Petition (Or Discussion!) To Remove Or Redesign The Grineer Rollers

[Tsukinoki]

@Sniktch
That's part of the reason I would like the diminishing returns.  It prevents the players from stun-locking ancients and some bosses while also preventing them from doing the same to us.  It keeps in the danger of being hit by rollers and infested without making it frustrating to the player and keeping it fair and more importantly feeling fair.

[AndryB94]

OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE IT.

 

FINALLY BACK TO THE SUGGESTIONS INSTEAD OF ENDLESS ARGUING.

okay, back to serious mode
 

 

Solutions proposed so far:

 

1: Diminishing returns on stun/stagger, most likely via a self-stacking resistance buff.

 

2: Fix rollers so their aura only turns on when they use their actual attack - if they're leaping, they can stun/stagger you.  If they zip by, they can't.

 

Either works, as far as I can tell - though the "diminishing return" effect also solves a few issues with Infested, and is likely the best long-term solution especially if applied to the enemies as well - no more eternally locking down Ancients with melee for us, either.

Yes, that's basically it. You could further detail these details into sub-ideas (like in page 1/2) but in essence that's it.

[Nedwin]

@Sniktch

That's part of the reason I would like the diminishing returns.  It prevents the players from stun-locking ancients and some bosses while also preventing them from doing the same to us.  It keeps in the danger of being hit by rollers and infested without making it frustrating to the player and keeping it fair and more importantly feeling fair.

Still no reason to remove them. Died from rollers: 0 times. From disruptors+ tons of infested - over 10 times. They won't be removed until you show until 1 serious reason to remove/remake them.

What OP did - he got trolled by rollers, he got his rage topic opened. What you did - idk... Died from roller? Funny... They hit you for 20 hit points, how can you die from it? Yes, yes "I become stunlocked". "It frustrate me." "Nerf rollers" "They are annoying" - all your arguments.

Edited May 8, 2013 by Nedwin

[AndryB94]

Still no reason to remove them. Died from rollers: 0 times. From disruptors+ tons of infested - over 10 times. They won't be removed until you show until 1 serious reason to remove/remake them.

What OP did - he got trolled by rollers, he got his rage topic opened. What you did - idk... Died from roller? Funny... They hit you for 20 hit points, how can you die from it?

Oh, gods. I'm seriously getting tired of this bull$%!&.

Stop accusing me for things I never said (this counts for you as well as some others - I have seen a few similar posts). First of all, I haven't seen a roller in about two weeks. Secondly, I can take care of them, I just do not appreciate their mechanics and how they currently work. I incite reworking them, not removing them. I have stated several times I do not want them removed outright - I either want them somehow modified or redesigned, to actually make them a challenge somehow (removing the stupid "aura" effect), or replace them with a similar unit that makes more sense.

For the record, I never "died" to rollers. I, however, do not find them challenging. I find them a nuisance, and not an entertaining enemy at all. Even a couple of little modifications (as it has been suggested in the first pages) would make them not only a proper enemy, but also with more "sense".

I apologise for the tone in advance. You caught me at the wrong time; I am also getting sick and tired of the stupid debate that I have been seeing for the last seven pages. If this goes on, I will delete and re-write this thread in a way that it does indeed incite suggestions and proper discussion instead of this mindless, biased rabbling.

Edited May 8, 2013 by AndryB94

[Tsukinoki]

@Nedwin
That is why I have been not been saying "Just remove them..." if that is what you think I have been saying please learn to read.  I have been talking about a change in mechanics so that they actually have to "attack" to stun, not just bump against, and that there should be diminishing returns on stuns...

[catastrophy]

Rollers are annoying like hell. I wish we could jump over them. But to be honest, they are actually way more bearable than the Corpus faction. The knockdown they can dish out is ridiculous.

