Mj12 Rebuilds: The Infested

[MJ12]

I said in the last "Infested are aggravatingly unfun to fight" thread (there's tons of them) that I would post a rebuild sketch for the Infested, taking inspiration more from Xenomorphs, the Zerg, and the DarkSector Technocyte enemies than the standard space zombie thing. This is it.

 

Basic Enemies-the Infested's basic enemies are generally swarm attackers. What they do is very simple. They aren't actually much of a threat. They're either slow, fragile, weak, or all of the above. But they bog you down. They force you to expend ammo. They screen the more dangerous Infested by getting your attention.

 

You are never going to die to Infested basic enemies, unlike Grineer or Corpus, unless you screw up something fierce. Thing is, you're not meant to. That's not where their threat comes from.

 

Infested Thrall (Corpus/Grineer)-Your normal humanoid space zombie. Takes a fair bit of shooting (relatively high HP for a mook) but does low damage and the only threat it provides is if you get surrounded and can't get anywhere.  Grineer variants keep their heavy armor, which means they're way tougher, but only move at a walk. Corpus variants run at you, like old-style Chargers.

 

Infested Suicide Thrall-Runners except not. If they blow up, they deal some damage, surround the area with angry Infested space-wasps which slow you down and slowly deal damage. Toxic Thralls are suicide thralls which blow up into clouds of HP-draining gas instead.

 

Infested Slinger-Basic ranged Infested, throws space-bee hives which do the same thing as Suicide Thrall explosions on a smaller scale. Does minimal damage but slows you down to get eaten.

 

Infested Charger-Spaaaace dogs. Two basic attacks-a high damage one which requires windup (their charge), and weak claw attacks. If you dodge the charge and they hit a wall they get stunned themselves. Their charge can stagger you, making them the only basic enemy with a stun-note that as it's a windup attack it's telegraphed and avoidable.

 

Infested Ambushers-Crawlers aren't slow armored enemies. They're fast fragile enemies with high damage (for mooks) that leap great distances, crawl on walls, and move very fast. They have a Suicide Ambusher variant which has all the fun of being jumped on and having your face clawed off, combined with a delicious explosive taste if you kill them.

 

Advanced Enemies-Advanced enemies will spawn less often (like Shockwave Moas to regular Moas) but are what the Infested actually use to kill you. The basic enemies are just there to pin you in place and make you bleed. These advanced enemies rip your throat out.

 

Infested Hunter-Take a Loki with a Strun. Make him fight you. Infested Hunters are fast, agile attackers with all the movement capabilities of Ambushers, more health, and not only do they have a ranged attack, they cloak. Yes, you heard me right. They can go semi-invisible. They obviously wouldn't be immune to bullets while invisible (that'd be OP) but they're cloaky attackers with melee and ranged attacks. Their ranged attack would be a close range 'shotgun' blast or the ability to shoot long-range javelins which slow down an enemy which gets hit and impaled.

 

Infested Poisoner-Big Infested that throws AoE denial poison grenades. Weak close-range attacks.

 

Infested Spawner-Big Infested which occasionally births lesser Infested. Weak close-range attacks, high HP.

 

Infested Bulwark-Bulwarks are advanced support enemies. What do they do? They project shields in front of them, a la Hayden Tenno's power. These shields deflect incoming gunfire, allowing Infested hordes to close into melee. Of course, if cornered they don't have any real damaging attacks and are easy prey. But of course if you get close to them by default you're inside the giant horde of Infested they're supporting.

 

Elite Enemies-Elite enemies spawn in ones and maybe twos in higher difficulties and are closer to minibosses than anything else.

 

Infested Brute-Brutes are big huge hulking slabs of muscle and technocyte armor. They pound you with fists, charge up knockdown shockwaves (like the Shockwave Moa), or charge you (like Ancients do now). Coated in thick metallic carapace on the front, it's best to deal with them by shooting them from behind. Or you can do it the slow way and shoot off the armor. Without their armor, they aren't all that tough. Well, comparatively. They're still minibosses.

 

Infested Ancient-You thought the Healer was bad? Or the Disruptor? Or the Toxic? How about having all of those powers combined? I thought the dismemberment system was awesome, so my thought on the Ancient was that it probably should have the powers of every Infested variant, except as you target limbs they lose those powers. So they have the shotgun-type attack of the Hunter, a charge, heal friendlies, possess the ability to throw toxic gas clouds or drop toxic clouds at their feet, a tentacle arm that can stagger/knockdown/pull you, and the ability to turn your shields off and keep you from using abilities (but not drain your energy), and a ton of health. Of course, you can just shoot off the abilities you don't want them to use. If you target, say, their energy-draining arm and shoot it off, they can no longer drop your shields to 0 or prevent you from using abilities. If you shoot off their toxin producing gland, they can't make toxic clouds anymore. If you blow off their big fat foot, they can't charge. Etc etc. You pick what abilities they lose as they take damage... or you can target their weakpoint (presumably the head or some kind of exposed organ) and try to kill them as fast as possible.

