Energy Leech / Parasitic Eximus Visual Effects Need To Be Much More Apparent

[Casardis]

Main Suggestion

 

Energy Leech / Parasitic Eximus need a much more apparent visual effect to the players, so that they will be alarmed whenever one pops out of the huge crowd. This can be done by giving Energy Leech / Parasitic Eximus an energy tendril effect that links the affected Tenno when they are within range. You can even use the Phage asset alongside Trinity's Link, since it will make sense and can link the infested Parasitic Eximus to the weapon's lore (similar to how Synapse is possibly related to Electric Crawler, while Torid is related to Lobber and Toxic Crawler).

 

That way, the design of infested as a swarm is kept, but the dangerous Parasitic will be more apparent so the Tenno can try and single out that one enemy, at the cost of being swarmed by the rest. At least, in that situation, you can see the enemy a bit more and choose to do something without going blind (such as press 4 to win). This unique Eximus effect will also help distinguish them from others, since energy leeching is quite dangerous within a bunch of infested meat bags.

 

 

Reasoning

 

Among the existing Eximus (is Eximus' plural Eximi?), one of the most dangerous, in my opinion, is the ones that can drain your energy. They do so at a very fast rate too (wiki says 5 energy per second), and can be the death of the Tenno if they were already low on energy, without means to recover such as energy restores.

 

Even so, they're among the Eximus that has the least obvious visual effects.The Arson creates a fiery ring around the Tenno, along with releasing a large scale fire blast; the Arctic slows the players with a visible cold ring around them; the Shock ones create a least visible, but still existent purple ring. Yet, the Energy Leech/Parasitic has nothing of that, despite having an effect that can be most detrimental to the Tenno.

 

This is even more apparent when fighting against infested, where Parasitic Eximus is extremely common. That's without mentioning the fact that Infested missions can become really crowded (Defense comes to mind), along with effects that can impair the player's visuals. For example, Ceres Defense makes almost everything have a shade of red, the color which the aura Parasitic Eximus sports, so they blend even more in the cluster of particle effects and infested flesh. They can leech your energy without being in your LoS too, so knowing that they are here doesn't necessarily help if you can't even find them.

 

This doesn't add a level of challenge, but rather unfairness due to an accumulation of designs: Infested should swarm you in large crowd, it's in their design --> Parasitic Eximus spawn in large number; Parasitic Eximus doesn't have an apparent visual effect --> they don't become apparent enough in the large crowd of infested.

 

 

Personal experience that brought me to suggest this

In almost every single Dark Sector Defense I've done, I'm always the one doing search-and-destroy to Parasitic Eximus. The whole team's often too busy pressing 4 to win, or simply attacking blind with their melee. It's not a bad thing per say, but it can be when I'm usually the only player around who have to manage the whole team closely.

 

I play as a Trinity who's constantly EV-ing for the team, but also fighting actively; I need to watch everyone's health to use Blessing, even more when they're taking me for granted and going blind-melee-frenzy in a crowd of lvl 60 infested with low health while the pod's being attacked or an ally is down; yet even though I need to manage all this, I often find myself the only one looking for the Parasitic when a swarm comes in. Whenever I expect my team to wipe them out fast enough, it sometimes take too long (since they're not actually focusing on the Parasitic but simply destroying everything), and it drains our energy too much that I can't EV for the whole team.

 

I don't blame these players for that. The designs of the game can easily make people play that way. However, if Parasitic Eximus had a better visual effect, people would react to them as much as they would to an Arson that is close, and therefore change their instinct a bit to focus on finding it.

 

Thank you for your time.

Edited April 2, 2015 by Casardis

[DarkSoulStrider]

+1

[zoboso]

I agree that the energy leech eximus's effect being invisible is annoying but to make it visible would require it to be more powerful to continue being effective at the angle it is playing at. Not really an art & animation feedback but my 2 cents on this issue.

[Bibliothekar]

Well spoken. As a fellow Trinity (although I more often use Ember against Infested), I fully support your suggestion.

[Centias]

You know how a Venomous Eximus has that toxic aura that flows around your feet? Or the fire with Caustic, or the blue/white cold circle with Frost? I want a purple or whatever color version of that show up at my feet or around my body when they're nearby. Something to show I'm actually having my energy sapped.

[Casardis]

You know how a Venomous Eximus has that toxic aura that flows around your feet? Or the fire with Caustic, or the blue/white cold circle with Frost? I want a purple or whatever color version of that show up at my feet or around my body when they're nearby. Something to show I'm actually having my energy sapped.

