Spawning, Pathfinding, Sighting: Why Warframe's Challenge May Feel Unbalanced For Solo Players

[4MostlyHarmless2]

Warframe is predominantly a co-op game, but there will always be times when you can't have your friends/ clanmates online, or your usual play partners are busy, or you just generally don't feel like dragging other people along with you. Thankfully, Warframe allows you to go ahead and play solo, rather than force you to go find lobbies where people are currently playing (one of the advantages of peer-to-peer hosting). 

 

The only problem is that Warframe's solo mode can feel significantly more difficult than it really is, to the point that newer players who prefer going solo can get stuck with areas that feel impossible to complete. I say that it is more difficult than it really is, because after playing around on solo mode for quite a while I have noticed that the actual challenge comes not from enemy damage or scaling, but from three subtle things that most players tend not to notice. These three things are Enemy Spawning, Pathing and Sighting. 

 

Note: My screenshots are all taken from Grineer Exterminate missions, so I may have missed out on any differences for other Grineer missions, as well as Corpus, Infected, and Corrupted AI. However, since the Grineer are the most commonly encountered enemy. and since Exterminate missions are the most basic type, I think the evidence should be sufficient to prove my point. 
 

 

Enemy Spawning

 

First off, the enemy spawning in Warframe is very inconsistent. Here are two screenshots from the same mission on an Asteriod Base tileset.

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=498549159

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=498549241

 

So in the first image, I only had to engage 8-10 enemies. Assuming that I went in guns blazing, 8-10 enemies could be quickly dispatched in a short amount of time with little to no risk to myself. The number of enemies also allowed for a possible option to take out the whole room via stealth kills. 

However, in the second image, I suddenly had to engage at least 23 enemies, almost more than thrice the number of enemies in my previous encounters. If I was a newer/ more inexperienced player and had only been running into small groups of 8-10 enemies, the possibility of the next tileset holding more than thrice the amount of enemies would not even cross my mind. To top it all off, engaging any of them in combat would mean that all 23 would be focused on me alone. 

 

You may argue that only a fool would run in guns blazing, but the problem is that the game doesn't really offer you any more options than that in this situation. Sure, you can go for stealth kills, but at best you'll only be able to maneuver around enough to kill half of the enemies before being spotted and having to engage the rest of them in regular combat. Luring them off to another area might help, but sometimes the other areas just have more troops, which only adds to your problems. 

 

While those two screenshots may not be enough to entirely justify the problems of the spawning system, the next section will provide a few more that can help point out the problems. 

 

 

Enemy Pathfinding

 

So this is actually my biggest gripe in Warframe, and I feel that it tends to ruin the feel and quality of the game whenever I see it. The enemies just have this really bad tendency to clump together in such a way that makes them look less like soldiers and more like very aggressive personal space invaders. In other words, the pathfinding of the enemy can get pretty bad. 

 

It's an assorted series, so there are a few that chain in with each other and others that don't. 

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=498440543

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=498440761

 

Not sure if you can tell but that is quite a few enemies, all level 33 and up, on Ceres. Not exactly the best of situations to go in guns blazing, but what choice do I have?

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=500232067

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=500231950

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=500232577

 

 

One of the Asteroid Bases, they were engaged in a very intense game of Personal Space Invasion for at least 2-3 minutes or so. 

 

This adds to the difficulty level more than one would expect. Since they're all clumped together, it's easy to underestimate at a glance just how many enemies you are going up against if you don't use a Codex Scanner. Also, the moment you hit or shoot any one of them, everyone immediately separates and starts firing at you, making melee engagements more difficult than they should be. 

 

 

Sighting

 

As you can see, most of my pictures were taken with the help of the Synthesis Scanner. Without it, however, most of the situations I took screenshots of are entirely unpredictable. To actually make good use of the Scanner to analyze the situation requires me to unequip my weapon, look through the Scanner briefly, then switch back to my weapon, a tedious process that often takes away precious seconds. Outside of the minimap, which can be notoriously unreliable, there are no good or fast visual/ audio indicators that give you a proper warning of the strength of any upcoming enemy forces.

 

At the same time, the enemies have somewhat wonky sightlines that will often confuse players who are not careful. I have no screenshot evidence of the behavior, but suffice to say anybody who has tried stealth at least once has experienced a moment where he was noticed by an enemy on the far side of the room, but not by the enemy that was standing a few feet to the right of the player. 

