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

[Liminal]

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...

I can already imagine a Juggernaut standing next to 3 ancients, one of them being an energy leech one, and 2 MOAs nearby ... nope! I'd rather shoot Corpus all day!

[FelisImpurrator]

I can already imagine a Juggernaut standing next to 3 ancients, one of them being an energy leech one, and 2 MOAs nearby ... nope! I'd rather shoot Corpus all day!

A Juggernaut standing next to three ancients, one of each base type, all three different kinds of eximi.

 

And two Mutalist MOA Eximi. And four Mutalist Ospreys.

 

Fixed that for you.

[Liminal]

A Juggernaut standing next to three ancients, one of each base type, all three different kinds of eximi.

 

And two Mutalist MOA Eximi. And four Mutalist Ospreys.

 

Fixed that for you.

I see ... I see ...

 

 

 

(ノ ゜Д゜)ノ ︵ ┻━┻

[Viedra_Lavinova]

I see nothing wrong with Ancients or Eximus other than they need to spawn less at higher waves/ levels so it doesn't make it literally impossible to do damage. They help balance the gameplay at early levels, and become a pain in later ones.

 

It's be interesting to see Parasitic Eximus take DoT when they don't consume energy and you deal extra damage depending on the percentage of health they have left.

 

As for the Moas, yes they are annoying, but the same situation applies to them as the Ancients/ Eximus.

 

Crawlers need to die...   just get obliterated...         Please...

[ScorpDK]

Similar to earlier posts, some ideas of what could be done to balance them out:

 

 

Venomous Aura: -remove-, it isn't needed anymore as the other Infested are now sufficiently equipped to fill that gap.

 

Grappling Hook: remove forced knockdown, add a wind-up animation and perhaps a sound cue. Increase pull speed (less downtime) and allow the Tenno to use their weapons, powers and the slide button to dropkick the Ancient down when in range. Because that's badass and teaches them a lesson.

 

Toxic Crawlers: remove toxic cloud on death, replace with a runner-like "IMMA EXPLODE NAO!" type of attack that can be stopped via melee attacks or dodged by moving. Or just remove the guys entirely, Ancients and Mutalists are covering that field already.

 

Ancients: Add a diminishing returns system to auras - the more ancients are around, the less each's aura effects the nearby infested. For example:

• Single Ancient healer - full effect.

   

• Ancient Healer, Ancient Disruptor - 60-75% effectiveness on both auras

   

• Ancient Healer, Disruptor and Toxic Ancient - 35-45% effectiveness on each aura.

   

• Further auras do not stack, and killing an ancient leaves Infested in a weakened state for several seconds, during which they cannot be effected by an aura of the same type again.

all of these are up for balancing, based on number of players in mission.

 

 

 

Additionally, tho this has more to do with parkour, it still applies because of crawlers like attacking your kneecaps...

 

Kickflip / Vaulting mechanic against enemies in melee range:

 

Tap Jump when right in front of an enemy while facing him to perform a vault over them, staggering/stunning them in the process while sending you several feet forward.

Double-Tap Jump to kickflip off an enemy while facing him, knocking them down while pushing you back some distance in a low arc.

Enemies can stagger/stumble/fall into other enemies, staggering or knocking them down as well.

In both cases you will be mid-air and able to use your normal mid-jump moves.

 

 

 

[Grom-84]

Tap Jump when right in front of an enemy while facing him to perform a vault over them, staggering/stunning them in the process while sending you several feet forward.

Double-Tap Jump to kickflip off an enemy while facing him, knocking them down while pushing you back some distance in a low arc.

Enemies can stagger/stumble/fall into other enemies, staggering or knocking them down as well.

In both cases you will be mid-air and able to use your normal mid-jump moves.

yep i like this. The bad thing that jump have some nasty delay its not responsive, thats why i hate crawlers because i forced to use jump aoe on them and normal vertical jump is kinda slow to perform.

[Viedra_Lavinova]

Similar to earlier posts, some ideas of what could be done to balance them out:

 

 

Venomous Aura: -remove-, it isn't needed anymore as the other Infested are now sufficiently equipped to fill that gap.

 

Grappling Hook: remove forced knockdown, add a wind-up animation and perhaps a sound cue. Increase pull speed (less downtime) and allow the Tenno to use their weapons, powers and the slide button to dropkick the Ancient down when in range. Because that's badass and teaches them a lesson.

 

Toxic Crawlers: remove toxic cloud on death, replace with a runner-like "IMMA EXPLODE NAO!" type of attack that can be stopped via melee attacks or dodged by moving. Or just remove the guys entirely, Ancients and Mutalists are covering that field already.

 

Ancients: Add a diminishing returns system to auras - the more ancients are around, the less each's aura effects the nearby infested. For example:

• Single Ancient healer - full effect.

   

• Ancient Healer, Ancient Disruptor - 60-75% effectiveness on both auras

   

• Ancient Healer, Disruptor and Toxic Ancient - 35-45% effectiveness on each aura.

   

• Further auras do not stack, and killing an ancient leaves Infested in a weakened state for several seconds, during which they cannot be effected by an aura of the same type again.

all of these are up for balancing, based on number of players in mission.

 

 

 

Additionally, tho this has more to do with parkour, it still applies because of crawlers like attacking your kneecaps...

 

Kickflip / Vaulting mechanic against enemies in melee range:

 

Tap Jump when right in front of an enemy while facing him to perform a vault over them, staggering/stunning them in the process while sending you several feet forward.

Double-Tap Jump to kickflip off an enemy while facing him, knocking them down while pushing you back some distance in a low arc.

Enemies can stagger/stumble/fall into other enemies, staggering or knocking them down as well.

