Take A Page From Serious Sam: Lots Of Low-Threat Enemies Vs Few High-Threat Ones

[MJ12]

How do you make a game difficult while still retaining elements of power fantasy?

 

That's actually a question with a fairly simple answer. Tons of weak enemies. Serious Sam, for example, throws hundreds of enemies at you per encounter, with each enemy being an extremely low threat but combined being quite a bit of a challenge. Dynasty Warriors attempts to use the same paradigm, and Legendary Dark Knight mode in DMC4 is basically the same thing wherein the enemies aren't super-hard (IIRC it's based on the "Hard" difficulty mode, and there's two-three more difficult ones above that) but they come in ten times the number.

 

This is really something Warframe should look into emulating, because such a power fantasy can simultaneously be empowering, fun, and viscerally entertaining because the entire screen is full of dudes dying from player-related causes.

 

Halve enemy damage and HP, then triple their numbers. The end result is that there's actually more aggregate damage coming at you and more aggregate HP which creates more challenge, but the game also feels more empowering. When you look at your 'end of mission stats' and see that you've wiped out an entire battalion of Grineer/Corpus singlehandedly, that's something viscerally satisfying.

 

Obviously this would require rebalancing the effectiveness of stagger and increasing recovery speed because there's twice the Shockwave Moas and Disruptors coming at you, but frankly even if the enemy numbers aren't increased that'd be a problem.

[MrGrae]

You already run out of ammo for at least one weapon if you aren't focused, I think this would be a little excessive, we already slaughter close to 100 grineer per mission.

[sambarpowder]

The rate of Tenno slaughter to that of Grineer cloning and Infested assimilation would be skewed too far. The corpus will win out by replacing all their crewmen with 3-d printed cheap MOAs.

[MetalGerbil]

more doesn't always mean challenge. 

 

games like this strike a balance that is suppose to make you feel something. in sam you are a badass killing hundreds with hardly any effort and a arsenal of guns that would make some countries jealous. 

 

in this game you are suppose to be a tenno. master of combat that puts his weapons and skills to effective use. be it 1 on 1 or small groups. you cant feel that kind of pressure if you are wasting hundreds of things at a time.it takes away from you as a character and focuses more on pure gunplay. which both games do well but the focus is just different.

 

id rather be a space ninja than a death machine.

[Katakuna]

How do you make a game difficult while still retaining elements of power fantasy?

 

That's actually a question with a fairly simple answer. Tons of weak enemies. Serious Sam, for example, throws hundreds of enemies at you per encounter, with each enemy being an extremely low threat but combined being quite a bit of a challenge. Dynasty Warriors attempts to use the same paradigm

 

I don't think taking pages out of Dynasty Warriors' book would be a good idea.  Unless you want everyone to have hundreds or thousands of kills.

Edited May 13, 2013 by Katakuna

[MJ12]

I don't think taking pages out of Dynasty Warriors' book would be a good idea.  Unless you want everyone to have hundreds or thousands of kills.

 

That is kind of the intention here. :p

[Emotitron]

Also a page from Diablo (which I refer to often when talking about this game). Dungeon crawls have some key elements that are common for a reason. They make what seems like it should be a mindless senseless grind into a lot of fun.

 

A variety in mobs that all require different approaches is good. Sometimes its nice to get zerged by lots of squishes that you get to cream wholesale with your AOE attacks. Then it is nice to mix that up with harder mobs that are a little smarter and soak up more damage. Then it is nice to stumble on a mini-boss and his minions who has the potential to really hurt your or send you running to patch up.

The corpus so far are the only foe that show any kind of team play. The shield guys protecting their allies is a simple start to what I hope we see more of. Enemy interactions that force players to pick a fight apart would be nice to see more of. Such as enemy healers and snipers and such. Currently the crawl is a pretty linear 'shoot everything in your path' or 'run as fast as you can past mobs'.

[hakma1]

How do you make a game difficult while still retaining elements of power fantasy?

 

That's actually a question with a fairly simple answer. Tons of weak enemies. Serious Sam, for example, throws hundreds of enemies at you per encounter, with each enemy being an extremely low threat but combined being quite a bit of a challenge. Dynasty Warriors attempts to use the same paradigm, and Legendary Dark Knight mode in DMC4 is basically the same thing wherein the enemies aren't super-hard (IIRC it's based on the "Hard" difficulty mode, and there's two-three more difficult ones above that) but they come in ten times the number.

 

This is really something Warframe should look into emulating, because such a power fantasy can simultaneously be empowering, fun, and viscerally entertaining because the entire screen is full of dudes dying from player-related causes.

 

Halve enemy damage and HP, then triple their numbers. The end result is that there's actually more aggregate damage coming at you and more aggregate HP which creates more challenge, but the game also feels more empowering. When you look at your 'end of mission stats' and see that you've wiped out an entire battalion of Grineer/Corpus singlehandedly, that's something viscerally satisfying.

 

Obviously this would require rebalancing the effectiveness of stagger and increasing recovery speed because there's twice the Shockwave Moas and Disruptors coming at you, but frankly even if the enemy numbers aren't increased that'd be a problem.

One word. Infested.

[Katakuna]

That is kind of the intention here. :p

 

Admittedly, I didn't initially read the last two paragraphs because that name jumped out at me.

Edited May 13, 2013 by Katakuna

[Lord.Finster]

No thank you, my PC is already lagging a bit in mobile defense missions. I don't think it can handle even more enemies. :D

 

Also, Grineer and MOAs are not made out of paper. They are heavily armoured, bigger and physically stronger than every Tenno. The Tennos technology and weaponry is superior but Grineer should provide some resistance both as individuals and as a group.

[0dentin]

Three words: World. On. Fire.

 

I already rip through most of whatever I get surrounded by, without having to do much of anything. With halved HP, nothing would stand up to sustained AOE. Having more of them would just add to the kill count.

[xStonedRaveNx]

Came across my first fusion moa outside that event yesterday. I was like ... lulz *BLAM*

Edited May 14, 2013 by xStonedRaveNx

[Argoms]

Nobody's mentioned performance issues? With our fancy dismemberment engine, even having enemies run in a straight line at you is going to cause some framerate drops.

 

Personally, I think it'd be nice if we took a page out of spiral knight's (of all things) book for enemy design (and NOTHING else. EVER.). No such thing as unavoidable damage, but a lot of precision and planning required to prevent it all. Effectively no "cheap" deaths with enemies telegraphing their moves while still being a challenge to avoid (no it doesn't get hard until end game, which I don't blame anyone for not reaching). Besides, wouldn't it be more fitting for a space ninja to theoretically be able to take zero damage in a mission if they did everything perfectly, while still being very much possible to F*** up? Things like hitscan enemy weapons/ancient extendo-arms ruin this, at the moment. 

[Hallorann]

5,000 weak minions vs 1 Banshee. My money's on Banshee getting out of it without breaking a shield.