 

 

Conclusion

 

The only conclusion I can come to at this point is that the randomness of the number of enemies spawning into a tileset, if not the layout of the tileset itself, could be one of the reasons why the AI seems to have some crazy pathfinding issues. These issues, along with the sighting problems I mentioned, make the whole game seem much more difficult than it actually is for solo players (and stealth players, by extension). The easiest way that I can see to solve this problem is to tweak the numbers a bit so that less enemies spawn during solo mode, which should both reduce the chance of enemies clumping up and give newer solo players, or those who want to go stealth, a better fighting chance without overhauling too many things. 

 

Edited August 18, 2015 by 4MostlyHarmless2

[Tekka_Croe]

Re: Enemy Sighting

 

This is something that needs to be brought up in discussions of stealth gameplay.

 

I pretty frequently see people calling for "Stealth 2.0", but what we really need is Awareness 2.0.  I frequently attempt to play stealthily with non-stealth frames, and it's been my experience that the biggest barrier to stealth in WF is extremely inconsistent awareness on the enemy's part.  Sometimes I'll quite literally run right in front of a Lancer's face and he won't see me.  Other times I'll get a stealth kill with a bow on an enemy in an isolated corner, and suddenly every enemy in the tile is alerted to my position.

[RadioLarity]

<snip>

Enemy Spawning

 

First off, the enemy spawning in Warframe is very inconsistent. Here are two screenshots from the same mission on an Asteriod Base tileset.

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=498549159

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=498549241

 

So in the first image, I only had to engage 8-10 enemies. Assuming that I went in guns blazing, 8-10 enemies could be quickly dispatched in a short amount of time with little to no risk to myself. The number of enemies also allowed for a possible option to take out the whole room via stealth kills. 

However, in the second image, I suddenly had to engage at least 23 enemies, almost more than thrice the number of enemies in my previous encounters. If I was a newer/ more inexperienced player and had only been running into small groups of 8-10 enemies, the possibility of the next tileset holding more than thrice the amount of enemies would not even cross my mind. To top it all off, engaging any of them in combat would mean that all 23 would be focused on me alone. 

 

You may argue that only a fool would run in guns blazing, but the problem is that the game doesn't really offer you any more options than that in this situation. Sure, you can go for stealth kills, but at best you'll only be able to maneuver around enough to kill half of the enemies before being spotted and having to engage the rest of them in regular combat. Luring them off to another area might help, but sometimes the other areas just have more troops, which only adds to your problems. 

 

While those two screenshots may not be enough to entirely justify the problems of the spawning system, the next section will provide a few more that can help point out the problems. 

 

 

Enemy Pathfinding

 

So this is actually my biggest gripe in Warframe, and I feel that it tends to ruin the feel and quality of the game whenever I see it. The enemies just have this really bad tendency to clump together in such a way that makes them look less like soldiers and more like very aggressive personal space invaders. In other words, the pathfinding of the enemy can get pretty bad. 

 

It's an assorted series, so there are a few that chain in with each other and others that don't. 

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=498549241

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=498549241

 

<snip>

 

Those two last links are the same as the previous one (wait for me thou, not finished reading)

I guess that's not what should be there.

TBH you need to check your links, they're pretty messed all over the place.

Edited August 18, 2015 by RadioLarity

[4MostlyHarmless2]

Re: Enemy Sighting

 

This is something that needs to be brought up in discussions of stealth gameplay.

 

I pretty frequently see people calling for "Stealth 2.0", but what we really need is Awareness 2.0.  I frequently attempt to play stealthily with non-stealth frames, and it's been my experience that the biggest barrier to stealth in WF is extremely inconsistent awareness on the enemy's part.  Sometimes I'll quite literally run right in front of a Lancer's face and he won't see me.  Other times I'll get a stealth kill with a bow on an enemy in an isolated corner, and suddenly every enemy in the tile is alerted to my position.

 

iknowthatfeel.jpg

 

I've backstabbed a Lancer right beside his bro and he was looking straight at me and he didn't react. As I said, it's really wonky right now, though the best way to prove that is by video and not by screenshots. I'm not too big on recording gameplay, though :/

 

Those two last links are the same as the previous one (wait for me thou, not finished reading)

I guess that's not what should be there.

TBH you need to check your links, they're pretty messed all over the place.

 

huh really, they seem to work fine for me. I'll check them again. 

 

Edit: fixed the links a bit

Edited August 18, 2015 by 4MostlyHarmless2

[(PSN)Bowjangelz]

Awareness 2.0 and stealth finishers need to speed up. No ninja would choose to do a fancy kill that takes so long it almost guarantees another enemy will see them and alert the entire map. 

