and wait for a respawn... Not really fun....

 

Another problem is on Parasitic Eximus, how drain energie, even if you have kill all of them (just sometime, seems like a bug)...

In this case, the fact that we havn't any visual indication add to the annoying and uncounterable aspect of this eximus.

 

But for me the main problem is on volatile runner logic, I finally got use to clean vortex or pod area at melee to avoid explosive damage of volatile.

but just go to have a lazy nova only spamming m-prime to turn my guardian job on a nightmare.

Any player with explosive weapon how don't care of explosion of volatile will became for me the main problem.

Not really fun when allies turn in ennemies, damaging the pod and me by killing volatile I try to kill by melee.

 

Afterwards, I recently play high level dark sector with the objectif to kill my own mate (just a troll test), too easy with a penta+firestorm.

Each waves got a pack of volatile, wait to a mate be in this pack, detonate a nade, enjoy...

Works too well with saryn ultime etc etc etc...

 

Was it what you expect when you bbuff your volatile runner? Add some pvp in coop defense?

 

Perhaps put this type of damage a bit like self-damage + pod damage.

Never hurt other player when a michael bay come in a defense with against brained players how try to keep the pod safe from runners by playing at melee...

 

Ps , tl;dr; : In fact I'm pretty agree to had some difficulty against infested, I think the the hook or the fact that ancient buff the crown is pretty fine.

I'm more annoyed by difficulty you can't fight against because you can't see what happen.

And the difficulty due to mates how don't understand mecanism of the game shouldn't be an handicap for me (volatile runner vs michael bay's mates).

Edited October 2, 2014 by ZeGreymane

[Temfist]

[JDP04]

Recently doing DS survival melee only with saryn (molt+contagion build) and using random melee weapons. The main problem is crawler.. it's hard to hit with some weapon combos.

The flying toxic fart thingy can be easily kill with jumping slide attack.

But crawler.. if the weapon combos can't touch them, i must use the ground slam attack, exposing myself to ancient pulling.

Sorry for the bad english. :)

[Azawarau]

I literally went against infested for 30 minutes with an atterax that had only life strike,berserker,fury, and fever strike

 

I actually had a damage penalty and went 25ish minutes against them even in hoards without a death

 

I died just before we ran out of oxygen because of the terrible healing efficiency with the weapon against lvl 30 enemies

 

Infested are a joke

 

 

 

Recently doing DS survival melee only with saryn (molt+contagion build) and using random melee weapons. The main problem is crawler.. it's hard to hit with some weapon combos.
The flying toxic fart thingy can be easily kill with jumping slide attack.
But crawler.. if the weapon combos can't touch them, i must use the ground slam attack, exposing myself to ancient pulling.
Sorry for the bad english. :)

Your english is fine

 

Dont worry about it too much

Edited October 3, 2014 by Azawarau

[low1991]

to OP:

community complain that infested are weak, and DE heard our plead and buff them...

and now community is QQ about how OP is it... 

 

on-topic: toxic/gas damage by infested should remain fixed... not scale to level...

[Azawarau]

to OP:

community complain that infested are weak, and DE heard our plead and buff them...

and now community is QQ about how OP is it... 

 

on-topic: toxic/gas damage by infested should remain fixed... not scale to level...

Youre confusing two entirely different groups of people

 

And fixed damage means theyre weak again

[noveltyhero]

good god man

 

the infested have been the faceroll faction ever since the toxic/charger/runner nerfs back pre U-10

 

they are just now beginning to have a hint of difficultly and of course the QQ-brigade hits the forums in full force asking for the indisputedly weakest faction to once again get nerfed into carebear-status

 

srsly?

 

come on dude, plz no

 

ill give u that more telegraphing of actions/attacks would not be a bad thing, and me personally, i think the infested ospreys make little sense (why dont they have a stinger/acrid-type weapon firing from that spiky end? why dont they just leave a lingering cloud in the path they travel... slowly? why does their artistic design/model reflect nothing about how they function ingame?)

 

but everything else? nah man, leave the infested dangerous

 

Warframe needs MORE dangerous enemies, not less

 

toxic dmg that bad? use a toxic resist mod (yes these need buffs ill give u that), melee = suicide? use life strike (yes channeling is expensive energy-wise and a lame mechanic, i want melee 3.0, bring back charge attacks as well as combos and channeling)

 

KEEP THE INFESTED DANGEROUS 2014!!!

