A "little" Note To De And Other Tenno Who've Been Discussing

[Rexian]

Alright so I don't know if I should put this on Maps and lvls or in here, either way this is a "general" feedback discussion I suppose.

Let me ask all of you a question here, what is it that kills you in a T4 survival or T4 Defense most often? Is it a butcher? Crewman? I'm gonna go ahead and say that from what I've experienced it's almost always either a Bombard or a Heavy Gunner who ends my life during these missions (with a minority being other units/enemies)

There've been several topics discussing the nullifiers and what they do, how they impact the game and so on in several ways. And tbh I personally believe they're a wall blocker for me to enjoy the game. Now hear me out:

When doing T4 defense and survival (or any decently try hard survival/defense) you utalise any kind of CC you can in order to disarm be and dismantle the enemies of their ability to kill you. theyll no matter what try and kill you even if you take their weapons or if you slow them so they only move a inch per minute. They'll continuesly either run towards you or try shoot you no matter what you do to them, as soon as they can, they will do it.

as I've understood the nullifiers where implemented in order to stop us from being able to camp in corners all day and press 3-4, or taking a Defense to insane lvls without really trying.

Now what's the most typical thing about the AI in these two mission types? (You can count in interception here as well if you'd so wish). Simple: the enemy bum rush you as soon as they spawn, as soon as they're on the field they've one goal and that one goal is to kill you no matter the cost. And here's what I believe is the problem to all the discussions there've been, the nullifiers is a temporary fix for a bigger problem, the enemy AI.

I've never understood the point of the enemy trying to choke you out and at the same time just rushing you with all they got trying to kill you, what? "But oh it's a game and there can't always be logic" and true, but what if I told you that by simply changing the game modes around we could make the game a lot more challenging without a nullifier.

Lets take survival as a example, the enemy tries to choke you out yet they rush you and supply you with the life support you need by dying, biggest error right there. Make it the other way around, make the enemies camp in squads/armies around life support at the same time as it bunkers down waiting for you to die. Make US the hunters in survival and not the prey, make US try and work our hardest to break enemy defended in order to get the life support we need. I mean, I'd love to be forced into blowing a door up or something because the Grineer tries to lock me into it and empty it of air.

Make the AI understand that with certain combos of warframes certain tactics isn't viable (bum rushing a disarm loki, Vauban, volt and greedy mag).

At the moment the only thing really killing us is the nullifiers. The fact that they spawn in so many numbers and that they keep allies from being CCed makes it so they'll eventually break through. EVENTUALLY. That's the problem. They flood, sure they've great numbers army wise and so on but really? Zombie minded all of them? Even those who're suppose to be human clones?

As I said before, making us having Togo on the offensive on survivals could be the key of a better playing field. Also, if you really had to do it make exams units immune to some of our abilities. I personally believe the nullifiers are a "you're not allowed to have fun" walking bubble. They're stopping me from using what I came here to use. Sure you'll be then using that to control the enemy's and so on as you please, but that's why I suggest making certain enemies immune to certain things or making the exodus even rarer but ability immune. It really sucks seeing 5 nullifiers and a group of bombards and heavy gunners rushing at you, because you know you can't do that much about it other than hoping to God you can take out the nullifiers quick enough before they get to close with the bombards/heavy gunners.

As I said before it could be made so we hunt for the life support that the lotus sends us, the enemies bunker all up around them and we try get to the target, the amount of troops we'd have to cut through at a increasing lvl would make it sooner or later hard enough for us to be unable to do it.

And for defense missions, when will that stop being a bum rushing fest? So much potential in that game mode as well, you could make the enemy organise in squads, flanking, basing and having them do timed attacks. All randomised in order to make it unpredictable and hard hitting. Everything to challenge the power of the Tenno. Even here I believe having a few enemies that's be immune to certain things would do the job, for example some butchers maybe being unaffected by vaubans Bastille or vortex. And I'd love to see a lot of enemies taking cover and then at the same time start blasting at the Tenno to destroy the frost shield or if it's a limbo you use, they all enter the cataclysm at once from all angles starting the gunfight.

