"scary Levels"

[Sass_Queen_Neo]

If there is one thing I love about this game is the atmosphere of infested levels. They are so creepy and eerie. I want there to be an infested planet. Everything mutated and moving, pitch black, only light source is your flashlight and the moon(s, if there are any). We need more types of infested, they are my favorite looking faction and you could do so much more with them than you can with the borgs and cybermen. (Though I love them too. Copus significantly less so... Stupid lasers.)

 

Also

 

I envision a small probability scenario where it's seemingly your everyday Grineer or Corpus Capture mission, then the Lights flicker in and out before blowing. As the flashlight turns on, you continue through the level, killing a corpus here and there, and then you see them start to flicker between another more sinister form. For you see, it's the ship itself. It laid a trap for you and your brethren. It lured you here in order to consume you.

 

What would be freakier is if there were a player with Enemy Radar, as this event/realisation occurred, enemies started appearing everywhere on the radar. I'm talking, 40 or 50 red dots moving around the players. If there were enemies with wall/floor hiding abilities, the effect would be absolutely TERRIFYING. Especially if there were a creepy ambience that occurred once the shape shifting took place.

 

I love this. DE pls.

[HvcTerr]

If you want creepy, add sections that force players to split up to open successive doors, move platforms, etc.

[Firetempest]

Darkness and new baddies are only momentarily scary. Then you remember you have the firepower of a small nation with super powers.

Scariness is taking away your power. Just like Ice missions make you more cautious because your shields suck.

Being scared is not always POP OUT BOO! creatures either, but seeing something you know you cant stop.

 

This would be perfect for a secondary mission objective: Survive.

After completing the main objective, one of the large rooms can activate this mission.

Lotus: "I detect something ahead... this is wrong... im lo..s.i.. tact"

All the doors in the room lock. The lights flicker and spark, A howling rummble is heard. The red locked door across the room starts getting hammered from the opposite side. A massive plated infected breaks into the room.

As you ditch it getting though the door it ripped open, it will randomly break into any future room your in.

Its invicible and will just wreck the place and destroy all the lights in its wake.

To allow some mistakes and not make it instant death, an attack on a weak point can stumble it and slow it down. Yet every time you use that, it becomes more resilient to it tell you cant stop it at all.

Edited April 25, 2013 by Firetempest

[Argoms]

The thing about invincible enemies is that warframes are basically minor gods, how do you make something that genuinely seems more powerful instead of just being cheesy? I think it's a given that we CAN kill absolutely everything. Make us not want to, maybe? Have an enemy where if you kill it, two more take its place? The only kind of enemy that would be reasonably unkillable is some kind of blob monster. 

 

Unfortunately, sentient jelly is not scary.

[HvcTerr]

Unfortunately, sentient jelly is not scary.

 

Did you ever watch The Blob? Having something shoot out of the drain in your sink and begin grabbing/digesting your head is pretty disturbing to me.

Edited April 25, 2013 by HvcTerr

[Carcharias]

Some of the infested missions are already dark enough to make my eyes hurt with all the flashing of the gunfire. Bottom line is this game was not born as a horror game and to simply attempt to make horror or "scary" levels would be a design folly. It's not that simple to set up a good scare, not to mention that these levels seem to be randomly generated of the same pieces. So it might scare you the first time, but by the tenth or one hundredth time whatever the effect was would simply become boring / annoying. At this point it is a really really bad idea to try to push in other genres. This game has a pretty unique feel and a good flow, why would you want to mess that up? Go to penny arcade .com or youtube and look up the Extra Creditz episode on mashing up genres, they explain it really well, and they also explain why it doesn't work.

[Ditsydoo]

The thing about invincible enemies is that warframes are basically minor gods, how do you make something that genuinely seems more powerful instead of just being cheesy? I think it's a given that we CAN kill absolutely everything. Make us not want to, maybe? Have an enemy where if you kill it, two more take its place? The only kind of enemy that would be reasonably unkillable is some kind of blob monster. 

 

Unfortunately, sentient jelly is not scary.

Oh it can be if used correctly, An enemy if attacked would multiply to an insane number and your best choice would be to flee or kill them all in an aoe attack. Sentient jelly that remakes itself and chases ya across the map can be scary.

[Argoms]

I mean it'd be tense, but not what I consider "scary". Still fun and a good idea to add though ^^

[FierceRadiance]

...(Y)ou are not prepared.....maybe - you're not even in your warframe?

Wow, GREAT idea! 

 

Maybe the guns could be too heavy/unweildy/whatever to take with you, and you'd have to reply strictly on your melee weapon.  Make up some reason why there is maybe one section of a small number of missions where your Warframe doesn't/won't/can't function, and you have to run around for a brief time like Naked Nick or Naked Nicki.  Lots of stealth opportunities.  The level wouldn't necessarily have to be any scarier than usual, you'd just be HUGELY more vulnerable.  Imagine the screen slowly fading through red to black as you become 'infested', or how a single clip from a Grineer you normally take down without a thought now spreads your innards across the floor....  You look down at yourself, and suddenly--like Darth Maul, you're no longer in one piece!  Yikes.

 

Great gameplay possibilities.

