Nullifiers Are The Most Broken, Badly Designed Enemies Ever

[DarthyPoo]

I dotn hate them, i just find them annoying is certain situations. Im aware they have been placed into the game for anti-farming purposes, but if 3 to 5 of them spawn at once its really a pain. Other then that i think they are an addition to the game that has been needed, the fact that we need to prioritize some enemies over others means that DE is trying hard to make this game not a face roll thru all of the MRs and all the way to Pluto.

[Lost_Cartographer]

I don't mind the nullifier shield so much (there really should be a balance between damage output and rate of fire taking them down though.)  What I hate is that they're packning a Lanka of all things.  It's like facing an army of arctic eximus ballistae or seekers, also deadly for their ridiculous damage output.  If they had a weapon proper to the support role they play, like the spectra, they might be fair.  The bubble becomes a tactical sanctuary for friendly troops, and they have a point defense weapon.  Right now, they have an assassination weapon, which is too much in conjunction with their shield.  If they're going to keep he Lanka, then at least the shield should have an elemental weakness, like gas or magnetic damage or something passing right through it.

[(PSN)teh1tank]

I dread the day they come to console.

[DSkred]

 

I honestly don't see why people have so much of a problem with them, outside of the issues I mentioned in the first post in this thread. Even with them being the way they are now, I don't have much trouble taking them out. You can either shoot their bubble down and then kill them, or slide attack in and out of their bubble, killing them in the process. Is that really so hard for people? Honestly, people rely entirely too much on their powers anyway, IMO.

 

Well, it isn't just about their ability to hard counter powers upsetting people. When sliding into the bubble to kill the Nullifier isn't a safe option, the next best thing is to pop the shield with gunfire. The shield's health mechanic is what most people have a problem with, because it has a significant negative impact on gunplay.

 

As many people have pointed out in the past month they've existed, automatic weapons with high fire rates are the best at removing the shield quickly. Other weapons are too slow an inefficient to deal with them, so players basically need to carry a bullet hose with them any time they go to a place with Nullifiers. Even with two slots for weapons, juggling weapons becomes tedious due to how frequently Nullifiers spawn. When it comes to this, there's no point in switching back since the bullet hose will do just fine.

 

If Overtake has taught us anything, it is that whenever something threatening is added to the game, players will seek out the means to trivialize it with what the game offers. All the challenges we face never have to be answered through gameplay, because they can be answered through the Arsenal menu. Challenges able to be bypassed so easily result in the game as a whole become easier.

[RyojinOrion]

 

 

 Other weapons are too slow an inefficient to deal with them, so players basically need to carry a bullet hose with them any time they go to a place with Nullifiers.

 

So the problem is that you need to properly prepare for the challenges you have to face?

[kebra]

So the problem is that you need to properly prepare for the challenges you have to face?

 

Properly prepare with only a Glaive or a Kestrel to something that negates your powers and weapons? Makes sense...

Edited January 25, 2015 by kebra

[DSkred]

So the problem is that you need to properly prepare for the challenges you have to face?

 

No, the problem is there is no challenge when we can preemptively equip items to bypass the challenge entirely. If we can overcome an obstacle without having to deal with it personally, then it's failed to be a challenge at all.

[(XBOX)ShapelessHorr0r]

Mark my words, once DE creates a place where players have to really work to beat it (eg. a tower that starts at level 45), these types of enemies will be removed or at least never leave the drawing board. 

 

Currently, DE's true difficulty is not enough to stop players, so they have to create artificial difficulty. It's a design flaw rooted in Warframe's core that DE will have to work around (like creating a tower 5...6, 7, 8, 9, 145... ).

[Iacon]

never understood what nullifiers does, I melee like 80% of the time, jat kittag airlines crash in the face solves everything

[Dillon_J]

make ther bubbles do magnetic proc if you enter instead of disabling your abilities. this way they still do what they are intended to do but not in a severe way.

Edited January 25, 2015 by Dillon_J

[(XBOX)ShapelessHorr0r]

never understood what nullifiers does, I melee like 80% of the time, jat kittag airlines crash in the face solves everything

-Is that Fred?

--yep

-is he flying?

--yep

-why is he flying?

--look to your left

[Xennocide420]

Why that bubble also protect nullifier from punch-through ?