In both cases you will be mid-air and able to use your normal mid-jump moves.

 

 

But... I actually like the Venomous aura?

[(PSN)VariantX7]

With the way infested are now, people actively avoid them unless the reward is a extremely good one, like catalyst or reactor good. They are just way too aggravating to fight for just kicks like you do with the other factions. Eris is largely abandoned by players, at least on PS4, because of how aggravating they are to fight in a tile set that essentially gives you almost no room to avoid them. They definitely need to be looked at again to make them less aggravating and more fun but we cannot go back to how easy they used to be before though.

[(PSN)geb9696]

Has the infested been buffed since the Mutalist Incursions Event?  I did not think they were that bad during the event.

[Urlan]

Oddly enough, the mutalist have actually been made more manageable since the mutalist incursion. During the incursion, Tar Moa could one shot a warframe with 860 shield and 1080 life while stile slowing everything and irradiating the players who just barely touched the tar. Swarm and Tar didn't jump around so much as the game picked them up like boardgame pieces while telling your weapons they were invulnerable during the time. What takes the cake in a way was that Boiler mutatlist were spawing boilers who would spawn boilers and the broodmothers wouldn't drop anything - even ammo - without being ragdolled by an arrow or such when killed. I still find most of the mutalist annoying but they were worse at first oddly enough.

[RainDH]

Few weeks ago was some mid-level infest-invasion. I went there with kind of though build (Valkyr with armor and health). Ancient caught me with grapple, and pulled into a tar. While I was slowly getting back onto my legs, I was surrounded by five Ancients (disruptors, toxic) and beaten to death in seconds. In infested invasions or derelicts you can't prepare for everything that can happen. RNG sometimes create a no-win situation. Well, here are three pages of them above my message.

Maybe little rework would do the job than to get rid of some Ancient types?

Make Ancients more rare enemies - one though and powerful is better then many of a different kinds, synergetic and hard-to-kill. I.e. one Acient, crowded by army of Chargers and Leapers; has ability to call for small reinforcements like Master of Drahks; and, for example, can be killed only after being knocked down.

Change mechanic of their auras - right now they have constant small effect and also an unpredictable pulses; I suggest to remove small effect at all, make pulse with a telegraph and like an explosion, full effect only in epicenter.

[PancakePounder]

I generally don't go past wave 15 in non-void defense, so my input might be partially or maybe totally invalid, but I don't see how the infested are really that much worse than bombards and napalms shooting explosives at you. Bombard and Napalm missiles track you. I can usually stay out of the tar and not get grappled too often if I stay on the move. And if someone does get stuck in tar, then other people defend them while they quickly jump and directional melee out of the tar. Bows are nice for quickly taking out eximi and moas, and vortex, m prime, and absorb are good for defending the pod. Might not be as simple past wave 15 though.

[animanera89]

How to deal with infested and especially tar puddle you ask?
Simple: build ignis, forma it 4-5 times. Then put on it in this order:

Serration,

Heavy Caliber,

Splitchamber,

Hellfire,

Cryo rounds,

Thermite or Rime Rounds,

Stormbringer

and Infected clip.
Corrosive+blast damage= infested problem solved. Or at least greatly diminished. You can destroy the tar puddles without even looking at them and at the same time explode away the bigger ones (because they take +50% damage from blast and +75% from corrosive)

This with a very squishy EMBER allowed me to stay at least 40 minutes in survival against them on Jupiter. And I don't even have Serration and heavy caliber maxed (I have both at +105% damage).
It's all a matter of playstile and gear. Be on the move, use aoe damage on them and shot the bigger ones whenever you see them.
If you feel more like going for pure fire damage + corrosive, then use

Serration

Heavy caliber

Split chamber

Stormbringer

Infected clip

Malignant rounds or the elettric double stat mod,

Hellfire,

Thermite rounds or Wildfire (if you have enough space)

Edited June 7, 2015 by animanera89

[TaylorsContraction]

I find the infested a lot of fun to fight, you just have to move around a lot.

[Countess_Hapmuhr]

My problems with the infested is that it's a binary choice now. Either go OP or go home. There's no middle ground because you're always bogged down in status ailments which you have to dodge to keep at bay. I truly miss the old infested, where their swarms were deadly enough to keep you occupied and afraid. I miss the old ancients which were rare and terrifying and that didn't rely on cheap tricks to win. I miss the stunlock chargers that you had to watch out for and keep away from. I miss the Toxic ancients that left really big and dangerous clouds on death. I miss the simplicity of it all and I miss being afraid instead of bored.

[CataReverb]

I feel the change of ancient healers to actual HEALERS was a great step forward in resolving this... now if we could do something about the others.

 

I'd say make Disrupter Ancients similar to Disruptor Drones, so one hit isn't keyboard smashingly frustrating because all of your energy reserves are gone and now there's no way recharge them... and give its fondle punch a thing where it spawns a few leeches/maggots directly on the tenno that negate powers while on and sap shields quickly (and health slowly when shields are gone.)  Toxic ancients seem fine though...

[superbot34]

what DE forgets is the Infested faction wasn't weaker than any other faction at the time. they were easily killed sure, but SWARMED the player instead of popping in and out of cover. they overwhelm you with sheer numbers. 

 

now, not only can they pull a grineer move and use non-lore friendly and stupid grappling hooks, but they can give themselves massive armor, reduce your armor, slow you down, blind you, etc. 

 

they may still mildly be as easy to kill as before, but DE insisted on making them the most annoying faction instead of just stopping to think for two seconds at why the infested was actually good the way it was. 

 

Oh, and then there is the fact that ancients are no longer scary as mutated squidwards. not even a tiny bit. 

Edited June 14, 2015 by superbot34