[Soulfighter]

Where is your argument? Just that? Learn to aim? Really man? Let me put you in a room with 5 rollers, no energy and let's see if you manage to kill then, WITHOUT ANY LEDGES OR PLACE TO HIDE OR GET UP TO IT!

 

not a problem, i know how to aim and i have a hek and a lex.

[smithf]

I think it is somewhat misrepresenting to adopt the "it's easy, just deal with it" kind of nuance. Rollers ARE challenging. Just that there are situations where they can be managed more easily. The "just use this or that" is often not sufficient. (hint: any video tutorials?) And guess what, from my experience, their worst enemy is ... lag. When playing on a laggy host, they will undergo what seems like a stop-motion film and will stay stationary lagged at points. well, if we can't event hit a stationary round target less then 2m away, I think we need to go back to Tenno Academy.

On the other hand, I get the feeling that when some players encounter difficulty with Rollers, they sort of stopped trying: "it's hard, I'll stop here and ask/wait for a nerf". I am not trying to be sarcastic or targetting anybody in particular, and the post that have me this image may not even mean it, due to language-noise. It's kinda regrettable, coz it may be a sign of rejecting what could have be fun. Is being trolled by metal balls fun? Frustrating? yes. Hard? yes. but I always have this belief that people secretly enjoy miseries, whether it is their own or others... lol.

But enough of that.
To "lighten up" the atmosphere, let's exchange some Roller stories.

My "worst" was a time I encountered more than half a dozen (I can't get an accurate count and it is likely that there are more) Rollers on a Grineer Asteroid type of map, in the room which is open-spaced but only have narrow corridors along impassable machinery/fence (the one with an elevator to a second story, and have pipeways/doors to other tiles).
I survived. But frankly speaking, I CANNOT remember exactly what happened. There was a lot of gun flares, a lot of screen shaking from the Rollers AND heavy weapons in melee action. Think I got a few, but in the end ran away as the Grineer troops are closing in at the same time (it started out with some troops but they were taken out quickly in melee. The new ones fire from range while I am literally "ball-dancing". It was hell at the time, but it makes a good story that I can tell my future students about "those were the days" when I retire to teach in the Tenno Academy... ;)

 

Any other stories to share?

[MoonicusMaximus]

Solutions proposed so far:

 

1: Diminishing returns on stun/stagger, most likely via a self-stacking resistance buff.

 

2: Fix rollers so their aura only turns on when they use their actual attack - if they're leaping, they can stun/stagger you.  If they zip by, they can't.

 

Either works, as far as I can tell - though the "diminishing return" effect also solves a few issues with Infested, and is likely the best long-term solution especially if applied to the enemies as well - no more eternally locking down Ancients with melee for us, either.

 

These are much better suggestions than simply removing the unit.

[Madotsuki]

Oh, gods. I'm seriously getting tired of this bull$%!&.

Stop accusing me for things I never said (this counts for you as well as some others - I have seen a few similar posts). First of all, I haven't seen a roller in about two weeks. Secondly, I can take care of them, I just do not appreciate their mechanics and how they currently work. I incite reworking them, not removing them. I have stated several times I do not want them removed outright - I either want them somehow modified or redesigned, to actually make them a challenge somehow (removing the stupid "aura" effect), or replace them with a similar unit that makes more sense.

For the record, I never "died" to rollers. I, however, do not find them challenging. I find them a nuisance, and not an entertaining enemy at all. Even a couple of little modifications (as it has been suggested in the first pages) would make them not only a proper enemy, but also with more "sense".

I apologise for the tone in advance. You caught me at the wrong time; I am also getting sick and tired of the stupid debate that I have been seeing for the last seven pages. If this goes on, I will delete and re-write this thread in a way that it does indeed incite suggestions and proper discussion instead of this mindless, biased rabbling.

Don't bother deleting/restarting the thread. It WILL devolve into senseless arguing, because 1. This is the internet, and 2. There will always be people who just ignore the other side's arguments, or twist them around to fit their own worldview, and just spew out their own worldview without any legitimate and irrefutable evidence to back them up. Just let this thread continue as it is. The fact that the thread hasn't been locked yet means the bickering isn't THAT bad.

