[Suggestion] Enemy And Ai

[OoKeNnEtHoO]

TLDR: Read the bolded and underlined.

 

My view on the whole "This game is unchallenging" and "we need to nerf ourselves in order to make it challenging" and "we need to have higher level difficulty where enemy have higher stats"

 

is that we do not need to nerf anything or make every enemy a bullet sponge if we have better enemy types and AI in the first place.

 

I will not directly suggest anything though I will make use of another game I played to show how enemies in a coop game should ideally in my opinion behave or affect the players.

 

The game to be used is "Payday: The Heist". It has perhaps the best enemy selection I have ever seen and they are quality over quantity. If you have played it, you will know what I mean. If not, do not worry, I will make information on it sufficient enough to bring across my point in this post.

 

 

First, the specials in that game:

 

1. Cloaker

This guy is a one hit KO menace who can wall-run and jump-kick a distance, instantly incapacitating you.

 

He doesn't have high Hp and can be taken out real fast like a trash mobs.

 

If you get KO by 1 which is easily avoided if you pay attention to your surroundings and the comms, you can only pray for your teammates to kill him and save you before you get taken away by the cops (die).

 

He always comes in threes so when players kill 1 or 2 of them, they are always kept on their toes of the remaining one since 1 cloaker can easily wipe out an entire team if nobody is paying attention.

 

He is a punishment for sloppy play and a "stalker" in a way.

 

 

2. Shield

This guy is very much what I want our shield lancer to become. He is completely shielded from the front.

 

His AI follows your every move with the shield so there is no way for you alone, unless you are skilled enough, to make him expose his body to you.

 

He needs at least 1 guy to distract him by making him follow his movements with the shield and another guy to shoot him once his body is exposed.

 

The AI of other enemies are also smart enough to always try and stay behind this guy whenever possible. This makes him an extremely deadly enemy and you will know why once I talk about the next guy.

 

3. Taser

This guy is what I see the grineer rollers as in concept.

 

He stuns players with a taser and that player is grounded and forced to stand up (in Payday, standing up and being out of cover for more than 2 seconds means guaranteed death).

 

The stunned player will lose some control of his aim and will automatically fire his weapon due to being electrically shocked with his finger near the trigger.

 

The only way out is to aim at him and hope you hit him before you run out of bullets or pray for your teammates to shoot and kill him before you are dead.

 

He, like all the other cops, will hide behind the shield and stun you from behind it and this is arguably the deadliest combo in the game.

 

4. Bulldozer

This is what a tank is.

 

He is near invulnerable all over. He got extreme damage and can one hit you.

 

However, he got a weakspot in the head.

 

The only way to beat him is if you are skilled enough to empty your gun accurately at his head, breaking his glass helmet visor and shooting him in the head or calling the entire team to focus fire on his head and killing him, hopefully before someone in the team is dead.

 

That's all the specials that game have. Notice how they make the benefits of cooperation outweigh the benefits of scoring the kill for yourself.

 

There is the uncommon sniper, FBI, SWAT and the normal police but they are essentially bullet sponges though some of them have certain mechanics that make them priority targets as well but that is irrelevant to my post. There is also the sudden ambush where they come from the ceiling but I don't want to talk too much about another game in a game's forums.

 

 

Now, if you manage to read to this point, I sincerely urge you to partake in the activity of suggesting better enemies both in terms of AI and function to counter your own frames' skills and weapons by using your knowledge on them instead of calling for their nerfs/tweaks. I'm surprised that only the developers are doing this by experimenting with the stalker which unfortunately is only one enemy.

 

 

 

 

Just an example, (note: these are not actual suggestions - they are just to complement the point I'm bringing across)

 

Iron Skin, the old invincible one, could have been kept in check if there was an enemy that is uncommon and occasionally shoots something which can immediately remove any buffs we put on ourselves if it sees us using one. In other words, even link is removable.

 

Such an enemy will of course have to telegraph its special attack (removing buffs) which will be dodgeable and will naturally become a priority target once players learn how to identify him. This means he must also be thick enough to withstand fire from 3 to 4 players and this will force players to work together to kill him fast and also learn to retreat once in awhile.

 

 

Slash Dash has been under attack by nerfers for a long time now. If there were to be an enemy that can block attacks from skills once in awhile (telegraphed) and reflect the damage back to it users, Excaliburs wouldn't dare to just press "1" without first seeing who they will be hitting.

 

The main idea is to use what we know about a skill or frame as its user and suggest the implementation of an enemy or AI that can counter it and keep it in check from being OP. It would be even better if that enemy is made to counter more than one type frame at once.

