Devil's Advocate – Rollerball A Necessary Evil

[blackraver]

I always feared the grineer rollers but never hated them. The DE did a good job making them easier to kill, bit with lag or low frame rate they are a nightmare. Just moved out so I can't afford great Internet and not being to hit rollers because of lag is painful. I was always against them being removed from them game. They forced more environmental awareness. Funny how people used to make rage threads on them,band now we are all like "hey, they are not so bad after all"

[Epk_KekAzz_Spaz_Hog]

I love rollerballs, my pals love them too. Only problem I see with rollerballs is that there is usually not enough of them. I also don't think it's a good job to nerf them because they are already too weak and boring. :(

[11.11.11]

Somewhere deep-deep-down under layers of suppressed anger, frustration, and fear you do in fact admire the simplistic and devastating nature of the enemy known as the Rollerball. To think of all the enemies you have ever faced a ball, that rolls, would bring you to your knees. It's not that it out smarts you, out maneuvers, or out damages you. Lets face it when comparing intelligence, tactics, and technology you the “Tenno” are it's superior in every way. None the less you are now at the brink, but one step from leaping into the cold depths of insanity all... over... a rolling ball. Your quiet pathetic when you think about it.......

 

   - Last Thoughts of Dieing Tenno

 

 

 

You spelt dying wrong. Also, I still think grinders are cheap :I 

[Zhonatta]

You spelt dying wrong. Also, I still think grinders are cheap :I 

 

LoL.

 

Fixed.

[11.11.11]

LoL.

 

Fixed.

 

My opinion or the spelling mistake? Because I am still unimpressed with the grinders in their current form. I respect your motives behind this thread, but I must say, I simply don't agree with it's premise. There is nothing I like about grinders at all. They don't even look impressive. 

[RealityMachina]

I hate to be the bearer of bad new, but the portion of the player base who have voiced frustration with the Rollerballs does not account for a "large" portion of the player base. It is in fact a small "Vocal" portion and the "Large" portion are to busy enjoying the game to even come on the forums. At best several 100 players out of a couple 100,000 players have had an issue with the rollerballs. This just looking at past topics concerning this enemy.

 

86% of a 1000+ poll (enough people that most industry-standard polls use to make judgements about much larger populations) is not "a vocal minority of the playerbase".

 

As for your assessment of their threat level the same could be applied to most every other enemy in this game and most other games for that matter. Which enemies other then bosses in this game are a threat by themselves? The answer to that is a staggering zero. I can't think of a single non-boss enemy in this game I would fear facing 1v1. This is the nature of Warframe the Grineer attack with an assortment of classes that are created to compliment one another. 

Why is that a problem?

Instead of thinking about what you are up against try thinking about what they are up against. 1-4 human players with vastly superior abilities and weapons able to think and perform outside of a pre-scripted environment. That is a tall order to create a challenge for. So when you are playing by their rules and not accounting for their weakness of course you should get rolled, so to speak.

I'm not even sure how this is a response against "Rollers are a terribly designed enemy that only provide some form of challenge through pure frustration".

Please don't try to rationalize a fictional game let alone use another games universe to do it. In this universe for some reason unbeknownst to us they have sufficient mass, acceleration, and technology to knock you over because "Magic".

Look, when a game says I'm a exoskeleton for possibly uploaded people who show amazing abilites that the other side has to put time and effort into just replicating one ability of a Warframe whereas we can have multiple powers at a time, I expect the foes that can knock me down to at least look like it.

 

The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense, after all.

I do however wish that the heavy units were a tad bit more challenging.

 

I stand by my previous statement that they add far more to the game play then they take away. Of course this is just my opinion and everyone is entitled to their opinion.

And I'm sticking with my opinion that there is no way in hell you could possibly be a game designer.

[MJ12]

I have to chuckle a bit at this comment and your attempt to degrade my position without any kind substance when in fact people like me are game developers and you might possibly be playing one of their games....maybe.

 

Look, when you're defending a mechanic so cheap that not even games which are famed for being ridiculously ballbustingly hard and unfair use it, you have serious issues with game design. I'm sure you can be a game designer, after all, Sturgeon's Law applies to games as well and there are always guys who make those crappy flash games nobody plays.

 

Funny thing is, it turns out that people want to be able to do something all the time. Even if that something's as simple as 'mashing buttons', that's infinitely more engaging than 'shaking your fist impotently at the screen'. When button-mashing QTEs are a better mechanic than what we have now, you have a hilarious problem.