 

The basic thoughts are:

 

1. Some ranged attacks, which are exclusively in support of the melee orientation of the Infested (as opposed to Grineer/Corpus, where their melee fighters are support units to their ranged combatants)

 

2. Minimize loss of agency. If enemies throw debuffs at you, they shouldn't keep you from doing things.

 

3. Add variety to the Infested as well as true 'heavy' units.

 

I do hope this thread gives some food for thought to DE as well as everyone on this forum.

Edited April 27, 2013 by MJ12

[Ferriwind]

I think there should be development for every faction.

 

For Corpus, it's obvious. They just build stuff.

 

For Grineer, they should eventually solve the cloning problem.

 

For Infested, although the Orokin did create the J9-Golem and engineered the technocyte virus, it could/should be that they created the virus through engineering with a sample of unknown material that they found randomly in space. From here, there should arise a more clean, intelligent organic faction than the Infested but this race would still have connections to the infested being their origin.

 

As a Pve oriented game, I would like to be more immerse in the story. It should be as complex as Starcraft's story. Even a pvp game, LoL, has a complex story with a general story and background stories for every character.

Edited April 27, 2013 by Stygi

[KageNoShini]

sounds cool, +1

[Ferriwind]

I love your idea for infested hunters and ancients. :o They would be so fun to fight.

[Story4]

I also formulated some ideas about diversifying infested: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/35465-some-infestation-ideeas/ .

[CrimsonSpectre]

Nice ideas. Infested in their current state are just a chore to fight, and your proposals could make them a full-blown faction, not just a stunlocking swarm. I really hope the devs read this thread and get mobilized enough to do something constructive about their game.

[Aerensiniac]

 

So without drowning the thread in an another flame apocalipse, i still would like some sort of reasoning or logic as to why infested has been picked on as "not fun".

It has been implied that its because they are either too strong or too weak (depending on the situation), which is a perfectly understandable argument, except for the fact that grineer and corpus in comparison are flat out static. Every each of the grineer and corpus enemies uses the same tactic: Slow down, aim at head, its dead.

You can pimp this up by going melee and/or using short/extra long range weapons, but the concept remains the same: They are camping and shooting at you, you are camping and shooting at them.

In comparison, infested are the very definition of diverse cause they wont let you camp shot. The minimum you need to do is to run from them or search for a position to which they cant get. In case you want to play it even higher and melee them, you are forced to learn side stepping and prioritizing targets to prevent a stun lock (which i might add is entirely possible).

 

The other reason i have heard is not exactly clear, but relates somehow to being insta-killed by infested and how its not fun to face off against overwhelming odds.

I donno about that since i am perfectly well able to adapt to the situation and avoid getting killed (not to mention insta killed) and i also disagree with the notion of having no fun just because you are not allowed to make as many mistakes as against grineer or corpus, where you can stand in crossfires for whole seconds, nothing will happen to you.

Fun in regards of infested can be easily had exactly by learning to avoid them, to dodge, to have situational awareness, to strategize quickly.

 

So everything being said: i dont get it.

Corpus and grineer are still 10 times as tedious to fight as infested, since they are the factions against which you can use 1 single tactic and not give a damn.

Compared to the two, infested are as colorful and diverse as a frikin rainbow.

[Alienami]

I like the OP's ideas... but I think they are too many changes for the devs to realistically consider, and a bit unneeded.

This is quickly written so forgive me.


They main issues with Infested are:

1) Ancients... F@$% them, total re-design.
2) Runners aka Bombers... I've never died to one or been hurt by one that I can recall, their only threat to me is the painfully ANNOYING stagger spam.

3) Leapers... don't do much damage

4) Crawlers... totally laughable, you have to be silly to get spit on by them.

Proposals:
1) Replace ancients mechanics with a Brute. Same model and health and armor, new AI and abilities. Less of them spawn, but high threat enemy; high damage, maybe an AoE knockdown like Moa Stompers, fast shockwave, but telegraphed and avoidable. Basically closer to a melee version of the Heavy Grenier (though the Heavy Grenier AoE knockdown is not avoidable and I dislike that)

2) Runners aka Bombers, make less of them so the stagger spam is gone, and make them do a lot more damage and maybe a screen distortion/blind and audio distortion/deafen (like when you get hit by an explosion or flashbang in FPS games like CS:S and BF3, etc..)