 

 

Technically, I should be able to come up with enemies that counter Excalibur, Volt, Rhino, Ash, Trinity, Loki and Banshee since I play all of them and I will naturally know their strengths and how to exploit their weaknesses.

 

In the mean time, I do hope that the community can also partake in the task of suggesting enemies that can counter their own frames using the knowledge they have on their own frames, not just in this thread but in the forums in general.

 

 

The thing is difficulty isn't the same concept as challenge.

 

By lowering damage dealt by us, we have effectively drag out the fight between the enemies and us.

 

That is an increase in difficulty but not in challenge.

 

This is because there is no change in our strategy of "mod up every weapon with damage mods, mod up every frame with hp, shield and survivability mods" and win but now at a dragged out time.

 

Effectively it is the same with buffing enemy stats like HP and shields.

 

A challenging enemy need not be one with high HP at all. Just look at all the other coop games and their assortment of enemies and you will realise that not all of them are "tanks".

 

Most of them have some form of ability that takes power and control away from one player and this forces the other players in the team to save him.

 

Some of them have AI that allows for squad tactics among the different types of enemies.

 

What we have in Warframe are bullet sponges and some of these but unfortunately extremely poorly implemented.

 

Take shield lancers for example. He doesn't follow the player so we can just run past him and shoot him in the back while he continues facing one general direction. The other enemy AIs doesn't seem to know to use him as a shield (Payday: The Heist does this really well) and his shield doesn't even cover him from the front completely. Thus, bam bam..he's dead, making him no different from any of the other bullet sponges.

 

Now look at shield ospreys. They should be the priority target since their shielding ability shields other enemies from fire but seeing how their shields can't even block our fire allowing us to take out the "shielded" enemies in a single shot, allows us to completely ignore it.

 

The point I'm bringing across, not just to you but also the entire community is, you can keep focusing on tweaking weapons and frames' stats and requesting for new ones updates after updates, but if you do not focus on the enemies which you use this items on, this game isn't going to last for a long time.

 

Eventually, the developers will run out of ideas on frames and weapons and the novelty of new frames and weapons will die (in fact, the similarity in spells of Vauban to older frames arguably suggests ideas may already be running out) and what you have left with are uninteresting enemies which are poorly implemented both in design and AI or just bullet sponges in general.

Edited May 20, 2013 by OoKeNnEtHoO

[se05239]

One-hit killers is a bad way to introduce challenge.

[OoKeNnEtHoO]

One-hit killers is a bad way to introduce challenge.

That is not what I'm trying to bring across.

[OoKeNnEtHoO]

If nobody can be bothered to read the entire post and get the actual idea I'm trying to bring across, I may have wasted my time.

[NotaCobra]

Man...

all of these enemies made me think

 

"What if L4D style gameplay, but with fancy words"

[OoKeNnEtHoO]

Man...

all of these enemies made me think

 

"What if L4D style gameplay, but with fancy words"

 

The enemies in Payday: The Heist are indeed similar to the Left 4 Dead.

 

I could have used examples from Left 4 Dead but I felt that most players would have played that and already realize the difference in quality of the enemies there and in here (Warframe).

 

Thus, I chose a less advertised game that has been around for ages and also made by an independent developer with humble beginnings (In fact, Digital Extremes have so much in common with Overkill, up until recently, that I initially felt a sense of Deja Vu when I started playing Warframe).

Edited May 20, 2013 by OoKeNnEtHoO

[762x39r]

If nobody can be bothered to read the entire post and get the actual idea I'm trying to bring across, I may have wasted my time.

I understand you, feel your pain, and love you for this post lol.

You've put into words, all of my frustrations with the several nerfs I've heard of and NO buffs or changes to the enemies. You've just summed up all my ideas into one clear, concise checklist for good enemies/enemy AI by simple use of an example. *slow, non-sarcastic clap*

[zezzame]

I understand, and this would be brilliant for warframe. But that leaves the problem for team play being a must. So add in some things for warframe:

Shield guys would behave like they do in payday but you can run up and over the shield to get behind them.

Well it is possible to beat a stalker so maybe one for every player in the game.

And tanks may be stumbled if you 'slide slash' his legs while he charges a massive aoe attack, this would open up parts of his back that you can shoot full of bullets.

A stunner could be a guy that links to you and steals your energy then shields, it would be possible to stun or shoot his gun to get him to stop.

[NotaCobra]

One thing that both those games have in common is...

You can't solo them.

 

Or if you can't it's exceedingly difficult.

 

Players who could run through a whole level on L4D ALONE were considered extremely skillful, especially being able to crown a witch, shotgun hunters in mid jump or shoot a smoker's tongue as it grabs you.