I've said this before and I will say it again, any action that instantly kills the player (or comes close to it) without a visual/audio cue has no learning curve. No learning curve means that you cannot learn from your mistakes and therefore there is no skill based combat there just cheap tricks to kill the player.

 

Let's take the farts for example, right now it is unfair because regardless of how skilled you are you have no idea when it will come so it is silent but deadly (gigidy). However if the ancient was charging up visually to release that cloud (even if it was bigger) then players could learn from it, they will know in the future "ok he is charging up I better get away or kill him now".

 

Doesn't matter if you can 1 hit kill everything or not...that is a different balancing point all together and should not limit the game into a skilless combat system and environment

[Azawarau]

I've said this before and I will say it again, any action that instantly kills the player (or comes close to it) without a visual/audio cue has no learning curve. No learning curve means that you cannot learn from your mistakes and therefore there is no skill based combat there just cheap tricks to kill the player.

 

Let's take the farts for example, right now it is unfair because regardless of how skilled you are you have no idea when it will come so it is silent but deadly (gigidy). However if the ancient was charging up visually to release that cloud (even if it was bigger) then players could learn from it, they will know in the future "ok he is charging up I better get away or kill him now".

 

Doesn't matter if you can 1 hit kill everything or not...that is a different balancing point all together and should not limit the game into a skilless combat system and environment

Both you can see coming and avpid

 

When an ancient sees you the first thing theyll do is almost always hook

[Loveshack]

The truth is, Warframe in general is nearly impossible for n00bs, while at the same time being mind-numbingly easy for hardcores.

It has a steep learning/grind curve which plateaus off relatively quickly.

The disadvantage of this is that is scares away new players and floods the forums with misleading threads about certain things being impossible or unbalanced.  At the same time it lacks draw for long-time players looking for more challenging game play.

The advantage of this is that once you know what you are doing, you can get your mods near maxed and a couple forma in your favorite pieces of gear and rock out on nearly any mission in the game - surmounting the initial difficulty is relatively fast, easy and rewarding (unlike traditional MMOs which have a super long grind-to-the-top model).
 

So I'd consider these factors carefully before complaining.

[fatpig84]

People scream infested, I show them Oberon.

No auras (thanks to guranteed radiation procs), no knockdowns + 90% of infested procs negated completely (hallowed ground), getting fully healed remove all negative effects etc

 

They are just as face roll as ever, if you bother to play Oberon.

And you can still keep your gotta go fast Novas and Boobens.

 

Just someone gotta do Broberon duty.

Edited October 3, 2014 by fatpig84

[Brimir]

People scream infested, I show them Oberon.

No auras (thanks to guranteed radiation procs), no knockdowns + 90% of infested procs negated completely (hallowed ground), getting fully healed remove all negative effects etc

 

They are just as face roll as ever, if you bother to play Oberon.

And you can still keep your gotta go fast Novas and Boobens.

 

Just someone gotta do Broberon duty.

 

The key to the "new" Infested in general is the ability to restore Health due to all the Poison.

 

Something like an unranked Life Strike on your melee weapon goes a long way.

[fatpig84]

The key to the "new" Infested in general is the ability to restore Health due to all the Poison.

 

Something like an unranked Life Strike on your melee weapon goes a long way.

 

Honestly people have more issues getting pulled and dogpile on or multiple healer auras stacking and making killing stuff impossible.

Oberon has abilities to make those infested ancients look stupid.

[(XBOX)Skode]

I will let everyone else argue over this, all i can say is in my own humble opinion the Infested are fine. In fact they are my fave rivals - though perhaps thats because i love playing Vauban, Volt and Oberon who have a field day of joy with infested enemies.

 

Only thing about them that ever gets my goat is defense missions against them with the overabundance of unavoidable energy drain that you literally cant do anything about. If you wanna run long defense missions you need the whole need to be prepared - prepared for being swamped by swathes aura'd enemies and no energy to counter them all which is kinda awesome and fun though others rage at it, any passengers on board and your way outta luck.

[ReneClaw]

I think the grapple ability of ancient lacks a sound cue.

 

I would love to know that ancients are about to do a grapple attempt from a sound effect like a whip about to snap. There are many times where I am focused to one location only to get grabbed from my side (you are punished because you didn't look slightly to the left or right).  So I think ancients should have a wind up moment, and then grapple, so during the wind up, the player would HEAR the grapple coming, so the player would think, "Oh crap, I gotta move!"