But having complete squads (complete armies rather) totally immune against what are suppose to make us unique and fierce warriors is not the way to go. If we actually had a smarter AI and a few changes to the enemies behaviour and what they can do and cannot do and get effected by, we'd not need to have formas in rotation C. I mean, for example a butcher, he'd be resisting a repelling Bastille and a vortex, but be completly targetable with Volts shock and be staggered/electrified like they do now and stand there shacking.

There's options, not only the one thing called "nullies". They to me are a short term saviour for what will eventually have to come around if you want your game to evolve DE.

I love this game, I really do. But after readings DERebeccas post in another topic about the statistics and her experience, I really had enough of it and had to make this thread. I wanna see Warframe be what every other game have failed, but without the AI and challanges there to support it, I doubt it.

Take a look as L4D and why that's so successful, those kinds of mechanics could be in the game, groups of enemies working together to take you down. Not just every man for themselves and eventually one will get you.

That's all for me, thanks Tenno and DE.

Edit, I typed this on my phone so sorry if anything is put out weird, that's because of autocorrect.

Edited April 15, 2015 by Rexian

[Spikey844]

I agree. If the AI was sorted out, the game could become much more challenging without additions likes nullifiers. Hell, making enemies resistant to some abilities depending on what type of 'health' they have (shields, armour, health) like in Mass Effect could make missions much more enjoyable.

Edited April 15, 2015 by Spikey844

[AdunSaveMe]

It's usually bombards that kill me. Their rockets do colossal damage.

 

I would normally be fine with that, as it is late game content, but they also go through shields like snowglobe and electric shield, and walls, and doors, and the rockets are extremely hard to avoid, as they can turn in an almost complete circle and often end up exploding solely out of proximity.

 

Nullifiers don't work because they have poor AI, weapons that outclass half the faction and mechanics that are often inconsistent, along with their total gimping of low-ROF weapons. They seem rushed, and could certainly do with a redesign. They can still be challenging and have a purpose, but also be fun and cool.

[OvAeons]

i have issues with ninja corrupt moa's lasering mah beehind. bombards are alrightish cause i have been able to kill them out asap or roll/ melee slide under their rockets (hard to do but works REALLY well)

[nickelshark]

Yes AI and endless missions need a major rework!

[Defendor]

The problem with AI programming is that it's really complicated. That's why L4D used other players as enemies: making an AI algorithm that can ambush and coordinate its attacks is extremely difficult. The AI director from L4D did some of the things you mentioned, but it was just a part of the challenge.

 

That's where "smart dumb" enemies come in. They're challenging without being intelligent, because their mechanics are customized to test the player. If they're done well, you end up with DMC or Dark Souls. If they're done... not so well, you end up with nulls.

 

Also, you typed THAT on a phone? Whoa.

Edited April 15, 2015 by Defendor

[Nighttide77]

Could someone please elaborate on how AI improvements will make the enemies more challenging?

 

Currently, enemies will rush to certain points, and often light gunners will take cover while heavy armored enemies will just stand there and try to out-shoot you.  That seems....rather typical and reflected is other games where light enemies will be more cautious, and heavy enemies will just try to brute-force the battle.

[Lightsmith]

Your topic title is misleading. This note is not 'little'.

[Nighttide77]

Something else, too...  What about potential Corrupted Manics?  Manics do have an ability to dispel warframe powers, and a handful of powers do not work on them.  If people don't like the fact that Nullifiers void warframe powers for themselves and allies, why aren't Manics a chief complaint?

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

Could someone please elaborate on how AI improvements will make the enemies more challenging?

 

Currently, enemies will rush to certain points, and often light gunners will take cover while heavy armored enemies will just stand there and try to out-shoot you.  That seems....rather typical and reflected is other games where light enemies will be more cautious, and heavy enemies will just try to brute-force the battle.

 

Most other games don't have player power to the level we do.

