Game Difficulty: Keep It Real And *bring It* De

[Loswaith]

Those challenge are derived from numbers. The enemies don't actually get harder aside from taking longer to kill and taking shorter time to kill you, but whatever strategy works at lv1 works at lv whatever.

 

And they're all mostly bullet sponges that are not really satisfying to kill anyways.

While true, it does mean you cant just walk through those 20 enemies and not care about it (abet some people do find that fun, too).  Thats a different tactic to needing to use cover to pick off each individual enemy.

 

What your after is AI improvements that diversify the tactics needed to defeat enemies.  Good AI takes time and generally allot of testing, which is why it's a different factor.  A good AI enemy that you can even 1 shot, will be allot more interesting than level 100 bullet sponge.  Interesting and diverse enemies are not always more challenging in the risk sence more they are more memorable and feel more like a challenge.

[epochofentropy]

Okay, but what Epoch is saying is that it should be so hard at the extreme levels that  not everyone can win. Only the best.

 

This is correct.

 

I'm probably not the only one who plays skill based games online because it's interesting to see how you measure up. In a PvE game, that's done by having immensely difficult content that only a certain small percentage of players can actualize upon, where most everyone else gets steamrolled and says it's "impossible".

[epochofentropy]

I'm talking about two things:

 

1. How stunlocks in this game are bad difficulty

 

2. How Warframe's difficulty is bad in general. Epoch is going off on a tangent about how games like Devil May Cry coddle their players (whaaa?)

 

 

Stuns in Warframe are fine as they are. I'll be completely honest in saying that I think this because it rarely happens to me. I'm using good old strategy to stay just far enough away from a group of them to not get pinned down in the first place. (It still does happen though, rarely, and I've already acknowledged that it was my fault and completely preventable)

 

I also don't ever turn a corner and say "OMG SO MANY ENEMIES!?" or get surprised by 10 MOA around a box ready to stun away... Why? Because I move around the level through zones/spaces that I know have been cleared (or give me the best attack vantage) and keep track where these guys are coming in from and going rather than get tunnel vision on the reticle. Again, focus and strategy.

 

Is it possible that I'm just better than Joe Average at doing this thing of keeping track of the moments of enemies on the edge of my screen while picking off running headshots? Maybe, and if so all the more reason for a zone for players that have a similar skillset.

 

Edit: Minor update

Edited May 6, 2013 by epochofentropy

[MJ12]

Stuns in Warframe are fine as they are. I'll be completely honest in saying that I think this because it rarely happens to me. I'm using good old strategy to stay just far enough away from a group of them to not get pinned down in the first place. (It still does happen though, rarely, and I've already acknowledged that it was my fault and completely preventable)

 

I also don't ever turn a corner and say "OMG SO MANY ENEMIES!?" or get surprised by 10 MOA around a box ready to stun away... Why? Because I move around the level through zones/spaces that I know have been cleared (or give me the best attack vantage) and keep track where these guys are coming in from and going rather than get tunnel vision on the reticle. Again, focus and strategy.

 

Is it possible that I'm just better than Joe Average at doing this thing of keeping track of the moments of enemies on the edge of my screen while picking off running headshots? Maybe, and if so all the more reason for a zone for players that have a similar skillset.

 

Edit: Minor update

 

I think you're missing the point. Because of how the game has these unrecoverable situations the game either has to be built so it doesn't put you into them or it becomes a frustrating slogfest to 99% of the audience. How you use 'situational awareness' to avoid these things (given the spawn system it may well just be that you're luckier) doesn't change that the difficulty curve in Warframe is basically "endlessly faceroll things until you get stunlocked and die because you made one mistake at the wrong time". And that's the problem, because it's very easy to get a game that's simultaneously too easy 90% of the time and too hard 10% of the time with this kind of difficulty curve, and no, being too easy most of the time and too hard the rest of the time does not make the difficulty just right.

 

The difficulty curve needs to be balanced so that it threatens you a lot more often but makes it easier to recover from threatening situations before any addition of difficulty (or god forbid, subtraction of it) should seriously be considered.

[epochofentropy]

The difficulty curve needs to be balanced so that it threatens you a lot more often but makes it easier to recover from threatening situations before any addition of difficulty (or god forbid, subtraction of it) should seriously be considered.

 

Then how do you die if you can just recover from every single mistake?

[V0LK]

Yay! let's turn Warframe into another Dork Souls!

 

Forget about variety and complexity! Just buff enemies and we're all fine!