 

And you are right on the previous points. Just because the Rollers can be dealt with doesn't mean they are by any means a fun and well designed enemy. I have never died to Rollers. Like, ever. I don't even bother hiding on boxes to kill these guys. Hell, I kill them with my PARIS or LEX 80% of the time, so don't even dare use the "LRN2AIM NUB" argument. And despite that, I still think they are horribly designed. It has nothing to do with player skill level whatsoever.

 

Rollers do not HAVE to be removed. And if they do, they must be replaced with a better unit instead of just leaving a hole there. However, if they are to stay, which i do support mostly, they must be tweaked. By reworking the entire stun mechanic of the game to diminishing returns, to fix their stun aura, to give them an actual attack animation to limit when they can stun, or even better, let me use my block ability to play baseball/golfball with them. Just SOMETHING to make them actually interesting.

 

P.S. The current stats of the poll on the wiki is as follows:

Do you dislike Rollers and think they should be removed/tweaked?

Yes: 385

No: 66

That's almost a 6 to 1 ratio in favor of removing or tweaking Rollers. I'm gonna start a new topic representing these results once we hit 1000 voters. Unless the poll gets sabotaged of course.

Edited May 9, 2013 by Madotsuki

[Cestus]

Add more of them.

[CrazyCanadian24]

What? What is then called skill? To tear apart all light, medium, heavy, boss grineer, their base and ENTIRE SOL SYSTEM but be afraid of ROLLERS! Isn't it ridiculous? To be afraid of one-shot enemy?! There are so many ways to evade them, even if there is 10 assault teams. Shade sentinel = no afraid of rollers anymore.

You can afraid of rollers if you have 75 hp lvl 0 loki on lvl 35 mission. Looks like everyone who against rollers uses all unranked gear on end-game missions...

 

People like Nedwin are why I don't usually trust the founders. They are almost always biased.

 

 

So we need to make 2 more themes: about Toxic/Disruptor Ancients.

They are too not fun to fight, take your hp very fast.

And it's very fun when you have boosted power on nyx and ninja disruptor take all of it in 1 sec. So cheap. Not fun to fight. Obviously annoying. Best strategy against toxic - run and shoot. (Not entertaining)

Same with shockwave MOA. 3 of them = guaranteered stunlock.

Let's make couple of nerf topics to remove all enemy who not just shoot you.

I am sure that the game would be very fun and competitive if there is only shooting enemy.

 

To be fair, Disruptors aren't as bad as people make them out to be. They don't drop their energy drain instantly which gives you time to pop your ultimate, which IS a legitimate stratagy for dealing with them without exploiting their AI. Toxics aren't that bad either since all you have to do is keep your distance and turn them into swiss cheese with your primary, again, not an AI exploit, and if you argument is "but that's not fun!", I should point out that this is a third person shooter, not a third person melee. Space Ninjas have guns for a reason, use them. As for shockwave MOAs, not only can you jump over the shockwave, but (and I just found this out yesterday) you can also roll through their shockwave (which also proves that dodge rolls do indeed have invulnerability frames). Once again, not an AI exploit, and as Tsukinoki pointed out, you still have time to get up and shoot them since their shockwave is on a cooldown.

 

Now, rollers, on the other hand, are a prime example of shoddy enemy design. I'm just going to list out their flaws here:

 

1: They are below the camera's elevation (on the floor), which makes them awkward to shoot because of the camera angle.

2: They move quite fast, which makes an already awkward enemy quite difficult to hit anyways.

3: Their attack hitbox is larger than their blades actually extend to, so large, in fact, that you can't even jump over them.

4: These three flaws alone are enough for a single roller to stunlock you if you get caught off guard, and two is enough to pretty much guarantee stunlock if your allies are occuped.