[RadioLarity]

All I can say, you've got your points right, but changing the spawnrates might take a hit on online players as well.
My opinion is same as Tekka's.
We need something that will enhance our stealth play.
And sometimes ppl don't want to run bows and shurikens or kunai to help them out (or don't even have!), ppl usually run loud guns and a melee wpn.
That's what makes stealth play with non stealth frames hard (even Banshee is not a stealth frame tbh) since the actually enemy sightlines are the problem.
Usually enemies are in a thick bunch and don't lose an eyesight of each other (or there are so many of them that it's not even possible)
IMO we should have an ability to ceiling latch and take out stealthily bunches of enemies standing next to each other (a la Ash;s bladestorm although for enemies that are next to each other and only when unnoticed) and being able to see kinda like flashlight line of sight of enemies (I actually can remember seeing something similiar, just dunno what game that was).

I'll admit that I want to do a chain of my ideas for QoL changes to Warframe, but I'm just like "1. noone will notice them or 2. they will get flame all over the place".
Some of my ideas are really cool and I even talked about some of them with my friends and they said they'd like to see that.

But... Butt... yes... that's what happens... Basically what I said above.


Still, back to the topic- yes, you're right my friend.

<snip>

Edit: fixed the links a bit

ty they work now

Edited August 18, 2015 by RadioLarity

[4MostlyHarmless2]

Awareness 2.0 and stealth finishers need to speed up. No ninja would choose to do a fancy kill that takes so long it almost guarantees another enemy will see them and alert the entire map. 

 

Well, Warframe tends to lean towards style more than practicality. I don't think Stealth Finishers need to be sped up, but Finishers in general do need to be looked at, since some of them get a bit too fancy. 

 

 

All I can say, you've got your points right, but changing the spawnrates might take a hit on online players as well.

My opinion is same as Tekka's.

We need something that will enhance our stealth play.

And sometimes ppl don't want to run bows and shurikens or kunai to help them out (or don't even have!), ppl usually run loud guns and a melee wpn.

That's what makes stealth play with non stealth frames hard (even Banshee is not a stealth frame tbh) since the actually enemy sightlines are the problem.

Usually enemies are in a thick bunch and don't lose an eyesight of each other (or there are so many of them that it's not even possible)

IMO we should have an ability to ceiling latch and take out stealthily bunches of enemies standing next to each other (a la Ash;s bladestorm although for enemies that are next to each other and only when unnoticed).

I'll admit that I want to do a chain of my ideas for QoL changes to Warframe, but I'm just like "1. noone will notice them or 2. they will get flame all over the place".

Some of my ideas are really cool and I even talked about some of them with my friends and they said they'd like to see that.

But... Butt... yes... that's what happens... Basically what I said above.

Still, back to the topic- yes, you're right my friend.

ty they work now

 

That's why I mentioned Solo Mode: Warframe still has that mode after all. If it can be tweaked, then the spawnrates of Online games won't be affected, but the spawnrates of a player in Solo mode will be. 

[RadioLarity]

<snip>

 

That's why I mentioned Solo Mode: Warframe still has that mode after all. If it can be tweaked, then the spawnrates of Online games won't be affected, but the spawnrates of a player in Solo mode will be. 

I may not be the best at programming, but I can assure you that wouldn't be so easy as it's not like a different game between solo and online. the only difference is that noone can join you when in solo. That would probably take many lines of code rewritten and so on and on, I can't really tell you what that would take to do, but I'm in computing school and into some kinds of such things and I know thing or two.

It's like you would have a diary and you would want to put a page between one of them that would have been similiar to other one. You would have to rewrite everything and glueing it up, but that's a really light take on that, of how to explain this.

[esapto]

Yeah, I think the spawning and the number of enemies that "exist" in a mission should be ajusted based on the number of players.

 

A solo player(specially newer ones) should never have to fight more than 10-15 enemies at the same time, depending on missiont type of course.

 

 

 

On stealth:

I like using enemy radar mods, and when i tried to do stealth mission(like spy 2.0) with frames other than loki/ash it was stupidly hard.

 

I could see enemies in the minimap spawning in the small room with a single door that i had just cleared, then i killed them again and 3 sec later they spawned in the same place again.

I mean, how am i supposed to move forward without being detected if i cant kill the enemies in my path because some enemies keep spawning 5 meters behind me over and over.

 

And big tiles are impossible to cross undetected without invisibility, since every time you kill one, another one spawns in the same tile, even if you have line of sight.

[RadioLarity]

Yeah, I think the spawning and the number of enemies that "exist" in a mission should be ajusted based on the number of players.

 

A solo player(specially newer ones) should never have to fight more than 10-15 enemies at the same time, depending on missiont type of course.