 

On that note, improvements to AI's only half the battle. It doesn't matter where the AI tries to set up shop, if I am invisible or invincible or forcing them all to fight each other or taking away their guns non-stop, it's going to be a picnic for me. So energy as an actual gate or meter needs to be fixed. As it is right now, there are so many ways of breaking this meter that anything DE does to increase difficulty is irrelevant to the players who aren't having any trouble, short of doing what they did and adding enemies that can simply ignore or take away our powers. If energy were less common this wouldn't be a problem.

[Rexian]

Your topic title is misleading. This note is not 'little'.

To me this is little, I did my best to short it all down and also keep it informative. I could go on about this for a long time. But instead I wanted to state everything as clear as possible and yet not go further. I understand what you mean, but it's still little compared to what I could've wrote.

[Rexian]

Most other games don't have player power to the level we do.

 

On that note, improvements to AI's only half the battle. It doesn't matter where the AI tries to set up shop, if I am invisible or invincible or forcing them all to fight each other or taking away their guns non-stop, it's going to be a picnic for me. So energy as an actual gate or meter needs to be fixed. As it is right now, there are so many ways of breaking this meter that anything DE does to increase difficulty is irrelevant to the players who aren't having any trouble, short of doing what they did and adding enemies that can simply ignore or take away our powers. If energy were less common this wouldn't be a problem.

Which is why I stated having it so certain enemies doesn't get effected by certain things. Spam your abilities, spam your vortex but you'll only suck in certain groups enemies or something else. If you make it so you can't use Vaubans Bastille for example to counter everything you'd have to start doing combos like now, and heck maybe even we'd have a "nullifier" we cannot effect because another enemy takes a priority to disable? We'd for example disable the bombards but leave the heavy gunners walking about. Irradiating disarm for example would maybe not effect corpus units and definately not the shielded mechanic ones. But maybe effect Grineer rollers.

[Rexian]

The problem with AI programming is that it's really complicated. That's why L4D used other players as enemies: making an AI algorithm that can ambush and coordinate its attacks is extremely difficult. The AI director from L4D did some of the things you mentioned, but it was just a part of the challenge.

 

That's where "smart dumb" enemies come in. They're challenging without being intelligent, because their mechanics are customized to test the player. If they're done well, you end up with DMC or Dark Souls. If they're done... not so well, you end up with nulls.

 

Also, you typed THAT on a phone? Whoa.

The problem with AI programming is that it's really complicated. That's why L4D used other players as enemies: making an AI algorithm that can ambush and coordinate its attacks is extremely difficult. The AI director from L4D did some of the things you mentioned, but it was just a part of the challenge.

 

That's where "smart dumb" enemies come in. They're challenging without being intelligent, because their mechanics are customized to test the player. If they're done well, you end up with DMC or Dark Souls. If they're done... not so well, you end up with nulls.

 

Also, you typed THAT on a phone? Whoa.

You're absolutely right and you put it out a lot simpler and easier than my whole text. L4D wasn't perfect, but what it tried to do it succeeded with, something I believe Warframe can do as well with time. I always hated having the AI in L4D having a spitter landing spit on me and then having a charger or hunter grab me...

Note also, this shouldn't mean that everything stays the same either, enemies could get more stuff to their arsenal, abilities and so on just even for the most basic infantry unit as te AI would change.

And yes is so, I'm dedicated, so what more can I say? XD

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

Which is why I stated having it so certain enemies doesn't get effected by certain things. Spam your abilities, spam your vortex but you'll only suck in certain groups enemies or something else. If you make it so you can't use Vaubans Bastille for example to counter everything you'd have to start doing combos like now, and heck maybe even we'd have a "nullifier" we cannot effect because another enemy takes a priority to disable? We'd for example disable the bombards but leave the heavy gunners walking about. Irradiating disarm for example would maybe not effect corpus units and definately not the shielded mechanic ones. But maybe effect Grineer rollers.