 

If the Rollerballs didn't have a stun you would simply ignore them, the Grineer assault would be that much less challenging, and we wouldn't be having a conversation about how people find it overly difficult to prioritize a detrimental game mechanic that is very easily avoided with what you have available to you and if you are paying attention.

 

And that would be better than their current situation. What does it say about an enemy when the most fun you'll ever have fighting them is when they bug out and do nothing? Bad things and nothing else. I love how you claim that only a tiny minority of people have problems with Rollers when an even tinier minority claim to have no problems with them, and when someone actually polled people on that topic it was overwhelmingly negative. Notice how many upvotes "Rollers are cool" posts get, compared to "Rollers suck". This is because not only are they hilariously cheap and lame, they're not even fitting the genre. This is a fast-paced action game. Instead of giving the enemies ways to slow you down, they should give the enemy fast and agile units of their own.

 

Look, maybe if this was Silent f**king Hill, being endlessly stunlocked by volleyballs would be only marginally annoying instead of utterly gamebreaking because that's what I signed up for, but not in a fast-paced action game. This isn't survival horror. And even in survival horror you can generally do something while being incapacitated.

[Zhonatta]

86% of a 1000+ poll (enough people that most industry-standard polls use to make judgements about much larger populations) is not "a vocal minority of the playerbase".

--

Why is that a problem?

 

I'm not even sure how this is a response against "Rollers are a terribly designed enemy that only provide some form of challenge through pure frustration".

--

The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense, after all.

 

And I'm sticking with my opinion that there is no way in hell you could possibly be a game designer.

 

A poll that was held entirely on the forums which is largely consider across any game or platform to be the vocal minority. If say the poll had been held in-game when you log in where the vast majority of the population resides then we could actually use it with some resemblance of accuracy.

--

The problem is that you didn't actually say what you said you said. So I can understand entirely how you wouldn't be able to respond to it. 

 

You actually said," I mean this is before we get into the fact that they're just a terrible enemy in general since the only way they can be in anyway a threat to players is through their staggering capabilites when they attack in swarms, and has resulted in the absurdity of the most dangerous thing in the Grineer arsenal being a fast moving metal ball. (Though with update 8, now they're in a contest with lightly armoured Grineer women who can somehow impart much more force against a Tenno despite not having what looks like an exoskeleton nor the muscle mass to compensate for that.)

 

My first reference was to the fact that every unit in this game swarms and in fact swarms in diverse groups that are design to kill you. So complaining that for instance they are only a threat when they swarm is a bit mute. I personally have never been subjected to this eternal stun luck maneuver they seem to perform. I have been knock down and I have been killed as a result of a well timed knock down when I wasn't paying attention, but nothing as extravagant as an eternity spent in Rollerball stun lock purgatory. It seems to me to be an over exaggeration.

--

Fiction is the form of any work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary and theoretical—that is, invented by the author. The ability to suspend your current beliefs and adopting the authors is a large part of reading and or playing in a fictitious world. So it other words no it doesn't have to make sense to you it only has to make sense to the author. If you can't do that then don't read the book or play the game.

--

Personally attacking me is pretty childish don't you think? That aside my point was that in fact DE is using these mechanics in their game you are playing. Which only proves that successful game developers don't seem to have a problem with using these mechanics.

 

Look, when you're defending a mechanic so cheap that not even games which are famed for being ridiculously ballbustingly hard and unfair use it, you have serious issues with game design. I'm sure you can be a game designer, after all, Sturgeon's Law applies to games as well and there are always guys who make those crappy flash games nobody plays.

--

Funny thing is, it turns out that people want to be able to do something all the time. Even if that something's as simple as 'mashing buttons', that's infinitely more engaging than 'shaking your fist impotently at the screen'. When button-mashing QTEs are a better mechanic than what we have now, you have a hilarious problem.

--

And that would be better than their current situation. What does it say about an enemy when the most fun you'll ever have fighting them is when they bug out and do nothing? Bad things and nothing else. I love how you claim that only a tiny minority of people have problems with Rollers when an even tinier minority claim to have no problems with them, and when someone actually polled people on that topic it was overwhelmingly negative. Notice how many upvotes "Rollers are cool" posts get, compared to "Rollers suck". This is because not only are they hilariously cheap and lame, they're not even fitting the genre. This is a fast-paced action game. Instead of giving the enemies ways to slow you down, they should give the enemy fast and agile units of their own.