 

 

 

On stealth:

I like using enemy radar mods, and when i tried to do stealth mission(like spy 2.0) with frames other than loki/ash it was stupidly hard.

 

I could see enemies in the minimap spawning in the small room with a single door that i had just cleared, then i killed them again and 3 sec later they spawned in the same place again.

I mean, how am i supposed to move forward without being detected if i cant kill the enemies in my path because some enemies keep spawning 5 meters behind me over and over.

 

And big tiles are impossible to cross undetected without invisibility, since every time you kill one, another one spawns in the same tile, even if you have line of sight.

Yeah the spawns are broken especially can be felt while playing exterminate missions. You can go and clear whole tileset and after that enemies keep spawning one by one for few minutes and you can't leave because "you haven't killed them all yet".

[S7ORM]

Re: Enemy Sighting

 

This is something that needs to be brought up in discussions of stealth gameplay.

 

I pretty frequently see people calling for "Stealth 2.0", but what we really need is Awareness 2.0.  I frequently attempt to play stealthily with non-stealth frames, and it's been my experience that the biggest barrier to stealth in WF is extremely inconsistent awareness on the enemy's part.  Sometimes I'll quite literally run right in front of a Lancer's face and he won't see me.  Other times I'll get a stealth kill with a bow on an enemy in an isolated corner, and suddenly every enemy in the tile is alerted to my position.

[RadioLarity]

 

Re: Enemy Sighting

 

This is something that needs to be brought up in discussions of stealth gameplay.

 

I pretty frequently see people calling for "Stealth 2.0", but what we really need is Awareness 2.0.  I frequently attempt to play stealthily with non-stealth frames, and it's been my experience that the biggest barrier to stealth in WF is extremely inconsistent awareness on the enemy's part.  Sometimes I'll quite literally run right in front of a Lancer's face and he won't see me.  Other times I'll get a stealth kill with a bow on an enemy in an isolated corner, and suddenly every enemy in the tile is alerted to my position.

 

What's the point of quoteing and not saying anything under that?

I never understood that...

[motorfirebox]

In addition to Awareness 2.0, I think we need Doing Stuff Besides Standing Around Waiting To Be Alerted 2.0. Or, well, 1.0, I guess. Enemies shouldn't just spawn at random points and walk back and forth. If there's an enemy at a particular location, there should be some semblance of a reason he's there. Some enemies should be stationary guards. Some enemies should be on patrol, in organized groups, along a particular path (or semi-randomized path, for higher difficulty).

 

Some enemies should have their weapons holstered while they're doing other stuff. We should encounter enemies doing maintenance and repairs on their ships. We should encounter enemies manning their stations. 

 

All of this would, in addition to providing some much-needed depth to the game, allow for solo/stealth play while not significantly harming group run-n-gun play.

[RadioLarity]

In addition to Awareness 2.0, I think we need Doing Stuff Besides Standing Around Waiting To Be Alerted 2.0. Or, well, 1.0, I guess. Enemies shouldn't just spawn at random points and walk back and forth. If there's an enemy at a particular location, there should be some semblance of a reason he's there. Some enemies should be stationary guards. Some enemies should be on patrol, in organized groups, along a particular path (or semi-randomized path, for higher difficulty).

 

Some enemies should have their weapons holstered while they're doing other stuff. We should encounter enemies doing maintenance and repairs on their ships. We should encounter enemies manning their stations. 

 

All of this would, in addition to providing some much-needed depth to the game, allow for solo/stealth play while not significantly harming group run-n-gun play.

IMO all unalerted enemies should have holstered wpns.

BTW noone mentioned that- hive mind should be gone.

There are many situations when there is one enemy with you in a tile and he becomes alerted and magically all enemies start to run around and seek you.

[S7ORM]

What's the point of quoteing and not saying anything under that?

I never understood that...

[Drasiel]

The amount of enemies spawned at a given time in a mission is actually based on a randomised enemy difficulty from 1-5. If you roll a 1 mission you get smaller groups of enemies spawning. If you roll a 5 just... so much spawns. This used to visible in the esc menu during the days of starchart 1.0, but is no longer visible. However the mechanic remains, and you can really feel the difference as a soloer especially at low levels.

 

The games of personal space invaders can be so frustrating to encounter when trying to stealth, especially when they are all facing different directions. Right up there with that is the "spinners" the enemies who's pathing has broken and they spin slowly back and forth or all around, just try to sneak up on those guys -_-

 

ps death to the hivemind, except for corrupted where it arguably makes sense

 

Re: Enemy Sighting

 

This is something that needs to be brought up in discussions of stealth gameplay.