 

Whereas in warframe, everyone just sprints to the end.

 

It is an interesting idea to force players to work together, but at the same time, it makes the game a little more frustrating, especially when running games with the general public.

Nothing stopping a few stupid trolls ruining it for everyone.

[OoKeNnEtHoO]

Shield guys would behave like they do in payday but you can run up and over the shield to get behind them.

That's exactly what we do in Payday when we fight in confined areas when we can't sidestep him.

 

 

Well it is possible to beat a stalker so maybe one for every player in the game.

And tanks may be stumbled if you 'slide slash' his legs while he charges a massive aoe attack, this would open up parts of his back that you can shoot full of bullets.

A stunner could be a guy that links to you and steals your energy then shields, it would be possible to stun or shoot his gun to get him to stop.

 

Stalkers may be too much but the rest are good ideas.

 

Stumbling tanks with sliding melee crouch slash is a good idea. This makes players use it for something other than mostly mobility.

 

I like the Link one since you just made use of your knowledge of Trinity's advantage to introduce an enemy and that is precisely what I hope people will do.

[OoKeNnEtHoO]

One thing that both those games have in common is...

You can't solo them.

 

Or if you can't it's exceedingly difficult.

 

Players who could run through a whole level on L4D ALONE were considered extremely skillful, especially being able to crown a witch, shotgun hunters in mid jump or shoot a smoker's tongue as it grabs you.

 

Whereas in warframe, everyone just sprints to the end.

 

It is an interesting idea to force players to work together, but at the same time, it makes the game a little more frustrating, especially when running games with the general public.

Nothing stopping a few stupid trolls ruining it for everyone.

 

You are absolutely right.

 

To be able to solo either of these games is deserving of a trophy on its own.

 

However, a coop game really isn't a coop game when you can do everything yourself.

 

If you studied Economics or Game Theory (not the Video "Game"), you will know that for people to collude/cooperate, the benefits of collusion must outweigh the benefits of non-collusion.

 

Currently, if you just focus on the mission and kill everything yourself, you might actually get the highest kill and also get rewards faster since you can now quickly go on to do another mission and this far outweighs helping teammates who are in a pinch or carrying newbies in a mission. There are absolutely no enemies in the game currently that requires teamwork to take down so the answer to "teamwork" most players give is "why bother".

 

In fact, if I were to replace the teammate with AI and make them say some generic stuff in the squad chat, nobody will probably know the difference.

[NotaCobra]

I actually have studied game theory, at least at it's basic level, you've probably heard of the "Prisoner dilemna" but I digress

 

The point is not that forcing players to cooperate is bad, but rather you need balance.

It still needs to be possible for people to solo the game, just difficult.

 

At the moment, I don't actually think enemies are any more difficult or easy depending on the number of players (Certainly doesn't feel that way when you're soloing a corpus capture mission and fighting off 60 moas alone) and I think scaling the difficulty a bit, plus adding just a few catches for people trying to go it alone could help this issue a lot.

 

However, That in turn goes back to one of your suggestions about AI...

The enmies actually seem to ignore players off on their own, one guy running through will encounter 6 enemies, while the other 3 fight through 600.

[OoKeNnEtHoO]

I actually have studied game theory, at least at it's basic level, you've probably heard of the "Prisoner dilemna" but I digress

 

The point is not that forcing players to cooperate is bad, but rather you need balance.

It still needs to be possible for people to solo the game, just difficult.

 

At the moment, I don't actually think enemies are any more difficult or easy depending on the number of players (Certainly doesn't feel that way when you're soloing a corpus capture mission and fighting off 60 moas alone) and I think scaling the difficulty a bit, plus adding just a few catches for people trying to go it alone could help this issue a lot.

 

However, That in turn goes back to one of your suggestions about AI...

The enmies actually seem to ignore players off on their own, one guy running through will encounter 6 enemies, while the other 3 fight through 600.

 

Indeed, Prisoner's Dilemma may be similar to the situation we are in now since individual benefits for not cooperating do outweigh individual benefits of cooperating with each other (which is the Nash Equilibrium I'm trying to bring players to) but the difference is there is also little to none mutual benefit of cooperating at all.

 

Cooperation does not make both parties better off when there is no reward for cooperation other than the standard credits we get at end of mission and perhaps a slightly faster time taken to complete the mission, which is equal to the (individual benefit of not cooperating - the time and effort spent on supporting your teammates) and you may in fact finish the mission faster if all parties were to not cooperate. This makes the problem of not cooperating being best outcome for both parties and also for each individual party and there is absolutely no reason to cooperate at all.