 

Look, maybe if this was Silent f**king Hill, being endlessly stunlocked by volleyballs would be only marginally annoying instead of utterly gamebreaking because that's what I signed up for, but not in a fast-paced action game. This isn't survival horror. And even in survival horror you can generally do something while being incapacitated.

 

See the last section of the above post.

--

You are 100% correct people do in fact "want to be able to do something all the time." So denying them the ability to do that is debilitating and is also 100% the point. If you are not paying attention and you get hit by a rollerball you were obviously doing something wrong and are punished for it. I get that you don't like it, but it is very easily avoided if you pay attention.

--

I actually still have a great deal of fun playing even with the new Scorpion unit who is buggy and can lynch you through walls. As for the rest of what you said read the above post.

Edited May 25, 2013 by Zhonatta

[Zhonatta]

My opinion or the spelling mistake? Because I am still unimpressed with the grinders in their current form. I respect your motives behind this thread, but I must say, I simply don't agree with it's premise. There is nothing I like about grinders at all. They don't even look impressive. 

 

The spelling of course.

 

Fair enough, everyone has their opinion.

 

Thanks for being civil about it.

[11.11.11]

The spelling of course.

 

Fair enough, everyone has their opinion.

 

Thanks for being civil about it.

 

Hey, if I have an opinon in conflict with someone elses, then it's my job to let the person know - as civilly as possible - so that others reading the thread can get a sense of who supports this and who dosn't.

 

Anything else is borderline trolling by lack of common courtesy :I 

[MJ12]

See the last section of the above post.

 

 

Wherein you claim successful game developers use stunlock mechanics? DE was successful for games such as Darkness, UT2004, and so on, which have no stunlock mechanics whatsoever. In fact, they lack stuns entirely. Enemies merely do this thing called 'damage', which, although punishing because it means you're closer to death, means you can do something while being punished for mistakes.

 

Also, in a game where you gain health and shields and armor when leveling up and modding, damage is proportional to the level. A Lv1 Roller is just as dangerous as a Lv100 one, because both of them can stunlock you grinding endlessly against a crate.

 

 

You are 100% correct people do in fact "want to be able to do something all the time." So denying them the ability to do that is debilitating and is also 100% the point. If you are not paying attention and you get hit by a rollerball you were obviously doing something wrong and are punished for it. I get that you don't like it, but it is very easily avoided if you pay attention.

 

This is why people don't think you're an actual game designer. Because you think that 'punishing' people in a fashion that causes them to not want to play the game is a good idea. FYI: A game is fun. If this was a Tenno training simulator and I was a posthuman cyborg ninja, I wouldn't $#*(@ about being smacked around by Rollers. Why? Because it's work. It's something I need to learn to fight.

 

I don't need to learn to fight Rollers. I don't need to play the game. The onus is on game designers, and thus DE, to keep me wanting to play the game. You are defending a mechanic which is going "are you bad at the game? Stop playing." This is a terrible mechanic for obvious reasons because people will take you up on that exact offer and stop playing the game. Because they can find some other F2P game that doesn't frustrate them.

 

 

I actually still have a great deal of fun playing even with the new Scorpion unit who is buggy and can lynch you through walls. As for the rest of what you said read the above post.

 

Yes, and there are people who have fun having their balls stepped on by spiked heels. So much fun they pay hundreds of dollars an hour. Thus, by your logic, I could go up to you one day, kick you in the balls, and demand 500 dollars in cash. People can have fun in games with stunlock but they're a fairly distinct minority. You keep going on with this twaddle that 'forumgoers are a minority of players this doesn't count' except forumgoers are more invested (better players on average) and also pay in more money (better conversion rate on average) and thus are very important as a gauge. If the majority of a forum thinks something is frustrating, and they do, the playerbase at large probably thinks it's extra-frustrating, they just aren't articulating it because they either are trying to power through (sunk cost fallacy) or have just quit.

 

Nobody knows how many people have quit because of Rollers. Making excuses for them does not change the fact that there is nothing good about them.

Edited May 26, 2013 by MJ12

[Worira]

OP doesn't know what "devil's advocate" means.

 

Also he's hilariously, blatantly wrong, but other people have that covered already.

[BoompigXD]

This thread is one big arguement over a "Rolling Ball" an enemy which hey all you need to do is shoot and it dies. It dosen't have that much health and a full-auto weapon would take care of it fast.

 

*sigh* now i'm going to get hate aren't i?

 

Where's thread lock when ya need it?

Edited May 26, 2013 by BoompigXD