 

I pretty frequently see people calling for "Stealth 2.0", but what we really need is Awareness 2.0.  I frequently attempt to play stealthily with non-stealth frames, and it's been my experience that the biggest barrier to stealth in WF is extremely inconsistent awareness on the enemy's part.  Sometimes I'll quite literally run right in front of a Lancer's face and he won't see me.  Other times I'll get a stealth kill with a bow on an enemy in an isolated corner, and suddenly every enemy in the tile is alerted to my position.

 

As well as fixes for enemy sighting they need an extra level of awareness added. They should not go from unalerted to immediately hostile and on alert. They should go unalerted, suspicious, hostile on alert. That middle awareness of suspicious is REALLY important. Without it there is no forgiveness on minor stealth errors, and no way to "draw" away individual enemies.

[S7ORM]

What's the point of quoteing and not saying anything under that?

I never understood that...

Kidding about the only-quote post of this.

It's like saying "This is what I would have posted if you hadn't posted it first."

[Mak_Gohae]

I have no problem with the spawning cause some rooms are supposed to have more than others and that's what you have your 4th ability.

 

I have a problem with the path-finding. And the problem is that there is none. 

 

 

They dont have the ability to walk around obstructions so they just get stuck until whatever is blocking them moves.

And that completely messes up stealth in the game.

[Zachatoo]

I used to be against the "hive-mind" but then I realized...there's a thing called 2-way radio... :P

A guy sees his friend impaled right before his eyes, he's bound to let the ship know there's an intruder.

Still, awareness does need to be looked at. Only invisible frames can stealth properly as of now.

[motorfirebox]

I used to be against the "hive-mind" but then I realized...there's a thing called 2-way radio... :P

A guy sees his friend impaled right before his eyes, he's bound to let the ship know there's an intruder.

Still, awareness does need to be looked at. Only invisible frames can stealth properly as of now.

Yeah, but two-way radio requires that you say something. In Warframe, you can kill a guy literally 0.1 seconds after he spots you, and all of his teammates still know your exact location.

 

Honestly, that's one thing that should be implemented: if a guy spots you, he starts yelling. As soon as he yells, every nearby enemy that can hear him knows your location to within 50'. If you let him keep yelling, their awareness of your location begins to zero in, until eventually he's told them your exact location. The whole process should take maybe 3-4 seconds, so if a guy spots you but you kill him quickly, enemies will know you're around but they won't know where.

Edited August 18, 2015 by motorfirebox

[LifeNine]

I don't think the spawn numbers needs to be changed for solo play, but I agree with everyone else that's saying the awareness and pathing of enemies needs to be changed. It's almost impossible to stealthily kill a clump of enemies, and sometimes you just get spotted for no reason at all.

[Sasquatchias]

One other thing that really annoys me is how if the Alarm is triggered on the map enemies know your exact location, even if they didn't see you climb on top a balcony or go through a tunnel in the middle of @(*()&#036; nowhere. 

 

This makes stealth play very annoying as it makes it stupidly harder to try and stop enemies from hounding you.

[4MostlyHarmless2]

Maybe the spawn numbers don't have to be changed for solo play, but I'm of the opinion that it's precisely because so many enemies spawn at once in a single tileset that they run into pathfinding problems. One of the things I do to observe this is to find a tileset where a lot of enemies have spawned, then to get close enough to activate Shade's Cloak. Once it activates, I just stay near enemies to watch where they go. I've noticed that tilesets with greater enemy density (more than 8-10 enemies) tend to show enemies with more pathfinding problems than tilesets with lower enemy density (less than 8-10 enemies).

 

The size of the tileset where enemies spawn also matters a lot, because sometimes 8-10 enemies spawn into a tileset that can only comfortably fit 5, and when that happens they tend to clump up a lot, especially around doorways. 

[RadioLarity]

Kidding about the only-quote post of this.

It's like saying "This is what I would have posted if you hadn't posted it first."

ok, that makes sense

 

I have no problem with the spawning cause some rooms are supposed to have more than others and that's what you have your 4th ability.

 

<snip>

 some frames don't have insta kill 4s; chroma for example

[RadioLarity]

I used to be against the "hive-mind" but then I realized...there's a thing called 2-way radio... :P

A guy sees his friend impaled right before his eyes, he's bound to let the ship know there's an intruder.

Still, awareness does need to be looked at. Only invisible frames can stealth properly as of now.

We're talking about situations when there's only one guy and he barely sees you but instantly whole enemy garrison running at you.

I know (we know) that there are 2-way radios but the thing is that there is even nothing like enemies actually talking between the radio.

It usually just is "Tenno scum" and that's all. And that's in the middle of a fight.