5: Currently, there are only two ways of avoiding stunlock: luck (AI glitches out) and deliberate AI exploit (jumping on top of a box).

 

The conclusion is clear: if an enemy is so broken that you have to either get lucky or exploit their AI, it is poorly designed and needs to be either removed, replaced, or overhauled, regardless of whether or not you like that in an enemy, for whatever reason. At the very least I expect them to fix their hitbox so that you can jump over them, best case is they replace rollers altogether with a more interesting enemy (such as, say, a superheavy Grineer unit).

 

Its not that they are "hard" to kill.  It is that they are annoying, cheap, unfun, and just a terrible design for an enemy.

And I would prefer to be in a room with 5 disruptors compared to a room with 5 rollers any day.

 

Thanks to you, I still have some hope in founders.

Edited May 9, 2013 by CrazyCanadian24

[Tsukinoki]

Now, rollers, on the other hand, are a prime example of shoddy enemy design. I'm just going to list out their flaws here:

 

1: They are below the camera's elevation (on the floor), which makes them awkward to shoot because of the camera angle.

2: They move quite fast, which makes an already awkward enemy quite difficult to hit anyways.

3: Their attack hitbox is larger than their blades actually extend to, so large, in fact, that you can't even jump over them.

4: These three flaws alone are enough for a single roller to stunlock you if you get caught off guard, and two is enough to pretty much guarantee stunlock if your allies are occuped.

5: Currently, there are only two ways of avoiding stunlock: luck (AI glitches out) and deliberate AI exploit (jumping on top of a box).

 

The conclusion is clear: if an enemy is so broken that you have to either get lucky or exploit their AI, it is poorly designed and needs to be either removed, replaced, or overhauled, regardless of whether or not you like that in an enemy, for whatever reason. At the very least I expect them to fix their hitbox so that you can jump over them, best case is they replace rollers altogether with a more interesting enemy (such as, say, a superheavy Grineer unit).

Thank you for listing out some of these and I completely agree with your points.

One other thing that I would like to add to your points is that they don't have to do any attack animation to cause a stagger on you.  They just have to come close enough.  Even if they dont put diminishing returns on stuns, if they made them have to do an actual attack animation when they attack it would solve some of the frustrations.  Especially because then they cant just roll next to your feet and cause you to stagger, and they cant pin you against a box while just endlessly rolling forwards.

While diminishing returns on stuns is, in my opinion, the best way to go about this as it removes stunlock from both enemies and players, there are a few other mitigations that they can put in place on the rollers to prevent them from being so annoying.  Such as make it so that they have a cool down on their stun.  Which means they hit and stagger you once and then that single roller cant stagger for say another 3 to 5 seconds.  It can still attack and cause damage but it cant stagger you.  That would bring it more in line with other units with abilities.

Another mitigation that they can provide is make certain attacks un-interruptable.  Such as jump slams.  That would provide us a much more consistent way of dealing with melee swarmers since they give it to us as a hard counter for enemies that surround us.

[Creavyer]

people are complaining about the game is too easy & stuff

nerfing the rollers would be ashame that would only make this faction that much easier

 

as my dad always told me "if your in problems just aim for the balls!"

[Phoenix86]

As a few people stated above me i would just think about fixing their hitbox/attack radius to be equal because it's unfair that they can hit us while we jump even if they are under us...

 

I would not remove or "overnerf" honestly... i hate them too, of course, but they are 1 of the few "challenges" in this game lol

[CrazyCanadian24]

Thank you for listing out some of these and I completely agree with your points.

One other thing that I would like to add to your points is that they don't have to do any attack animation to cause a stagger on you.  They just have to come close enough.  Even if they dont put diminishing returns on stuns, if they made them have to do an actual attack animation when they attack it would solve some of the frustrations.  Especially because then they cant just roll next to your feet and cause you to stagger, and they cant pin you against a box while just endlessly rolling forwards.