[Dillon_J]

Also the only Frame that is dramtically killed by nullifiers is valkyr (which sucks cause its my fav). and before you say "you know you can melee the bubbles right?" do you know how much f***ing time and patience it takes to succesfully punch a nullifier bubble to death without having hysteria deactivate!?!?!?. a lot...

(but thats why i carry twin wraith vipers with no damage, max firerate and multishot)

[RyojinOrion]

Properly prepare with only a Glaive or a Kestrel to something that negates your powers and weapons? Makes sense...

 

Yes it does, actually. Proper preparation was how I was able to easily solo the Tactical Alert, even when restricted to only using my Glaive.

 

 

No, the problem is there is no challenge when we can preemptively equip items to bypass the challenge entirely. If we can overcome an obstacle without having to deal with it personally, then it's failed to be a challenge at all.

 

 

 

Overcoming the challenge entirely without having to deal with it personally would be to ignore the nullifiers and just rush past/around em, and that most certainly is not something that I suggested doing. Properly preparing and killing the nullifiers is not bypassing the challenge, it is overcoming it, dealing with it personally. 

 

Did I just misunderstand you somewhere here?

Edited January 25, 2015 by RyojinOrion

[Taranis49]

I don't necessarily despise them, though Nullifiers while interesting to fight, perhaps weren't the best option DE could have gone with. Instead of focusing on why people spammed abilities and giving them a reason not to do so by providing alternatives, we got a new enemy as an "easy fix"

 

So ask, why do people spam abilities? I would say because most, if not all Tenno have near worthless defensive stats. This would mean at some point, about at ceres or so even stray shots can totally devastate / oneshot you through both your total health and shields. To prevent this, perhaps most players feel like they should try to stop the enemies from being able to even react to them, by spamming abilities and killing them before the enemy fires a single shot. 

 

Eventually the game itself evolved around the idea that players are definitely going for this strategy no matter what, and so we got an enemy that prevents ability spams, more or less, instead of the issue of defensive stats and scaling being reviewed.

 

I'd also say it's because simply gunning dudes down gets old after a while - every frame can do that. What differentiates them is abilities. I mean, hell, look at how Volt's advertised to this day: "...high damage warframe perfect for players looking for a potent alternative to gunplay", i.e. a frame that primarily relies on its abilities - sure, that sales pitch is one of the biggest loads of nonsense in the game, but it's there; it does nothing to suggest that ability spam is somehow "bad", quite the opposite.

 

Problem with Nullifiers is that they simply remove options, without leaving credible ones in their wake. Even arctic eximi don't suffer from that problem, since even if you don't want to try and brute force your way through the copycat globe via damage, you can still use abilities. You're also not horribly disincentivized from using melee at all times since the globe's transparent, meaning you can readily assess what other threats are inside it and make an informed decision on whether or not it's worth the attempt - same doesn't hold true for Nullifier shields.

 

As the Extra Credits video on when "Difficult is Fun" explains: A fun challenge is one that allows the player multiple outlets to approach a problem and gives them the freedom to develop novel, interesting solutions to deal with it. Whether it's Corpus or an hour into T4 Void, I generally kill Nullifiers the same way I kill every other dude, by spraying enough bullets in his face - because that's the only credible option they leave. It's the same reason the fun factor and memorability of fights with enemies like the Stalker took a nose dive around U10. They aren't challenging, they're tedious.

 

 

So the problem is that you need to properly prepare for the challenges you have to face?

 

Hint, Pigeon-holing the player into a specific group of weapons to deal with enemies because others weren't effective is the primary reason Damage 1.0 with its AP/"Armor Ignore" weapons went and (rightly) died in a fire.

 

So yeah, you can try to be snide about it, but even DE recognizes it as a problem - it's why one of the basic covenants they made with the players in the livestreams during Damage 2.0's development was that every weapon would be late-game viable.

Edited January 25, 2015 by Taranis49

[DrMeowmix]

I don't hate them. 

Nor do I. Reduce spawn rates of them, make certain weapons puncture bubble (read: all snipers and bows). Fixed.

