Real Talk: The Infested Just Aren't Fun To Fight Anymore.(In Missions Above Level 15-25)

[notlamprey]

I've only been back long enough to have limited experience with the newest batch of infested, but everything seems to be dialed up a touch too high.

 

Tar-Mutalist Moas shoot a little too accurately, affect a little too much area, and slow everything (really, DE, was EVERYTHING necessary?) down a little too much.

 

The swarmy ones, whose name I forget because I can't ever see the screen when they're on the map, can just frig off - really, how much does DE love Interface Screw? Do all these interface effects have to be so hypersaturated and crazy opaque? The Year of Quality might have been a good time to learn when "over the top" is appropriate, and when it isn't.

 

Take a cue from Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer's Seeker Swarm effect. That's about the right level of interface meddling. You don't need to cross into Fake Difficulty in the name of immersion, so don't do it.

 

Chargers still have that ridiculous and inappropriate description, for some reason.

 

Crawlers are too easily lost in the great clouds of auras and particles and screen effects and color correction and just how many graphical options do I have to turn off and tweak before I can actually tell what's happening in this game? It's time for the "effects guys" to put out some polished, disciplined work. I'm seeing too much bombast and not enough intelligent restraint.

 

I want to see DE learn how to distill the Necessary and present it thoughtfully, instead of this... "Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things."

[Urlan]

I hated Mass Effect 3's multiplayer by the end of it, there was just too much imbalance towards the enemies and weakening of the weapons. While nerfing people glitching out missiles, the devs made it so you had to use missiles to be able to beat the special heavies in any realistic amount of time. It went from being able to skillfully headshot these squad killers, to wasting all your ammo and grenades, and requiring ammo pickups since powers were also useless against them. My main team mates though did give a shout out to Mass Effect 3's seeker swarms when they saw The Swarn Moa, said it gave them flashbacks to running around as those things blinded them and still having to avoid those dang grenades and collector attacks.

 

I can definately agree if infested being annoying to fight, the Tar Moa were even worse back during and right after the Mutalist Event if you can believe it. My main warframe has maxed out life and shields and was still being ons-shot by those annoying things when they did pure radiation damage. The broodmothers also still don't drop mods without killing them in particular ways. I think many of Alad V's additions could be relooked at with fun or quality in mind.

[DSpite]

The closest game I can use to compare to, combat wise, would be Borderlands.

 

In that game, I used to get a lot of situations where poo hit the fan and suddenly you were fighting or running for your life because of a few units, but here, there is minimal overall danger, but a ton of distractions.

 

Because of the swarming mechanics, you always have maggots on you, or bees, or in tar. There is basically no getting away from it. It's not challenging, it's annoying.

 

I know DE is trying hard, but the Infested are just exasperating to fight. As said, they are "no fun" to fight. They are simply there, and we need to deal with them to do the mission, they are not something engaging that we dive into as a challenge.

[FelisImpurrator]

The big issues I see here is, grapples need a mechanic where you can fire your weapon and use your sword while being dragged. And the Tar moas shot should only affect movement speed and movement abilities, not fire rate and casting speed.

See, there's something interesting about that first one.

 

I'm fairly certain that I've managed to shoot an Ancient to death while grappled before. It's just not consistent, so at this point in time, it's a bug - but it's a good bug, and one that should be made permanent. Besides, it actually feels pretty badass to be able to shoot a thing to death while it's grappling you - same goes for Scorpions.

 

Also, for the slowing, the same should apply to Orokin ice traps, because this 'slowing' makes no sense. I think it even activates a certain distance off the ground, which is silly.

 

Oh, and just to sum up the entire experience with Swarms:

Edited May 28, 2015 by FelisImpurrator

[RedDirtTrooper]

I agree. The new mechanics are interesting, but they need a serious tweak to make them less game shattering. Even a tweak just so that special unit spawns get less and less common the higher the level would be a huge improvement. I don't mind them being tougher than the pushover chumps completely negated by vauban that they used to be.  I don't mind if they are the most difficult enemies in the game, but as others have mentioned, the mass aura stacking and spewing over abundance of crowd control that we have no real way of mitigating takes them from difficult to frustrating and broken as the level goes up.

[madhatter10]

Take a Nyx and let them feel their own annoyance :D
My personal number one hate is most likely the swarm moa. As soon as the spawn rate of those increase, your screen is black and all swinging with your melee won't change that, since there are 20 enemies around you, who will turn your screen black again in a split second. Remove them or tweak them, so that they can't give their ability to other infested. It's downright annoying. Otherwise I'm fine with the rest. Although I agree with most points here. There are a lot of infested, who can slow you, hinder your sight, drain your energy or completely ignore your defense through poison. With some tweaks and the right balance in spawning DE can make the Infested challenging and still fun. But at the moment they are a pain :(

Edited May 30, 2015 by madhatter10

[Holeypaladin]

I've always hated how Infected provide the least XP for the most hassle of any faction in the game.