 

(Oh! this will make them too easy!) Remember, not everyone has the same reaction time, so having a second long tell will help them, meaning they have little excuse to be hit by it, unless the internet is crapping out then you have an excuse.

 

Take left 4 dead's hunter for example, hear a scream from above, react accordingly.

[Azawarau]

The key to the "new" Infested in general is the ability to restore Health due to all the Poison.

 

Something like an unranked Life Strike on your melee weapon goes a long way.

Or you know....

 

Stand on a box?

[_Fracture8]

I literally went against infested for 30 minutes with an atterax that had only life strike,berserker,fury, and fever strike

 

I actually had a damage penalty and went 25ish minutes against them even in hoards without a death

 

I died just before we ran out of oxygen because of the terrible healing efficiency with the weapon against lvl 30 enemies

 

Infested are a joke

 

To require a life strike mod to survive kinda makes your build invalid for this arguement, try doing one without life strike. It's like having a big middle finger raised to anyone without it.

 

EDIT: In fact, any faction that has a "requirement item" to survive anything longer than 15 min or 15 waves is constrictive imo, and shouldn't be happening in the game. It should be a matter of who is more experienced and not who has the better gear.

Edited October 4, 2014 by KilelrDrone492

[_Fracture8]

Edited the original post, some of you may want to read it (at the very bottom, underlined)

[vaugahn]

Just a tip, sarcasm clouds feedback and makes it very hard to tell what's real feedback and what's a joke. Personally, I'd suggest leaving it out. 

 

Anyways, on to the actual issue at hand.

 

The only two things right now that are out of line difficulty-wise for the infested are the sniper grapples and the stacking auras. For obvious reasons I don't think I have to explain why. The grapple range and frequency should both be cut by half, at the very least. Rolling should also free us from the grapple, to prevent being totally helpless for the duration of the drag. The auras should only be able to stack once over, and  should not stack with other auras. 

 

Everything else is fine. If anything, the other units could do with being a little more dangerous; they're still the faceroll faction even with the new ancients. Ospreys in particular have lost their edge, only after they've scaled way up do the clouds present any sort of meaningful threat. 

[DrFail]

I think the grapple ability of ancient lacks a sound cue.

 

I would love to know that ancients are about to do a grapple attempt from a sound effect like a whip about to snap. There are many times where I am focused to one location only to get grabbed from my side (you are punished because you didn't look slightly to the left or right).  So I think ancients should have a wind up moment, and then grapple, so during the wind up, the player would HEAR the grapple coming, so the player would think, "Oh crap, I gotta move!"

 

(Oh! this will make them too easy!) Remember, not everyone has the same reaction time, so having a second long tell will help them, meaning they have little excuse to be hit by it, unless the internet is crapping out then you have an excuse.

 

Take left 4 dead's hunter for example, hear a scream from above, react accordingly.

 

I support this more than you could ever believe. This would do so much. Adding a very notable sound cue would work wonders for helping people recognize and react and would help please those who claim they infested grapple ability is unfair. The implementation of a good and decently noticeable sound cue is actually a suggestion I've wanted to put out on the forums several times but have always chickened out on doing so due to the attitude some people can have about the issue.

 

I mean, look at some of the various knockdowns in the game. Bombards missiles make an obvious noise. Heavies make an obvious noise and have a heavy windup. Shockwave Moas have to get in your face and have that really long wind up motion. Heck, stepping out of knockdowns, even the infested drones seem to have tells in that they screech and pull back  a bit before charging forward. Super obvious. Super recognizable. If you don't get out of the way it's probably not because you didn't know to try. It's certainly not because your screen was a bit too far to the left when one rounded the corner as often seems to be the case for many forumers with the infested grapples.

Edited October 4, 2014 by DrFail

[HAYABU5A]

asks for infested to more challenging and versatile, when they were easy to play against

 

complains infested are too hard to play against, after DE invests time and effort to make them more challenging 

 

 

this community is hilarious sometimes

[ArgonTheFox]

I think they're all fine, except the Toxic Ancients. a mob shouldn't be able to one-shot tank frames like Zephyr and Rhino without warning. I think the Toxic Ancient attack is 100% crit chance as well. I only see yellow numbers come off of it.