Edited May 6, 2013 by V0LK

[Quetzhal]

I also don't ever turn a corner and say "OMG SO MANY ENEMIES!?" or get surprised by 10 MOA around a box ready to stun away... Why? Because I move around the level through zones/spaces that I know have been cleared (or give me the best attack vantage) and keep track where these guys are coming in from and going rather than get tunnel vision on the reticle. Again, focus and strategy.

Have you just been really lucky with spawns? I ask because you mention moving through zones that you know have been cleared, and enemies actually spawn in rooms you just cleared quite often, at least for me. You can run into a room, see 10 Disruptors, turn around to go back to get a better attack position in the room you just cleared and get swarmed by another 10. (Exaggeration, but you get the idea).

[epochofentropy]

Have you just been really lucky with spawns? I ask because you mention moving through zones that you know have been cleared, and enemies actually spawn in rooms you just cleared quite often, at least for me. You can run into a room, see 10 Disruptors, turn around to go back to get a better attack position in the room you just cleared and get swarmed by another 10. (Exaggeration, but you get the idea).

 

Yes, this HAS happened to me on a number of occasions. Oddly, you know what I do is just run further and find a position where I have the advantage. I have a Furius Pistol just for this case, modded highly with Frost, Electric, Fire and Stun. I'll spray the enemies that could block my movement and fall back to a better vantage and continue to move, kill and open up new avenues for escape and vantage until the threat is eliminated.

 

We can jump and climb really high, run really fast and take absolutely no fall damage. Almost every tile has avenues and places to take advantage of this.

[MJ12]

Then how do you die if you can just recover from every single mistake?

 

If you make enough mistakes in a short enough period, you die? Thing is, most games are designed specifically so that number of mistakes is significantly greater than '1', unless dying is a tiny inconvenience which is basically just a short pause before the action resumes.

[epochofentropy]

Yay! let's turn Warframe into another Dork Souls!

 

Forget about variety and complexity! Just buff enemies and we're all fine!

 

I'm not suggesting that a big HP/shield/damage buff to enemies is the end all be all and there is absolutely no other conceivable way to achieve this. That's putting words in my mouth. I'd rather the enemies AI become more complex (check the previous responses) but realize that takes a lot of time and development effort that DE may not have at the moment.

 

But, in the interim it would be a small step to keep a percentage of the players occupied.

[MoonicusMaximus]

No, you think you want to be able to lose. Hypothetically, assume you have a game where the enemy has autoaim infinite penetration instant kill railguns and can instantly acquire you the moment you spawn. According to you, this would be your GOTY for all years because you would lose spectacularly. For some reason I doubt it'd be your favorite game. Because fundamentally you can't win. Nobody plays games they can't win. Even if the game is punishingly hard, it has to be demonstrably winnable for that player so they keep playing. People don't play games to lose. Acting like you somehow do either means you're going into this with the wrong assumptions (you like games where you can lose because it makes you feel like you can lose, which is what I said) or you're a masochist (And thus not a major segment of the audience).

 

And Quake III is a very interesting example because not only was it a MP-primary game where the bots were largely there for training, but it was made by id software which post-Q3 largely decided that games like it were really, really niche and created Doom 3 and Rage, both of which were increasingly 'casual'. Also, Bayonetta, DMC, etc are 'what is wrong with so many modern games'? Really?

 

Being extremely fair to their players even on the hardest difficulty levels which are extremely hard is a bad thing now?

 

Being unable to win isn't a good thing.

 

Having the game visibly coddle you when you know you are performing poorly, yet you are still able to win also doesn't feel like a victory. It will often feel hollow and unfulfilling.

 

If you play on a harder difficulty, you should expect to fail more often, until you get better at the game. That's what the challenges are there for in the first place; to condition you to perform better against them.

[MJ12]

Being unable to win isn't a good thing.

 

Having the game visibly coddle you when you know you are performing poorly, yet you are still able to win also doesn't feel like a victory. It will often feel hollow and unfulfilling.

 

If you play on a harder difficulty, you should expect to fail more often, until you get better at the game. That's what the challenges are there for in the first place; to condition you to perform better against them.

 

Actually, well-done dynamic difficulty of this sort is extremely fulfilling. Half-Life 2, for example. Very few people realized that the game got easier if you were doing worse and harder if you were doing better. Outside of the "For masochists only" setting L4D has similar scaling difficulty. Yes, if it's not done well dynamic difficulty is terrible but nothing is good if not done well.