 

Grineer heavies are tough, sure, but at least they reward you with good XP for killing them.  Ancients are still crap for XP and always have been, and now the moas are even crappier.

[TheGrimCorsair]

Honestly, they feel too much like a simple exercise in threat prioritization. Kill Ancients, then the MOA's, then any remaining Eximus units, then everything else. The visual effects *are* over-driven, though. Especially the swarm screen darkening effect. It's a cool effect for sure, and such visual effects have their place, but Infestation missions are nothing like moody enough, and enemies nothing like fearsome enough, for such an effect to be anything other than an unnecessary headache-and-eyestrain inducer.

[(PSN)GearMonster1]

I enjoy the synergy that the Infested have when working together, "but" it happens far to often. That's the real problem I have with them, is just the fact that they can truly perma-stunlock you. This makes it not fun, like at all.

 

How it usually goes for me:

1-Grappled by Ancient Healer

2-Pulled through fresh tar

3-Punted like a football through bees to another MOA

4-Punted again into tar

5-Grappled by a Disruptor

6-Pulled through more tar

7-Start getting up to be hit by a Leaper covered in bees into another MOA

8-Kicked again by a MOA into an Exploder and then stagger

-Repeat steps 1-8 until Dead Tenno

[Urlan]

That sounds horrible but sadly all very familar, I hate when they get that kind of critical mass going.

[Repligon]

I completely agree. Infested are the most annoying and cheap thing DE ever made.

All these cc effecs are kinda fine on their own (except bees). Even auras. But it becomes extreamly annoying when you guaranteely get all of them at the same time multiple times. Just think about it: just one infested unit lacks some kind of cc (but has stupid damage for swarmer).

 

The spawn rules are completely outdated. All infested used to be cannon fodder before and the rule was simple: the higher the level - the more tougher cannon fodder spawn. But enemies have changed and now we get dosens of CC enemies at once. DE really should look into this. They should create more cc-less canon fodder enemies to fill the roles that used to be held by ancients and then put strict restrictions on the amount of enemies that posses cc and frequency of their spawn (also same goes for nullifiers!).

[(PSN)iBoiz]

Would be nice if next PA drops were in ODS rot C

[DSpite]

I take it everyone here is more or less knowledgeable of the enemy units on Starship Troopers, right?

 

They were not a bad start for a swarm enemy class. They pretty much covered a good range of things, and yet did not seem to have any greatly annoying features. Even the basic Warrior bug could be slowed down by leg shots giving you extra time to put a tough one down, and I would happily accept being "grasped THEN thrown into more enemies" rather then just "pulled" towards one, especially if I'm still allowed to fire while I'm thrown through the air.

 

The flying versions of those - called Hoppers, apparently - also make great units for perching players, and would have been a better alternative to the cloud spewing abomination we have instead :/ and the Plasma Bugs, with the their slow arching energy blobs? Awesome on an open map in defending a pod, if you allow players to shoot the blobs while in the air. Add an armored front section, and that gets players moving to go hit one in the weaker spots when the start to level up.

Edited June 1, 2015 by DSpite

[Urlan]

Aren't the Plasma bugs at least 30 foot tall and equally long, aren't they used to shoot space ships? Maybe I am thinking or a different bug, its been a while. Still, Hoppers and such were the inspiration for the swarm of insect bug creatures the Covenent started using in Two and Three and they had that hive in ODST, something like that would fit the massively annoying to fight category.

[Grom-84]

I've played survivials with my valkyr on different dark sectors to test my melee on infested and found different issues with them.

 

For example goo pools dealing too much at the same time - damaging the player, slowing down, slowing down firerate of your guns and mele which is fine for regular guns like assault rifles and melee ofc. But why goo slowing the fire rate of energy weapons like Quanta or Phage or Gammacor? - it doesen't make any sense. And i think that this goo must only slow down the player and stop dealing a damage, because its overkill, there are already enough different crap damaging you around like swarm clouds and toxic clouds everywhere. And by the way why those moas poo each time they see the player? they require some pills from diarrhea, they can't just poo, and poo, and poo all the time sooner or later they must to be exhausted, put some cooldown on that "special move" pls, and removal of aimbot will be good idea as well.

 

Another issue is moa's ground stomps, first of all it can hit you even in mid air sometimes, which happens not so often, but it looks weird non the less, and another issue is stunlock - when you beeing kicked all over the room and cant get up simply because there is no "shockwave free zone" where you could land safely. My suggestion is this - when two moas stomps near each other and their shockwaves intersects - they will loose power so that player won't be thrown off the feet, but instead will be just pushed forward abit like after Volatile's runner's explosion. 

 

I think that aimbot for grapling ancients/scorpions must be removed, let them miss - this will be fair, because i saw some ridiculous cases when ancient grabbed me with a hook even when he faced the opposite direction and i was in mid air. Let the player ability to escape from it by crouching, rolling and jumping, but not only by loosing the line of sight. 