3) Leapers... Add more of them (less Runners and Ancients, need something to fill gap), buff their run and attack speed / damage, add more of them to the mix. Their leap should be less used or turned into a speed charge or berzerk or something. Excessive crowd control is why many people hate them and doesn't make them much harder. Whatever it takes to make them a threat when you get surrounded.

4) Remove ground Crawlers. I think a new enemy type that can crawl on walls is needed instead, somewhat rare, but can do something like shoot a venom at you that slows you down like Frost mods do to enemies.

Or instead of that, keep Crawlers, but make them faster and a stealthy enemy that can grab your leg. (like Clots/basic enemies in Killing Floor)

[MJ12]

 

 

 

So without drowning the thread in an another flame apocalipse, i still would like some sort of reasoning or logic as to why infested has been picked on as "not fun".

It has been implied that its because they are either too strong or too weak (depending on the situation), which is a perfectly understandable argument, except for the fact that grineer and corpus in comparison are flat out static. Every each of the grineer and corpus enemies uses the same tactic: Slow down, aim at head, its dead.

You can pimp this up by going melee and/or using short/extra long range weapons, but the concept remains the same: They are camping and shooting at you, you are camping and shooting at them.

In comparison, infested are the very definition of diverse cause they wont let you camp shot. The minimum you need to do is to run from them or search for a position to which they cant get. In case you want to play it even higher and melee them, you are forced to learn side stepping and prioritizing targets to prevent a stun lock (which i might add is entirely possible).

 

The other reason i have heard is not exactly clear, but relates somehow to being insta-killed by infested and how its not fun to face off against overwhelming odds.

I donno about that since i am perfectly well able to adapt to the situation and avoid getting killed (not to mention insta killed) and i also disagree with the notion of having no fun just because you are not allowed to make as many mistakes as against grineer or corpus, where you can stand in crossfires for whole seconds, nothing will happen to you.

Fun in regards of infested can be easily had exactly by learning to avoid them, to dodge, to have situational awareness, to strategize quickly.

 

So everything being said: i dont get it.

Corpus and grineer are still 10 times as tedious to fight as infested, since they are the factions against which you can use 1 single tactic and not give a damn.

Compared to the two, infested are as colorful and diverse as a frikin rainbow.

 

Again, you're being incredibly dishonest by boiling down Grineer and Corpus as "You shoot them they fall over and die while they shoot you" and refusing to boil down the Infested to "They melee you, you shoot them they fall over and die". If you're going to oversimplify things at least have the honesty to do the same for both sides?

 

Also, how is "loss of agency is not fun no matter how easy the faction is" not clear? The Infested are easy. I have no trouble against them. I have not had trouble against them ever since they removed Chargers' ability to instantly turn around and auto-stun you. They still aren't fun because if I make a mistake I don't lose health. I get stunlocked, staggerlocked, taken out of playing the game, whatever you want to call it. "Avoiding them" doesn't make it fun.

 

I hold no expectations that you'll do anything but strawman this and be a prat, probably claim "well clearly by your logic no enemy should EVER be able to punish you for your mistakes", but hey, miracles happen.

[Exhack]

I hate to be snide, Aerensiniac, but if you aren't even going to debate a person's points why even bother? You have literally done nothing but chase MJ12 from topic to topic claiming you don't understand his points and making broad, oversimplified assumptions about evert point. You're doing nothing more than wasting the time of other posters on the forums by making them have to scroll a little further down to see real replies to his ideas.

 

That said, I do have some reservations about the Infested Ancients having literally every power at once. I'd almost want to instead suggest proceedurally generated mish-mash monsters cobbled together with maybe 2-3 powers at once, that can still be hit by tactical dismemberment.

 

Actually, I'd love the idea of tactical dismemberment on the infested in general, even if it only has the effect of slowing enemies down slightly. So you'd chop the legs off a heavy grineer thrall and he'd continue dragging towards you, march as inexorable as death itself. While faster corprus thralls would thrash, flail and scramble towards you even after losing one and a half legs, arms practically bursting as they struggle.

 

It lends an appreciable viciousness to the Infested.

 

Like the rebuild overall. It'd be much more fun to play against, even if the idea isn't perfect.

[Aerensiniac]

Again, you're being incredibly dishonest by boiling down Grineer and Corpus as "You shoot them they fall over and die while they shoot you" and refusing to boil down the Infested to "They melee you, you shoot them they fall over and die". If you're going to oversimplify things at least have the honesty to do the same for both sides?

 

Also, how is "loss of agency is not fun no matter how easy the faction is" not clear? The Infested are easy. I have no trouble against them. I have not had trouble against them ever since they removed Chargers' ability to instantly turn around and auto-stun you. They still aren't fun because if I make a mistake I don't lose health. I get stunlocked, staggerlocked, taken out of playing the game, whatever you want to call it. "Avoiding them" doesn't make it fun.