[Ced23Ric]

DE has mentioned a difficulty slider, since plays with general balance always cause two things: "OMG, game too hard, why you hate us DE?!" or "LOL, game to easy, my cat just accidentially and successfully farmed Rhino while I went shopping for socks." - since that is obviously far from ideal, DE will more than likely add a difficulty slider to appease to all. :)

[epochofentropy]

DE has mentioned a difficulty slider, since plays with general balance always cause two things: "OMG, game too hard, why you hate us DE?!" or "LOL, game to easy, my cat just accidentially and successfully farmed Rhino while I went shopping for socks." - since that is obviously far from ideal, DE will more than likely add a difficulty slider to appease to all. :)

 

I would be perfectly OK with that (for now) as long as the hardest difficulty setting was truly and earnestly difficult and not just a token setting to the current max difficulty. Even better if there was something beneficial that came out of taking the path of most resistance. (eg: increased rare rates, something glittery to equip, etc)

 

Edit: All specific mechanisms aside, the impulse for this thread was to give people who want more a challenge from Warframe a competing voice against those that cry nerf.

Edited May 6, 2013 by epochofentropy

[Ced23Ric]

At this point I will have to say: We shall see what the future brings. All we got is rumours and concepts still in the crib. :)

[Necrio]

Yay! let's turn Warframe into another Dork Souls!

 

Forget about variety and complexity! Just buff enemies and we're all fine!

Dark Souls is complex though.

[Phoenix86]

While i agree that the game needs new challenging fight mechanincs i'm against gear treadmill.

 

For sure by 'harder' we not mean pick enemies HP & dmg and increase those by 200%, that's useless to me...

 

Beside normal fights i'd like to see improved firstly boss fights because honestly, Jackal & Phorid apart, all others are not so funny imho

[xStonedRaveNx]

More complex AI. More grabs, stuns and general coolsome when it comes to bosses. The higher levels should not be difficult because the enemies have godlike health and damage, but because they're more 'intelligent' and react in a more realistic and proactive manner when encountering a player character. 

[catastrophy]

There was this weekend where greneers seemed to have an insane RoF. I liked it somehow. They should react to the progress of the players. Maybe they all take a stimpack for a glorious last stand against the Tenno as special ability.

 

To the OP: I don't think we need any nerfs for the AI, but I seriously would like to see the removal of BS annoyances like the stupid knockdown of the Corpus faction.

[Nevara]

Game needs to be far harder.

[Zinn]

The biggest problem is that a PvE game can't be hard at all, since it's pretty much impossible to make an AI that can challenge a human. The only reason people, including myself at first, had problems with a game like Dark Souls is because almost every game we've gotten in the last 10 years has health regen and safe zones everywhere. Once you begin to counter the enemy strength by min/maxing or pumping Vit, the game becomes pretty trivial: In fact, you can complete it pretty easily without ever performing a parry or backstab, should you want to. Hell, the upgrade system alone makes it a lot easier than it should be, simply because any +15 weapon will flatten 90% of the enemies in the game. Challenging yourself in Dark Souls amounts to not summoning dudes and gimping yourself in various ways and you can do the same here. No vitality, no ults on your frame, no IronSkin, no freeze mods, no multishot etc.

 

Waframe has the additional challenge of co-op on top of that issue - And anyone that has summoned someone in Dark Souls knows that even O&S become trivial with someone to share aggro with. If Warframe wishes to be more difficult, it has to be of the artificial kind, but it could be done through enemy scaling in various ways (eg. more players = more enemy spawns), special units and their spawn rates and so on. Basically, you still introduce high HP meatshields with high damage output but you make them interesting and variable. If you also add conditions like they only drop rare mods or something, you even have incentive to stay and fight them.

 

I don't mind a very high level zone either, though. Various defenses has taught me that fighting dudes up to level 80 or so is doable, although you might need to bring a different mod loadout to such a place.

Edited May 6, 2013 by Zinn

[Nevara]

Challenging yourself in Dark Souls amounts to not summoning dudes and gimping yourself in various ways and you can do the same here. No vitality, no ults on your frame, no IronSkin, no freeze mods, no multishot etc.

 

No. Just... no. Can we stop this? If the game is too easy, then the game needs to be harder so some of us can have a challenge, the game needs to change, not us. When someone makes a game, they set out rules, within these rules you have to beat the game, not gimp myself. Let the game be a challenge for those of us that want it.

[Necrio]

Can't we have more Monster Hunter-like bosses where we actually have to read their movements and react instead of tanking their bullets and taking cover whenever our shield is low?

 

Jackal is cool and all but that's only one boss.

[ReiganCross]

Planet of Nervos is the way!

[TheaMatticks]

You seem to basically be asking for an endgame. Somewhere to put to use all your high level stuff.  Welcome to something people have been asking for for a while, as well as something DE has stated they are working on.