 

You have to be careful with this (this is something I used to want, but over time have become more and more cautious about). You don't want to create a situation where abilities are unreliable. Irradiating Disarm, to use your example, would be worthless against Corpus units if it didn't affect their most common and oftentimes most dangerous ones (excluding ship missions with packs of Detron crewmen). Instead of fixing the ability/mods/gear, you've created an unreliable ability that severely hurts one frame's usability in missions. Moreover, you're making abilities brutal and painful for newer players who don't have ways to spam--in the less common chances they have to use abilities, they're going to find them as a waste of energy when half the enemies don't react to them.

[Rexian]

You have to be careful with this (this is something I used to want, but over time have become more and more cautious about). You don't want to create a situation where abilities are unreliable. Irradiating Disarm, to use your example, would be worthless against Corpus units if it didn't affect their most common and oftentimes most dangerous ones (excluding ship missions with packs of Detron crewmen). Instead of fixing the ability/mods/gear, you've created an unreliable ability that severely hurts one frame's usability in missions. Moreover, you're making abilities brutal and painful for newer players who don't have ways to spam--in the less common chances they have to use abilities, they're going to find them as a waste of energy when half the enemies don't react to them.

Could just be made less effective, against that type. For example a Manic you'd only be effecting wrong Chaoos for 75% of the real duration.doesnt have to be every enemy who has is but for example with Vauban, if you don't have enough power strength, host Bastille won't lift up a Bombard because they're too heavy.

This game is still in beta and the AI needs to be one of the things that gets improved next in order to add more variety and challange. My suggestion doesn't necissarly have to be a thing. But I believe that having a unit that completly neglects. What we do is worse than having a few lancers unaffected by mesas weapon jamming.?

[vaugahn]

If the AI was sorted out, the game could become much more challenging without additions likes nullifiers. 

 

Absolutely not true.

 

Recall how absurdly one-sided certain abilities were in old PvP. Even with a human intelligence behind the wheel, some abilities are just that good. No amount of AI development will allow enemies to dodge X-ray instant hit damage or stun abilities, and adding a hard limitation to those things just infuriates people.

 

Challenge needs to be cultivated on the player side first, then we can address enemy AI.

[Rexian]

Absolutely not true.

 

Recall how absurdly one-sided certain abilities were in old PvP. Even with a human intelligence behind the wheel, some abilities are just that good. No amount of AI development will allow enemies to dodge X-ray instant hit damage or stun abilities, and adding a hard limitation to those things just infuriates people.

 

Challenge needs to be cultivated on the player side first, then we can address enemy AI.

A better allied AI would be a start and then have some upgrades/remakes of the enemy. But then depending on what the enemy would do the allied AI would need another update/upgrade.

Of course some of our abilities are undodgeable atm and that's just how the game have developed, yet that shouldn't stop DE from trying to make a very good AI, I mean for example if I use Miasma of like the enemy to maybe roll on the ground towards last know cover as it tries to get the toxic out of its eyes. Something like that, I mean you could smack out a lot of ideas but doing it could be a by of a challange. Yet if implemented, it'd be amazing.

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

A better allied AI would be a start and then have some upgrades/remakes of the enemy. But then depending on what the enemy would do the allied AI would need another update/upgrade.

Of course some of our abilities are undodgeable atm and that's just how the game have developed, yet that shouldn't stop DE from trying to make a very good AI, I mean for example if I use Miasma of like the enemy to maybe roll on the ground towards last know cover as it tries to get the toxic out of its eyes. Something like that, I mean you could smack out a lot of ideas but doing it could be a by of a challange. Yet if implemented, it'd be amazing.

 

AI is very difficult to program. Ultimately, your suggestion is a lot of work (especially for a small team like DE) with little payoff. AI improvements should happen, but there are other things that would provide better results for challenge quicker.

[Rexian]

AI is very difficult to program. Ultimately, your suggestion is a lot of work (especially for a small team like DE) with little payoff. AI improvements should happen, but there are other things that would provide better results for challenge quicker.

And one of those "other things" happen to be a nullifier. But in the long term goal, DE should want to actually work on the AI.

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

And one of those "other things" happen to be a nullifier. But in the long term goal, DE should want to actually work on the AI.