 

I hold no expectations that you'll do anything but strawman this and be a prat, probably claim "well clearly by your logic no enemy should EVER be able to punish you for your mistakes", but hey, miracles happen.

 

The issue is MJ that you are not looking for a common denominator, nor what the opposition is thinking.

To you loss of agency is not fun, to me its fun cause im having fun by avoiding getting hit and unlike vs grineer and corpus here my messing up has consequences.

Not lethal ones as you like to imply cause most of the time you have more than enough control to jump out of a swarm, but still challenging ones, and you are telling me that im dishonest by summing up corpus and grineer as camping fest.

How?

This is the main question here.

 

Its all fine and dandy that you state that im dishonest and that you disagree with me, but this would be the part where you also line up arguments as to why this is so.

Oversimplified? Maybe.

Exaggeration? Hardly.

Grineer and corpus is nothing but a camp fest, and on less difficult maps, not even that cause you wont even stop to kill or aim, just *bang* and your target drops dead where it was standing.

Fighting against grineer and corpus constantly remind me of this video:

 

Ofc from your forum posts i can see that you are heavily against such changes and any/all forms of difficulty increase, so technically seen there is not much to be said here. You have a polar opposite taste compared to mine.

This does not mean that you are wrong, but neither am i.

[Liminal]

Not bad. Not bad at all.

 

*But* if infested were turned into this I fear we'd need a new attack: a kick. We would need a way to push one enemy back without making it explode!

[MJ12]

Not bad. Not bad at all.

 

*But* if infested were turned into this I fear we'd need a new attack: a kick. We would need a way to push one enemy back without making it explode!

 

Kung-fu moves are awesome and I totally approve of them, so this isn't a problem.

 

Anyways, yes, I'm aware that a lot of these changes are pretty drastic. On the other hand most of the models can be reused. It's only Ancients who'd need a redesign and honestly they really needed one anyways, given that they're basically "huge Runners/Leapers". And adding more enemy variety in models would only make the game more interesting.

 

(Hell you could reuse the Chromas from DarkSector...)

[Liminal]

(Hell you could reuse the Chromas from DarkSector...)

Or the Stalker with its arm feather-things.

 

Personally I find the infested to be currently lacking in the Tentacle department.

[Exhack]

Or the Stalker with its arm feather-things.

 

Personally I find the infested to be currently lacking in the Tentacle department.

 

Oh oh, like. An Infested Ancient that can root you with tentacles that need to be melee'd out of (or can be attacked by allies).

[ValhaHazred]

I'm hoping the ancients end up as Eldritch Abominations when they get remodeled.

 

Imagine barely human forms wreathed in tentacles and nanotech, dripping glowing ichor as they charge toward you howling litanies of undying madness.

Add in huge swarms of rage zombies, wallcrawling assassins and huge tanks that barely fit in the corridor, and you have a faction that will make most players s*** bricks.

[Ced23Ric]

My name is Ceddo and I approve this message. This is now my favourite thread on the Citadel.

[Kyte]

So how about we let more people see this thread, don't we.

[DAWGUNITALPHA]

I lost interest at "space zombies". We don't need more space zombies. We have enough zombies in games these days. Your ideas read like you want to make the infested the least fun faction to fight.

[Kyte]

Infested already are space zombies.

[Carcharias]

Infested Charger-Spaaaace dogs. Two basic attacks-a high damage one which requires windup (their charge), and weak claw attacks. If you dodge the charge and they hit a wall they get stunned themselves. Their charge can stagger you, making them the only basic enemy with a stun-note that as it's a windup attack it's telegraphed and avoidable.

 

I am 100% behind you this time MJ12! I think this would be great idea. I especially like this part as it addresses my biggest complaint against current infested and that is the stun that the chargers have. Kinda dumb (the few times it's happened) to end up in a corner and get stun locked by three or four of the lowest enemy in the infested and possibly wind up dead. I think that the mass of rushers having a stun is a pretty cheep mechanic against the player, especially as there's no warning, they just do it instantly. After you're stun locked all you can do is mash an ability and if you don't have energy, oh well better luck next time.  :/  This mechanic as it stands now is frustrating because it does not present the player with a challenge to over come, merely an ever present annoyance that is in some circumstances unavoidable and has the potential to end up "cheep mechanic-ing" the player to death. Especially solo with a disruptor around.

Edited June 9, 2013 by Carcharias

[MJ12]

I lost interest at "space zombies". We don't need more space zombies. We have enough zombies in games these days. Your ideas read like you want to make the infested the least fun faction to fight.

 

They already are space zombies, man. Like all of them.

[Sophax]

STUN STUN STUN

[Ornd]

Give them tentacles, so everybody can share the fetish.

[ValhaHazred]

Give them tentacles, so everybody can share the fetish.