 

Purple is already used for Shock Eximus (Magnetic effect). The only remaining colors that could show that, I think, is red, since their aura is red. However, using red might be the worst color choice possible, since not only do Infested have a lot of red stuff flying around, there's a lot of strange visual overlays in the game (color correction) that can throw people off even more, such as in Ceres Defense where blue becomes red (...why?).

 

And as I explained, due to the nature of the energy sapping in the midst of chaos, I'd much prefer to have a "tendril" to link me to the offender. Having the circle around will be miles better than what we have now (which is nothing at all), but it's not a good visual cue enough due to the possible logical color choice (which will lack visibility) and the fact that they're most dangerous and common amongst infested (which means even more lack of visibility due to swarms). Having the circle can alarm us, but it won't tell us where they're at.

 

It might seem too easy to have a tendril linking so that it pinpoints the location, but I think not simply due to the designs of infested being a swarm, and how fast-paced the game is (think of it like having a sniper laser sight on you). You don't always have time to single out some units in the midst of such chaos, or at least many people won't bother because of the game's design. Having the tendril may simply motivate the player to go there and kill the target, while giving us a slight helping hand in detection when fighting a huge wave of infested with particles flying everywhere. As a bonus point, the tendril look will give insight to the nature of the weapon Phage.

Edited April 2, 2015 by Casardis

[Bibliothekar]

Purple is already used for Shock Eximus (Magnetic effect).

Funny thing about those guys: I've seen them, I know what they're supposed to do - but I haven't seen any one do it. Well, not since the times when just stepping into their range immediately zapped all your energy and screwed up your HUD. Anyway ...

 

And as I explained, due to the nature of the energy sapping in the midst of chaos, I'd much prefer to have a "tendril" to link me to the offender. Having the circle around will be miles better than what we have now (which is nothing at all), but it's not a good visual cue enough due to the possible logical color choice (which will lack visibility) and the fact that they're most dangerous and common amongst infested (which means even more lack of visibility due to swarms). Having the circle can alarm us, but it won't tell us where they're at.

Worst offender here are Parasitic crawlers. Chargers at least stand out a bit, as they are black and seem to be a bit larger than the usual specimen. But crawlers can hide behind a root or whatever and feast on your energy until you happen to literally stumble over them. Happened to me often enough ...

Also, since I've just read this on the wiki:

Eximi of this type have 300% of their base health and shield and an innate resistance of 50% to all damage types, deducted additively on all existing type effectiveness.

Is this supposed to be some kind of sick joke? Triple health and 50% damage resistance on top of anything their class comes with? Now I understand why it feels like I'm shooting them with cotton balls ...

[Centias]

Purple is already used for Shock Eximus (Magnetic effect). The only remaining colors that could show that, I think, is red, since their aura is red. However, using red might be the worst color choice possible, since not only do Infested have a lot of red stuff flying around, there's a lot of strange visual overlays in the game (color correction) that can throw people off even more, such as in Ceres Defense where blue becomes red (...why?).

 

And as I explained, due to the nature of the energy sapping in the midst of chaos, I'd much prefer to have a "tendril" to link me to the offender. Having the circle around will be miles better than what we have now (which is nothing at all), but it's not a good visual cue enough due to the possible logical color choice (which will lack visibility) and the fact that they're most dangerous and common amongst infested (which means even more lack of visibility due to swarms). Having the circle can alarm us, but it won't tell us where they're at.

 

It might seem too easy to have a tendril linking so that it pinpoints the location, but I think not simply due to the designs of infested being a swarm, and how fast-paced the game is (think of it like having a sniper laser sight on you). You don't always have time to single out some units in the midst of such chaos, or at least many people won't bother because of the game's design. Having the tendril may simply motivate the player to go there and kill the target, while giving us a slight helping hand in detection when fighting a huge wave of infested with particles flying everywhere. As a bonus point, the tendril look will give insight to the nature of the weapon Phage.

 

 

Seriously, big glowy circle around your feet plus a glowy tendril flowing off of your character at least in the direction of the Paraisitic Eximus if not all the way directly to it would be basicaly perfect. Color wasn't really the issue I was going for. More that I was saying, several other Eximus types already do the circle around your feet thing, why not this one when it is often the most threatening?

 

 

Is this supposed to be some kind of sick joke? Triple health and 50% damage resistance on top of anything their class comes with? Now I understand why it feels like I'm shooting them with cotton balls ...

 

Holy crap, that's ridiculous. Glad they usually show up as small, weak enemies, but those numbers should at worst be something like 2x health and 50% damage reduction, OR 3x health.

Edited April 2, 2015 by Centias

[Kainosh]

Yeah..."link" idea is awesome.   It will show almost exact location of such eximus.  Hey! Just like DREG enemy in AW mode.