 

I am in essence trying to only increase the individual benefit of cooperation by making it harder to accomplish and get the rewards of a mission alone and by not cooperating.

 

Perhaps a reward for teamwork or assistance can also be introduced to increase the mutual benefit of cooperation for all parties. Payday does this by making you lose a quarter of each mission's rewards for each teammate that do not make it to the extraction due to being captured by police and not released in exchange for a hostage before the team makes it to extraction.

 

Indeed, if the AI of the enemies are not improved and no squad tactics are introduced, there is absolutely no point increasing or decreasing number of enemies or increasing their stats in general as this simply just drag out a fight which we know we are sure to win as long as we have supercharged modded weapons/frames that can dish out a certain level of damage that trivials their HP and shields.

Edited May 20, 2013 by OoKeNnEtHoO

[zezzame]

Put in some more thought to what you mentioned.

Buff remover, I feel he should instead debuff you (Consume more stamina, energy or chance to not fire with a jam or arrow get stuck on the bow) he would like to avoid your gunfire, so you need to use skills to get to him, stun, charge at him (sward dash/rhino charge), distract him with aggro/decoy or  some other ability. He should have little health though.

 

And an ability returner should be someone who always doges your abilities, he should be rather tanky buy also apply debuffs (Abilities have shorter duration, Less aoe or have a chance to fail)

[OoKeNnEtHoO]

Put in some more thought to what you mentioned.

Buff remover, I feel he should instead debuff you (Consume more stamina, energy or chance to not fire with a jam or arrow get stuck on the bow) he would like to avoid your gunfire, so you need to use skills to get to him, stun, charge at him (sward dash/rhino charge), distract him with aggro/decoy or  some other ability. He should have little health though.

 

And an ability returner should be someone who always doges your abilities, he should be rather tanky buy also apply debuffs (Abilities have shorter duration, Less aoe or have a chance to fail)

 

I will but not so soon, as I have a paper to tackle tomorrow (unfortunately, I'm still an undergrad with exams to handle).

 

Technically, I should be able to come up with enemies that counter Excalibur, Volt, Rhino, Ash, Trinity, Loki and Banshee since I play all of them and I will naturally know their strengths and how to exploit their weaknesses.

 

In the mean time, I do hope that the community can also partake in the task of suggesting enemies that can counter their own frames using the knowledge they have on their own frames, not just in this thread but in the forums in general.

Edited May 20, 2013 by OoKeNnEtHoO

[zezzame]

I will but not so soon, as I have a paper to tackle tomorrow (unfortunately, I'm still an undergrad with exams to handle).

 

Technically, I should be able to come up with enemies that counter Excalibur, Volt, Rhino, Ash, Trinity, Loki and Banshee since I play all of them and I will naturally know their strengths and how to exploit their weaknesses.

 

In the mean time, I do hope that the community can also partake in the task of suggesting enemies that can counter their own frames using the knowledge they have on their own frames, not just in this thread but in the forums in general.

 

Whops I meant to say I Put some more thought into what you mentioned, sorry that sounded rude and mean.

[OoKeNnEtHoO]

Whops I meant to say I Put some more thought into what you mentioned, sorry that sounded rude and mean.

No problem. I actually did not take it as a rude remark at all=)

Edited May 20, 2013 by OoKeNnEtHoO

[matrixEXO]

I agree. The AI needs brushing up. There has to be a group of coders dedicated to AI development so they can improve their combat prowess. Currently, the game's AI works like playing a standard (read: generic) MMO. Also, super accuracy is a bad thing to have at any rate. Not seeing a person go around the corners should work as intended but nope, 90% of them turn around immediately like they got eyes behind their heads.

Edited May 20, 2013 by matrixEXO

[zezzame]

I agree. The AI needs brushing up. There has to be a group of coders dedicated to AI development so they can improve their combat prowess. Currently, the game's AI works like playing a standard (read: generic) MMO. Also, super accuracy is a bad thing to have at any rate. Not seeing a person go around the corners should work as intended but nope, 90% of them turn around immediately like they got eyes behind their heads.

 

Or they don't die from a stab through their digestive track, they then alert everyone in the area with a grunt... Great AI

 

Edit: Proper English

Edited May 20, 2013 by zezzame

[Mijouli]

More diversity and better AI is always a good way to make it more challenging! +1

[matrixEXO]

Or they don't die from a stab through their digestive track, they then alert everyone in the area with a grunt... Great AI

 

Edit: Proper English

As for stealth attacks, that is because they (devs) don't want stealth insta-kills. As for Alert grunts, it's super weird that a large area can be alerted because of just one grunt.

Edited May 20, 2013 by matrixEXO

[zezzame]

Shameless bump because this need to be seen