[PureMalice]

While I don't agree to nullies being the biggest BS enemies in the game, Tar Moas take that cake for me, seriously the slowdown mechanic is ridiculous, it slows EVERYTHING! not just movement, revive someone in a puddle of tar vomit that YOU CANT SEE! because there's 8tons of crazy s**t going on and the vomit pile hasn't rendered yet amidst the chaos, and slow warframe power use, NONE of which gets stopped by Oberon's Hallowed Ground, which SHOULD work since last I checked SLOW IS A FREAKIN STATUS!

But Nullies have their own special place in Warframe hell, As troop transports! this cheeses me off the most, these guys ferry a dozen or so minions in a bubble large enough to have its own zip code and a little cottage in the back yard, doesn't need to even exist this way.

The point was to create a unit that the 4 spam crowd couldn't just wipe out, so why not have the nullifying effect be a frequent pulse wave / short timed Aura emitting from the unit? rhinos roar, generated by this unit that prevents War frame powers from effecting them, no need for the bubble PROBLEM SOLVED!

BUT I like the troop transport idea and think the eximus shields should do that, small enough that only a few units can occupy the bubble, and the things can die they way they do now, makes the eximus units more of a threat and a utility I GUARANTEE would be used as a strategy as it was, so make the shields a little bigger, but NOT the current nullie size, that thing is crazy huge, and EVEN PHASES THROUGH FLOORS & WALLS! you could have your power killed by something you can't even see, or just glance while your running around with the smallest portion of the bubble under your feet, that's just goofy.

Nullie AoE pulse that protects the units from power effects, no need whatsoever to KEEP THE UNIT ALIVE long enough to cause more misery than is needed is just mean man.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

[Mesyra]

I think that two things need to be done to make the nullifiers actually balanced. maybe three things.

 

first thing: get rid of the SNIPER RIFLE from the dude in the bubble. why in HELL would you put a sniper rifle on the mob? we have SNIPER CREWMEN for a reason. give them a tetra. no corpus units use it. make the nullies use it.

 

second thing, make bubbles deplete based on damage dealt. this is sooo annoying. I cant take my opticor into t3/4 missions because of these things.

 

third thing, and this one is a maybe: let punch through go through the bubble. most people do not run any kind of punch through on their weapons, this would make you have to change your build if you want to deal with them easy.

 

I do like the idea of the nullies not being able to shoot out of their bubble, that sounds really good. 

 

I do like the idea of being able to shoot though the bubble instead of having a way to block weapons and powers, but only with punch through.

[RyojinOrion]

 

Hint, Pigeon-holing the player into a specific group of weapons to deal with enemies because others weren't effective is the primary reason Damage 1.0 with its AP/"Armor Ignore" weapons went and (rightly) died in a fire.

 

Hint, that isn't the only way to effectively take them out. You've got other choices besides a fully automatic weapon. You can melee them very easily with a little bit of practice and a properly prepared melee weapon. You can have a Kubrow that can go and take them out for you. You can bring a spectre that has an automatic weapon, and it can take the nullifier out for you. Things like that, ya know? It isn't like Damage 1.0, where you needed AP and rainbow builds, with no other options, to be the least bit effective past the first few planets.

Edited January 26, 2015 by RyojinOrion

[DSkred]

Overcoming the challenge entirely without having to deal with it personally would be to ignore the nullifiers and just rush past/around em, and that most certainly is not something that I suggested doing. Properly preparing and killing the nullifiers is not bypassing the challenge, it is overcoming it, dealing with it personally. 

 

Did I just misunderstand you somewhere here?

 

The issue here is you are significantly punished for not using a bullet hose or any other weapon which can quickly kill the shield if melee is not a safe option. I think you don't understand how little skill there is in simply gearing up before to deal with whatever threat lies ahead. There isn't any skill involved in placing a bullet hose into your loadout slot to deal with a Nullifier. 

 

Having only one good weapon type able to quickly and efficiently break the shield only dumbs down the game.

[4G3NT_0R4NG3]

So the problem is that you need to properly prepare for the challenges you have to face?

 

Yes it does, actually. Proper preparation was how I was able to easily solo the Tactical Alert, even when restricted to only using my Glaive.

 

 

 

 

 

Overcoming the challenge entirely without having to deal with it personally would be to ignore the nullifiers and just rush past/around em, and that most certainly is not something that I suggested doing. Properly preparing and killing the nullifiers is not bypassing the challenge, it is overcoming it, dealing with it personally. 

 

Did I just misunderstand you somewhere here?

