Why The Enemies In This Game Are So Poorly Designed

[Ve1indian]

Most if not all the challenge enemies provide in this game is because of the hard counters they use. However, This "difficulty" can be bypassed easily by spamming CC abilities, or equipping certain mods; invalidating the mechanics entirely by just switching them off. This leads to a sense of binary counters, and in turn pigeonholes late game players into spamming CC abilities, just to avoid the enemy hard counters. If the players don't spam CC to disable the enemies completely, basically making them a trivial threat, the enemies will spam their CC and thus completely disable the players. This creates a binary in the games difficulty where it is either really easy (when using a CC oriented build), or unavoidably hard (if using a non-CC oriented build). The reason this is the case is because most enemies 

(such as Nulifiers, Grineer commanders, Ancient/Corrupted Healers, Drahk Masters, etc.) can't be countered without turning them into vegetables. When they are not hard-countered by player CC or Overwhelming dps, their abilities can, in combination, completely invalidate player input. 

 

The issue is not that they are hard, but rather that they are either super easy, or un-counterable. A way to change this would be to have more specific ways player can counter certain types of CC with skill independant of playstyle. Enemies would probably also have to be able to counter player CC to varying degrees (certain enemies being easier or harder to proc/knockdown/disable than others for example), so they aren't completely pathetic. Enemy abilities should still compliment each other, but not in a way in which they narrow a players options to such a small variety; locking down strategies/abilities certain playstyles are based around.

Edited September 18, 2015 by Vougue

[Naftal]

I think you didn't finish typing the title.

All CC can be countered with skill. You have to time using ability casting, rolling, melee attacks, blocking etc. which all give you CC immunity.

[egregiousRac]

All of the uncounterable elements on enemies have come as a result of the increase in player DPS. Fix the DPS scale, and they become unnecessary.

[Ve1indian]

I think you didn't finish typing the title. All CC can be countered with skill. You have to time using ability casting, rolling, melee attacks, blocking etc. which all give you CC immunity.

I hit an arrow key and enter by accident when halfway through the post, sorry about that.

All CC can be countered with skill, but when the CC gets to a certain point with all the hard counters, it narrows player choice to a degree in which few playstyles are effective.

 

 

All of the uncounterable elements on enemies have come as a result of the increase in player DPS. Fix the DPS scale, and they become unnecessary.

 

Pretty much, though a dps decrease and enemy hard counter removal would only lead to dull gameplay. What they should do is fix the scaling, player power, and introduce more mechanics that give challenge, but allow more player input/freedom of playstyle.

Edited September 18, 2015 by Vougue

[Naftal]

All CC can be countered with skill, but when the CC gets to a certain point with all the hard counters, it narrows player choice to a degree in which few playstyles are effective.

So what playstyle prevents using all of the counters to CC?

[Ve1indian]

So what playstyle prevents using all of the counters to CC?

When the amount and variance of enemy CC gets to a certain point, ways to utilize rolls, blocking, and abilities are severely limited. There will be a point where you can't avoid enemy CC because it's mathmatically unavoidable, without removing all challenge entirely by using a build designed to turn enemies into vegetables, or killing them before they can do anything.

 

Effectively negating difficulty with no space in between (generating a binary in difficulty), making playstyles focused around binary success vastly superior to playstyles where the player reacts progressively for success.

Edited September 18, 2015 by Vougue

[Naftal]

When the amount and variance of enemy CC gets to a certain point, ways to utilize rolls, blocking, and abilities are severely limited. There will be a point where you can't avoid enemy CC because it's mathmatically unavoidable, without removing all challenge entirely by using a build designed to turn enemies into vegetables, or kill them before they can do anything.

What does this mean? Can you give an example of a practical situation.

[Ognj]

The AI in this game is quite bare bones to say the least, from enemies, bosses and even our companions so I would probably say that's why we have this high scaling which can be countered with CC.

[Ve1indian]

What does this mean? Can you give an example of a practical situation.

I can't because certain situations only arise within certain circumstances (some dependant on RNG), so i can't give you an honest answer without getting so specific; I'd have to list every possible situation where certain playstyles are shafted, and others breeze through. Think of how certain enemy abilities (CC, Nullification, Buffs/Debuffs, etc.) can combine to mechanically lock down a player in certain ways, now imagine a playstyle specializing in ways that are locked down via the enemies' combined hard counters. You'll see that the combination of hard counters that lockdown certain playstyles are fairly common, and if they aren't, are possible to happen outside player control.