 

Another one of those other things would be reducing player power to a point where it's possible to balance against, and then use that point to create enemies that challenge us to use everything we have in a variety of ways (rather than challenge us by taking away what we have.

 

To paraphrase Notionphil, it doesn't matter if the enemy is a supergenius, if it's facing an invisible Loki, a Rhino with Iron Skin and fully modded Boltor Prime, an Ash auto-targeting the rest of its team, and a Nyx that's making all its friends shoot at it, it's going to die. Period.

 

But that's beside the point, which is that AI on its own will make little meaningful impact on most of the game (stealth perhaps excluded). AI is difficult to develop, and that time would be spent doing something that doesn't solve the problems you're attempting to fix.

Edited April 16, 2015 by (PS4)WiiConquered

[Rexian]

To paraphrase Notionphil, it doesn't matter if the enemy is a supergenius, if it's facing an invisible Loki, a Rhino with Iron Skin and fully modded Boltor Prime, an Ash auto-targeting the rest of its team, and a Nyx that's making all its friends shoot at it, it's going to die. Period.

And that's the point isn't it? I mean, atm the players/tenno isn't "balanced" but if you balance us, a lot of the fun will go away, I mean currently we are fighting enemies that only have one command and that's to kill, kinda like telling a unit in starcraft 2 or something else to Attack move to a point. it'll attack everythin in its patch until it's destroyed. or it dies.

 

Just having the current setup of enemies and actually make them do something else other than just the same stuff all the time, would make the game harder. Nullifiers wouldn't need to spawn in such great numbers and we could have 1-2 of them at the time that would yet make it hard. A organised army is a fierce army, and tbh the only reason why you can camp in a corner in survivals is because of how the AI is and sure it could be hard to program and so on, but I still see problems with the fact that the enemy bum rush and have always done. Just one step towards something similare to L4D would make the game a lot harder. Because currently I don't see the enemy work together to take you down a lot... It's that one AI against you, that's how they act. They rarely show any care about their allies around them. Which is a shame. Because I'd like to turn around a corner and see 12 grineer lancers pop out from cover spraying me down.

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

And that's the point isn't it? I mean, atm the players/tenno isn't "balanced" but if you balance us, a lot of the fun will go away, I mean currently we are fighting enemies that only have one command and that's to kill, kinda like telling a unit in starcraft 2 or something else to Attack move to a point. it'll attack everythin in its patch until it's destroyed. or it dies.

 

Just having the current setup of enemies and actually make them do something else other than just the same stuff all the time, would make the game harder. Nullifiers wouldn't need to spawn in such great numbers and we could have 1-2 of them at the time that would yet make it hard. A organised army is a fierce army, and tbh the only reason why you can camp in a corner in survivals is because of how the AI is and sure it could be hard to program and so on, but I still see problems with the fact that the enemy bum rush and have always done. Just one step towards something similare to L4D would make the game a lot harder. Because currently I don't see the enemy work together to take you down a lot... It's that one AI against you, that's how they act. They rarely show any care about their allies around them. Which is a shame. Because I'd like to turn around a corner and see 12 grineer lancers pop out from cover spraying me down.

 

But smarter AI wouldn't change that, not at this stage. It doesn't matter where the AI is when I'm invisible for the entire match, or using Miasma every seven seconds to melt their bodies apart, or have Link active all game and they can't hurt me.

 

I also disagree that balancing us would make the fun go away. Maybe some people feel that Corrupted mods and gear spamming make the game more fun, but to me all they've done is created a game balanced around having to use powers all the time to the point where they don't mesh with melee or parkour at all, guns have insane damage to compete, and enemies use high damage RNG attacks to pretend there's challenge.

 

This wouldn't fix that. Instead, it would mean you need to use powers even more, because now the enemies have been buffed in every way to stop the people spamming powers. But those using the powers will keep using them and not be effected at all, and only those who don't (and playing the game at high levels with limited power usage is fairly difficult and ridiculously unfair) will face more challenge.