 

Hint, that isn't the only way to effectively take them out. You've got other choices besides a fully automatic weapon. You can melee them very easily with a little bit of practice and a properly prepared melee weapon. You can have a Kubrow that can go and take them out for you. You can bring a spectre that has an automatic weapon, and it can take the nullifier out for you. Things like that, ya know? It isn't like Damage 1.0, where you needed AP and rainbow builds, with no other options, to be the least bit effective past the first few planets.

 

I honestly don't understand how you can possibly think that having Nullifier shields be depleted by RoF instead of actual damage is good game design. These arguments have some validity to them, but they don't make Nullifiers' shield depletion mechanics any less stupid.

[Me.KayOh]

only time nulls ever feel OP is when they got an army of bombards and gunners in their shield with them. =\ cant do much at that point except die, unless you got a loki or limbo.

[RyojinOrion]

I honestly don't understand how you can possibly think that having Nullifier shields be depleted by RoF instead of actual damage is good game design.

 

I think that? Weird, I don't recall saying that. I remember saying I don't have a problem with it myself, but I can't recall ever saying it was good game design. Could you please point out where I said that?

 

 

The issue here is you are significantly punished for not using a bullet hose or any other weapon which can quickly kill the shield if melee is not a safe option.

 

And like I stated, there are other options besides those.

 

 

 I think you don't understand how little skill there is in simply gearing up before to deal with whatever threat lies ahead.

 

Irrelevant.

 

 

Having only one good weapon type able to quickly and efficiently break the shield only dumbs down the game.

 

Except that automatic weapons aren't the only way to effectively break the shield, as I have stated multiple times now.

[Taranis49]

Hint, that isn't the only way to effectively take them out. You've got other choices besides a fully automatic weapon. You can melee them very easily with a little bit of practice and a properly prepared melee weapon. You can have a Kubrow that can go and take them out for you. You can bring a spectre that has an automatic weapon, and it can take the nullifier out for you. Things like that, ya know? It isn't like Damage 1.0, where you needed AP and rainbow builds, with no other options, to be the least bit effective past the first few planets.

 

I covered melee in my post, it's not a credible option in the void since they're often grouped with ground-pounding gunners and bombards.

 

Beyond that, the excuse that "oh, it's totally different from 1.0 because you can use specific setups" doesn't pass muster - it falls on its face: "Oh, in 1.0, you could use charge attacks, you could use Sweeper on a sentinel since shotties could achieve 150% AP damage and have it take the enemies out for you, you can get guys to run CP", etc.

 

It still got canned because it constrained the viable options available to the player - Functionally, Nullifier shields are no different than the problem posed by armor in 1.0. Again, it's why the primary sales pitch made to players during 2.0's development was that every weapon would be viable throughout the entire course of the game, not just some of them.

Edited January 26, 2015 by Taranis49

[DSkred]

Except that automatic weapons aren't the only way to effectively break the shield, as I have stated multiple times now.

 

Alright, let's look at your suggestions.

 

 

You can melee them very easily with a little bit of practice and a properly prepared melee weapon. 

 

Yes, I know, and I won't argue melee is effective. That is one solution to kill the Nullifier, and is often the best solution when the Nullifier doesn't have multiple heavy units inside the bubble. If that happens, the next option is to strip the shield from a safe distance with bullet hoses.

 

I get that melee works, and I have no problem with that. My issue is with their shield, and the limited choice of weapon types able to break the shield in the short amount of time.

 

You can have a Kubrow that can go and take them out for you.

 

Given how poor their AI is, I would not trust them with the task of killing Nullifiers. They can't kill anything faster than their master can, so half of the time they run around frantically looking for a target or sitting by their master. Also, I've heard Nullifiers shoot Kubrows too, and do a lot of damage to them with their Lankas. 

 

 

You can bring a spectre that has an automatic weapon, and it can take the nullifier out for you.

 

Same problem as Kubrows, except they cost resources to use, and bullets are free. You're better off doing it yourself than letting the AI do it for you.

 

You cannot deny how effective bullet hoses are at breaking the shield compared to bows, snipers, and semi-automatic weapons. They are the best at doing this because the mechanics of the shield work favorably for them in every possible way. They are so effective at it that they completely shut down any threat Nullifiers pose, and there is no reason not to use them.