 

Ancient's disruptor attack is also an overkill. Draining full energy - realy? When there are already leech eximuses all around this one is just fuked up thing which may happen. Why full energy? 150-200 will be painfull enough, why all? Its a steal ((( 

 

There are enemies like Сrawlers which is almost impossible to hit with a normal attacks. In most cases you forced to use Jump Aoe attacks on them to finish, or make them vulnerable for finishers, which is clumsy and ain't fun, cuz it's takes too much efforts to kill such a weak enemy. This Crawlers are just so annoying, they not even a threat in any numbers, so scinse they are already lying on the ground - why not to make them opened for finishers at any time? this won't be a game braker by any means but will make melee against infested more fluid.

 

Another example is enemies like Osprey's/Infedted Osprey's most of the time it takes 3-5 jumping attaks only to hit it which is looking pretty dumb jumping all around with a giant sword unable to hit that flying thing with it. The problem seems to be a hitbox, i think it must be tweaked to be looser for melee on flying enemies, maybe making it 2-3 times bigger will solve this issue.

 

Fighting on stairs is pretty painfull again, when enemies are standing lower than a player - its impossible to reach them with a normal attacks, you stuck swinging 10-15 times tecnically hitting an enemy to the face without no results, so i think for such situations tweaking hitboxes will work, maybe scaling them bigger 1.5 times by Z (pointing in up direction or Y axis for Maya, i saw DE using it for modeling) axis for Torso and a head may solve this issue. Its crude solution maybe but easy to do.  

 

Spawn rate is also a problem after 25-30 minutes on survivial it seems like only special enemies starting to spawn. No, seriously situation when you open a door, and see a room stuffed with 6-8 Ancients 3-4 moas, 2-3 eximuses and only one charger or crawler isn't something special or unique combination or something, it's just a common thing. The same applies to any survivials actually, rooms filled with nullifiers, techs and detrons for corpus, or rooms with 5-6 bombards, 3-4 napalms and heavy gunners, or Bombards/heavy gunners with nullifiers for voids it seems way too op and broken. Where are the normal enemies going after ~30 mins mark? I thought maybe i just killed all weak enemies and left those tough ones, where they started to gather and grow in quantities, but no, those were untouched fresh reinforcemens. This is very odd imo. 

 

Maybe i forgot something, but those were the most annoying things for me.

[Meatuchu]

The @(*()$ screen darkening effect fills me with a true rage. I hate fighting the infested

[CapedBaldy]

Well, the infested have more units that can CC than ones that don't. Mind you, this is the swarm faction. If that isn't raising alarms, I don't know what will.

[Grom-84]

The @(*()$ screen darkening effect fills me with a true rage. I hate fighting the infested

Rollin helps)

[Meatuchu]

Rollin helps)

 

yeah for about a quarter of second, right when 50 enemies covered in the swarm come melee you

[CataReverb]

What gets me is their Ancient Healer beacon-of-immortality that hide in a spawn point so you have to go hunting for every last healer before you can actually deal with the swarm.

[Neutralred]

Swarm MOAs are the absolute worst.

 

Swarms would be fine if it weren't for the rate at which you can be re-infected. Just remove the transmission ability, let it require being hit by/moving through a swarm to get the debuff. That way we might actually get some time where we can see the damn battlefield.

 

Mutalist MOA hitboxes are really bloody weird. Especially as they're lining up the stomp. Needs to be dealt with.

 

Get rid of the damn vertical jump.

 

But mostly, swarms. Warframe is a good-looking game, but not when I'm stuck behind a constant static effect. It's stressful on the eyes and just plain aggravating.

[Kaokasalis]

My biggest issue with the infested right now are the nano swarms. Sure we can roll to get them off us but as soon as we get near another infested they spread the could to us again. It would be nice if certain warframe powers would remove the clouds like Embers WoF could burn them to death for example. 

 

I dont really have a problem with tar moas as the tar can be destroyed by shooting it.

[Angelic-Guardian]

Guess what guys, i did not went to ODD from the release of those new enemies, but i remember going one time and someone got some connection issues, i am kinda tired of those enemies and can not play in ODD for fun anymore.

[madhatter10]

Now with the new Juggernaut coming up, they seriously need a look. Imagine being blinded by nano swarms while stuck in tar and one of those, buffed up, is charging at you...

Edited June 2, 2015 by madhatter10

[Grom-84]

My biggest issue with the infested right now are the nano swarms. Sure we can roll to get them off us but as soon as we get near another infested they spread the could to us again. It would be nice if certain warframe powers would remove the clouds like Embers WoF could burn them to death for example. 

 

I dont really have a problem with tar moas as the tar can be destroyed by shooting it.

There is no time to shoot at tar when you surrownded by few chargers and ancients buffers)