[Rexian]

But smarter AI wouldn't change that, not at this stage. It doesn't matter where the AI is when I'm invisible for the entire match, or using Miasma every seven seconds to melt their bodies apart, or have Link active all game and they can't hurt me.

 

I also disagree that balancing us would make the fun go away. Maybe some people feel that Corrupted mods and gear spamming make the game more fun, but to me all they've done is created a game balanced around having to use powers all the time to the point where they don't mesh with melee or parkour at all, guns have insane damage to compete, and enemies use high damage RNG attacks to pretend there's challenge.

 

This wouldn't fix that. Instead, it would mean you need to use powers even more, because now the enemies have been buffed in every way to stop the people spamming powers. But those using the powers will keep using them and not be effected at all, and only those who don't (and playing the game at high levels with limited power usage is fairly difficult and ridiculously unfair) will face more challenge.

By all means Tenno, run into a nullifier shield with your loki and see how that resolves. The weapon balance at the moment is out the window, that's for sure. it's like one of the other posts that got made earlier today mentioning Killing Floor 2 said, don't make the enemies bullet sponges, just improve they get to you and what they can do.

We're tenno, our abilities and skill in battle means havoc among our enemies. having us being on equal ground against the grineer/infested/corpus means we'll not be as powerfull as we're described. I want them to make the game harder, a challange, then we'd not need to have these formas on rotation C.

 

But to me it seems very very dull to have every enemy act like a zombie that'll stop at nothing to kill you. Just seems so off because of how the races are structured, I mean. The infested gets a little bit away with it because they're infested and suppose to swarm. But the rest? I really hope they make the sentients special and smarter. a lot smarter.

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

By all means Tenno, run into a nullifier shield with your loki and see how that resolves. The weapon balance at the moment is out the window, that's for sure. it's like one of the other posts that got made earlier today mentioning Killing Floor 2 said, don't make the enemies bullet sponges, just improve they get to you and what they can do.

We're tenno, our abilities and skill in battle means havoc among our enemies. having us being on equal ground against the grineer/infested/corpus means we'll not be as powerfull as we're described. I want them to make the game harder, a challange, then we'd not need to have these formas on rotation C.

 

But to me it seems very very dull to have every enemy act like a zombie that'll stop at nothing to kill you. Just seems so off because of how the races are structured, I mean. The infested gets a little bit away with it because they're infested and suppose to swarm. But the rest? I really hope they make the sentients special and smarter. a lot smarter.

 

First of all, the Nullifier is the culmination of our lack of balance and everything that's wrong with difficulty in the game. It is an enemy that says "Your guns are too strong and your weapons are too strong, so I'm just gonna take them away since I can't challenge you with them". Second of all, it's my point. Nullifiers don't use any special AI to "challenge" players.

 

Third, if you take away the Corrupted mods and insanely powerful guns you're still a super soldier with powers who can use swords to block bullets and run up walls while shooting people. The difference is you actually have to use more than one of those things to get through the game, but it also means that the game has no reason to just take some of them away from you like Nullifiers and pretend it's challenging you.

 

At this point, improving AI might actually matter. The enemies might not be dumb enough to line up and let you shoot them all up, but your powers--when you use them--will still cause big shifts in the battle. When you don't have the energy to use them or aren't able to lock down everything at once, you still have guns, parkour, and melee.

 

But right now, it doesn't matter what AI improvements you give; because powers are both common and insanely powerful, we can simply use them more and have the same limited difficulty. And at that point, you've only made the game more difficult for those without the Corrupted mods and the like without changing its difficulty for those with them.

Edited April 16, 2015 by (PS4)WiiConquered

[Ironlixivium]

I agree, this is the third post I've seen regarding this counting mine. DE is attempting to make up for the terrible AI with horribly overpowered abilities...like nullifiers... what we really need are dynamically scaling AI, NOT dynamic armor and health

 

I wrote out quite a few details of how it could work here:

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/442117-enemies-20-one-massive-change-that-could-fix-many-of-warframes-problems-revised-to-be-easier-to-read/#entry4908743