While diminishing returns on stuns is, in my opinion, the best way to go about this as it removes stunlock from both enemies and players, there are a few other mitigations that they can put in place on the rollers to prevent them from being so annoying.  Such as make it so that they have a cool down on their stun.  Which means they hit and stagger you once and then that single roller cant stagger for say another 3 to 5 seconds.  It can still attack and cause damage but it cant stagger you.  That would bring it more in line with other units with abilities.

Another mitigation that they can provide is make certain attacks un-interruptable.  Such as jump slams.  That would provide us a much more consistent way of dealing with melee swarmers since they give it to us as a hard counter for enemies that surround us.

 

Diminishing returns is a terriffic idea, and TBH jump attacks should be uninterruptable anyways. Its absurd that a no-damage move (dragon kick) is more effective at causing KD than an actual attack.

 

people are complaining about the game is too easy & stuff

nerfing the rollers would be ashame that would only make this faction that much easier

 

as my dad always told me "if your in problems just aim for the balls!"

 

You're not helping the founder's reputation.

[MoonicusMaximus]

Now, rollers, on the other hand, are a prime example of shoddy enemy design. I'm just going to list out their flaws here:

 

1: They are below the camera's elevation (on the floor), which makes them awkward to shoot because of the camera angle.

2: They move quite fast, which makes an already awkward enemy quite difficult to hit anyways.

3: Their attack hitbox is larger than their blades actually extend to, so large, in fact, that you can't even jump over them.

4: These three flaws alone are enough for a single roller to stunlock you if you get caught off guard, and two is enough to pretty much guarantee stunlock if your allies are occuped.

5: Currently, there are only two ways of avoiding stunlock: luck (AI glitches out) and deliberate AI exploit (jumping on top of a box).

 

The conclusion is clear: if an enemy is so broken that you have to either get lucky or exploit their AI, it is poorly designed and needs to be either removed, replaced, or overhauled, regardless of whether or not you like that in an enemy, for whatever reason. At the very least I expect them to fix their hitbox so that you can jump over them, best case is they replace rollers altogether with a more interesting enemy (such as, say, a superheavy Grineer unit).

 

Points 1 and 2 don't actually make them a bad enemy. They're just more difficult to hit than Grineer, which is balanced by their low HP. That isn't inherently good or bad, it's just another set of variety and challenge.

 

On Point 3, currently their hitbox isn't separated into attack and movement. Rollers used to have a small hitbox and you could duck under them and jump over them, but people complained about how the were too difficult to shoot. DE increased the hitbox size, making them easier to hit but enlarging their hitbox which passively causes a stagger upon contact. Currently, however, I think it would be a good change to have only their leaping, blade-extended actual attack animation be the only thing that staggers you.

 

Point 4. Your definition of stunlock doesn't seem to fit the bill. Stunlock is when I am stunned for a very long period of time in which I have no chance to react. One Roller will not stagger you (which lasts roughly half a second) indefinitely over a long amount of time without a chance for you to react, unless you're standing in a corner and the Roller is stuck underneath you. Two might, but it's still a stretch, because they attack very sporadically and you should have plenty of opportunity to move between staggers. Still, potential for stunlock is bad, because stunlock is bad. Being staggered, however, isn't that big of an issue.

 

Point 5 pertains to stunlock again. You don't need to change Rollers, just the consecutive stun mechanics as a whole, because that's an issue for nearly all units that can stun you. Either add a period of invulnerability after being staggered, or a diminishing return. People's problems with Rollers largely lay in their ability to stunLOCK, not just stagger the player.

Edited May 9, 2013 by MoonicusMaximus

[Tsukinoki]

@MoonicusMaximus
I'm curious as to your thoughts of making their stun more of an ability?  E.g. they stun you and that roller cant stun anyone for 3 to 5 seconds afterwards.  The roller can still attack and such just not stun during that period.