 

I'll think/experiment with some specific combinations when I can.

For the time being, I can't give you any specific examples without them being anecdotal as F***.

Edited September 18, 2015 by Vougue

[Scytze]

We need carrier and and boltor here to make it perfect.

[Ve1indian]

We need carrier and and boltor here to make it perfect.

We also need a Loki.

We have a Rhino and a Mesa, so those other 3 things would make it perfect.

[Volinus7]

Something like bursa? You need to walk around to shoot its back? more than one bursa >>>> CC

Could you please elaborate on what skilled based enemies should look like???

[Ninja-Kid]

Stop expecting this game to be Dark Souls (or even DMC).

This game is Dynasty Warriors in space.

[Volinus7]

Stop expecting this game to be Dark Souls (or even DMC).

This game is Dynasty Warriors in space.

The truth has been spoken. Musou style indeed. Edited September 18, 2015 by Volinus7

[Ve1indian]

Stop expecting this game to be Dark Souls (or even DMC).

This game is Dynasty Warriors in space.

More like Space Dynasty Warriors where every enemy has annoying CC.

 

Something like bursa? You need to walk around to shoot its back? more than one bursa >>>> CC

Could you please elaborate on what skilled based enemies should look like???

Skill based as in having a way to actively counter an enemy's CC without relying on certain mods or weapons that invalidate their abilities.

 

Example 1

A scorpion is completely trash if you have handspring equipped (or an anti knockdown ability active like Iron Skin), but if you don't then you'll have to suffer through a few seconds of being dragged without being able to retaliate. A way to make this more dependant on skill, is to have a timed press to cut the rope at different points in the animation. Another way would to allow secondary/melee to be used when hooked, so the player could kill them if they knew how/where to shoot them.

 

Example 2

A Bombard or a group of Bombards can knockdown the player over and over. This can be completely negated with handspring/Iron Skin (to name a couple examples), invalidating the mechanic. If it isn't, you can be easily chain stunned unless you roll or block. Which in certain situations is either impossible, or can lead to unwanted positioning. A way to make countering it more skill based would be to allow a timed button press, probably the roll button, to make the character handspring up; if holding a direction upon successfully executing, the player's character rolls in the specified direction. This would make it so if a player is perceptive and quick enough they can negate the knockdowns effect a bit. Handspring mod could be reworked to give invincibility frames while getting up, knockdown resist mods could be reworked to prevent knockdown after getting up, for a short period of time.

 

Example 3

An enemy who has a small weakpoint that is exposed, but can have their armor break off once hit with enough damage. The damage absorbed would be the majority of the weapons damage, the damage received would be the remaining damage. This would allow for high RoF and high pellet count weapons to tear up the armor before dealing full damage to kill the enemies, where high percision weapons could take time to aim and quickly destroy.

 

Example 1 and 2 are general mechanic changes that would make enemy CC less binary. The latter example is of an enemy that any type of weapon could beat, at a similar rate, in varying ways; factoring in varied skills of killing rather than being 100% reliant on dps.

[UnderYourBed]

It's been apparent since Rollers were introduced that DE's idea of 'challenge' is something more along the lines of 'fake difficulty'. Basically, enemies with cheap mechanics. Players have long since learned to respond in kind.

[Ve1indian]

It's been apparent since Rollers were introduced that DE's idea of 'challenge' is something more along the lines of 'fake difficulty'. Basically, enemies with cheap mechanics. Players have long since learned to respond in kind.

Then DE responded with more hard-countering CC. 

 

Most infested enemies now have some form of CC they alternate spaming constantly.

Most Grineer enemies have ways of disabling players' weapons and chain stunning.

Corpus have lens flares and nulifiers....

etc. etc. etc.

Edited September 18, 2015 by Vougue

[Natsusane]

Example 1: Dodge the frigging scorpion hook...

 

Example 2: Dodge the bloody bombard grenades...