[mach_seven]

they should get more creative with the infected make a infected warframe and suspense freaks people out more than a randome hourd of infected

[Argoms]

they should get more creative with the infected make a infected warframe and suspense freaks people out more than a randome hourd of infected

An enemy warframe that say, stalks you sounds like a terrible idea, and would never make it into this game.

 

More seriously, you can't freak out people with a scripted event more than once. 

[Mewtiger]

There were times where a stalker spawn in a higher level infected missions chilled me.

 

It was already dark and the lights started to flicker, I got this nice feeling of "oh S#&$".

 

I support a fleshier tileset for infected to sync with this, plus I loved the idea of stationary wall-tentacles and room displacement traps.

 

Also the idea for a ship-sized, hull-compromising supermonster is badass.

 

 

P.S. I really wish hull penetration had a suction effect, and when the mission ended or in certain scenarios enemies could get sucked into space. :p

[Argoms]

Another annoying thing is that tension can be created by feeling like there's a risk. Yet every time there's any actual risk, people whine about it on the forums. I remember that the tensest time for me was when I found some rare drops at a boss fight and had run out of ammo, having to fight/run all the way back with (very, very badly upgraded) melees. That was satisfying to play, and actually surprisingly tense because I felt like I would actually lose something if I failed...

[HvcTerr]

Another annoying thing is that tension can be created by feeling like there's a risk. Yet every time there's any actual risk, people whine about it on the forums. 

 

Partly because this isn't a Survival Horror game, it's a "If you were an awesome cyberninja" game.

[Azure_Kytia]

But even Awesome Cyberninjas know S#&$ hits the fan every now and then.

[ManiacManny]

Just add in a guaranteed Stalker in every run! >:)

[Lactamid]

Just add in a guaranteed Stalker in every run! >:)

If the stalker-frame can be built in foundry this might come true anyway ;P

[ObsidianSky]

Darkness, ok. Tentacles, KAWAIIII. Disgusting organic growth on walls and ceiling, ok.

 

But please don't include spideresque mobs into the game. (Severe) arachnophobia is affecting more people than you know. 

 

I for one wouldn't be able to play any missions containing these kinda mobs because my girlfriend would split my head with an axe if I play something with spiders in it. 

[Lactamid]

Updated the initial post. Tried to sum it up.

[Lactamid]

Darkness, ok. Tentacles, KAWAIIII. Disgusting organic growth on walls and ceiling, ok.

 

But please don't include spideresque mobs into the game. (Severe) arachnophobia is affecting more people than you know. 

 

I for one wouldn't be able to play any missions containing these kinda mobs because my girlfriend would split my head with an axe if I play something with spiders in it. 

SWARMS of spiders that crawl into your ears, builds nests (and sings itsy bitsy spider to you when you're about to sleep...also makes breakfast in the morning, totally good guys)

[Argoms]

SWARMS of spiders that crawl into your ears, builds nests (and sings itsy bitsy spider to you when you're about to sleep...also makes breakfast in the morning, totally good guys)

Didn't you hear a word he just said? Clearly they have to be maggots or leeches.

[Lactamid]

but they were friendly happy go lucky spiders...on rollerskates :(

Edited April 26, 2013 by Lactamid

[Redward]

I'd like a map with an ancient ruin atmosphere, or even castle ruins on Earth realm (like Clive Barker's Jericho or Amnesia: indoors, dark, twisted). How about zombies, if any of them melee attack you and you get infected, then you only have limited time to get to extraction point for cure (reviving fallen comrade would be disabled)?

[Lactamid]

I'd like a map with an ancient ruin atmosphere, or even castle ruins on Earth realm (like Clive Barker's Jericho or Amnesia: indoors, dark, twisted). How about zombies, if any of them melee attack you and you get infected, then you only have limited time to get to extraction point for cure (reviving fallen comrade would be disabled)?

Although I can't say when this is supposed to take place, others have said "some 5000 years in the future", going back to Earth to explore some "castle ruin" with zombies might not quite be the optimal style.

Possibly some ruined city, or abondoned place would be more likely. Infested are pretty much zombies anyway.

 

I'm with you on the twisted part however - updating it a bit from "ye olde" could possibly involve some Grineer reseach/ cloning/biomechanic-plant/lab. There we could find alot of "experiments" that well...hadn't had the best of luck.

 

This could be a spy/lore mission or a sabotage one. Infested could be taking over it and with the large biomass inside it would be very dangerous for us if we let them succeed.

 

On the "getting infected part" there could perhaps be missions that had you crash on the planet only to find yourself without a functioning anti-infestation agent on your warframe. (or you're not in the warframe - thus not protected).

[RabidBunny]

Whilst i'd like to see this, it would have to be done well. I don't think ceiling tentacles and unkillable enemies really suits this game. Perhaps if it was done similar to the mission changes where you'd be doing a mission, then Lotus would chip in saying she is losing contact with you before her voice crackles with static and goes off. The lights go out and a waypoint marker appears on the map, which is flickering (similar to being hit by a Disruptor Ancient). You'd have to throw in some intense ambushes of enemies followed by a few minutes of nothing but half heard noises and the odd glimmer of something moving whilst any Radar reports alot of enemies followed by nothing.