[MoonicusMaximus]

@MoonicusMaximus

I'm curious as to your thoughts of making their stun more of an ability?  E.g. they stun you and that roller cant stun anyone for 3 to 5 seconds afterwards.  The roller can still attack and such just not stun during that period.

 

That's actually not what I meant, but that's actually not a terrible idea either.

 

They can damage you but not stagger you upon touching them, but only their leaping attack with blades extended, which is used infrequently, staggers you.

 

Because currently right now just simply touching them staggers you, and with no anti-stunlocking mechanics present, it's too bothersome in comparison to how much effort you expend dealing with them.

Edited May 9, 2013 by MoonicusMaximus

[Tsukinoki]

@MoonicusMaximus
I know what you meant about adding diminishing returns on stuns, but this is more of an alternative for DE to look at and consider.  I would really prefer diminishing returns or outright "you cant be stunned for x seconds after being stunned" but this is more of a half way solution.  It is also theoretically easier than adding diminishing returns in the terms of how hard it would be to code it in.

[MoonicusMaximus]

@MoonicusMaximus

I know what you meant about adding diminishing returns on stuns, but this is more of an alternative for DE to look at and consider.  I would really prefer diminishing returns or outright "you cant be stunned for x seconds after being stunned" but this is more of a half way solution.  It is also theoretically easier than adding diminishing returns in the terms of how hard it would be to code it in.

 

I wouldn't mind having both. Diminishing returns would help all stunlock situations, not just Rollers.

[Tsukinoki]

@MoonicusMaximus
I completely agree with that.  It would remove the stunlock from hordes of infested and rollers while at the same time it would increase some difficulty as the players could not longer stun bosses or ancients until they died.

Even though this is a PvE game, balancing needs to occur on both sides; players and mobs.

[Salganos]

I support the removal or nerfing redesigning of rollers.

 

I have better and more challenging things to do around the Grineer than be footbumped to the point of giving up and setting the ground on fire before the Lancers stop hiding.  Things like trying to solo rooms of 30+ Lancers who can kill me in about 3 seconds of combined fire, while constantly making sure 10 more aren't sneaking up behind me.

 

Aiming at the little things is rather problematic at close range too; I haven't figured out how to compensate for the third-person perspective causing the reticle to outright lie to me yet.  Add to this the need for perfection or just plain impossibilities to prevent it and things get silly.

 

When I die in Dark Souls, I know what to do to avoid it, because Dark Souls doesn't randomize levels, and almost everything has many valid ways to be dealt with once understood.  These balls have two: bullets, and AoE spells.  The first, however is invalidated when there are more than two or three.

 

When I die in this game, it's because I'm playing solo because of bad netcode and excessively steamroll/farm focused multiplayer, and because the game likes to throw things at the player that don't work for solo, like cover-invalidating pincer attacks from Grineer and MOAs ninja-ing their way out of doorless dead-end hallways I foolishly hoped were safe (at least MOAs have an excuse of literally coming out of the walls), or from absurd swarms of chargers (ugh) and/or ancients, especially the toxic and disruptor varieties (broken too).  Grinders/rollers are surprisingly non-lethal most of the time, just badly designed and not fun to deal with.

 

And I think I just repeated half of this thread.

Edited May 9, 2013 by Salganos

[AndryB94]

I support the removal or nerfing redesigning of rollers.

 

And I think I just repeated half of this thread.

You should swap "removal" with "replacement".

And sort of...

[MoonicusMaximus]

When I die in Dark Souls, I know what to do to avoid it, because Dark Souls doesn't randomize levels, and almost everything has many valid ways to be dealt with once understood.  These balls have two: bullets, and AoE spells.  The first, however is invalidated when there are more than two or three.

 

To be fair, there are really only 3 ways of killing enemies in this entire game. Gunplay, Abilities, and Melee.

 

Just because only 2 out of 3 methods are effective doesn't make it bad design.

Edited May 9, 2013 by MoonicusMaximus