 

Example 3: The only weakspot enemies so far are bursa, some bosses and juggernaut and juggernaut is the only one that is hard to kill without a mesa (at least i didnt manage to kill a lvl 100 juggernaut in the simulacrum cuz even at its weakspot they dont seem to receive more than 6dmg from a fully formad dread)

 

Looking at your examples you can either do it the "binary" way as you would claim it to be, in this case disarm them. Or you can use your set of evasion mechanics that wont ever get countered by any mob, rolling being my primary evasion since i play melee 90% of the time and that works vs lvl 400 mobs so i have no clue what your problem is. You can play warframe the ez or the fun way: CC or no CC.

 

On a sidenote i talked about this matter to DE Steve at TennoVIP and I mentioned that enemy weapon damage shouldnt increase at higher lvls cuz you pretty much get 1shotted by anything and he said if that werent the case, tenno would turn into bulletsponges and they dont wanna see that happening cuz it would be even more boring than what we have right now.

[Tyrian3k]

The binary thing isn't really CC vs. CC, it's CC vs. instadeath. High level enemies in T4 will rip you to shreds if they aren't CCed.

 

At that point players will always build their groups in a way where they only ever get hit if they screw up somehow.

[Donnell]

However you put it.. It's disrespectful considering this is Free to play. :-/

[UnderYourBed]

Then DE responded with more hard-countering CC. 

 

Most infested enemies now have some form of CC they alternate spaming constantly.

Most Grineer enemies have ways of disabling players' weapons and chain stunning.

Corpus have lens flares and nulifiers....

etc. etc. etc.

That's what I said, cheap difficulty.

[Ve1indian]

Example 1: Dodge the frigging scorpion hook...

 

Example 2: Dodge the bloody bombard grenades...

 

Example 3: The only weakspot enemies so far are bursa, some bosses and juggernaut and juggernaut is the only one that is hard to kill without a mesa (at least i didnt manage to kill a lvl 100 juggernaut in the simulacrum cuz even at its weakspot they dont seem to receive more than 6dmg from a fully formad dread)

 

Looking at your examples you can either do it the "binary" way as you would claim it to be, in this case disarm them. Or you can use your set of evasion mechanics that wont ever get countered by any mob, rolling being my primary evasion since i play melee 90% of the time and that works vs lvl 400 mobs so i have no clue what your problem is. You can play warframe the ez or the fun way: CC or no CC.

 

On a sidenote i talked about this matter to DE Steve at TennoVIP and I mentioned that enemy weapon damage shouldnt increase at higher lvls cuz you pretty much get 1shotted by anything and he said if that werent the case, tenno would turn into bulletsponges and they dont wanna see that happening cuz it would be even more boring than what we have right now.

Not always possible as you can be blindsighted through crowds or even walls sometimes.

 

Dodging has a delay where you can't do it again, enough bombards or a bombard in combination with other enemy CC can make you get knocked down between rolls.

 

Juggernaut has a weakspot but it's armor can't be broken with enough pelting, making killing him in different ways more limited and based upon what the A.I. decides to do to expose the weakpoint. This is different from the example I put forth.

 

Easy or Hard can be dull to some players, having less binary counter measures opens up a middleground where variety in gameplay and the thrill of overcoming a challenge can both be achieved by players looking for it. The current state leads to people who want variety and challenge being shafted by either limiting their choices once the enemies get stronger, or having no challenge at lower levels where they can use more varied playstyles.

 

As a sidenote for your sidenote: Having enemies scale in synergy with their allies would be a better solution as the bullet sponginess of the Tenno could be negated if the player isn't skillful at avoiding damage. If a player was good enough to effectively beat the enemies tactically, they wouldn't be killed by something out of their control(like a balista spawning out of view in range of their Tenno, and one shotting them) because they could effectively keep avoiding death if they were perceptive and clever enough.

 

 

That's what I said, cheap difficulty.

I'm glad someone else understands what I'm talking about.

 

The binary thing isn't really CC vs. CC, it's CC vs. instadeath. High level enemies in T4 will rip you to shreds if they aren't CCed.

 

At that point players will always build their groups in a way where they only ever get hit if they screw up somehow.

 

And that binary success or failure leads to limited player choice if someone wants a challenge. CC from enemies at slightly lower than 1shot levels can lead to stunlocks and death, so CC vs. CC is still relevent. CC vs. Damage being a thing happens more so because of the unlimited scaling, rather than enemy design itself (though they compliment eachother in cheapness).

Edited September 18, 2015 by Vougue