What Is Your Opinion On Artificial Difficulty?

[AnOldAlias]

--.. And what are your suggestions to possibly revert, or change, the artificial nature of Warframes difficulty?

If there are no core changes you can think of, what are some QOL(Quality of Life) changes that you can think of that could potentially help this problem? If you think Artificial difficulty in this game exists, that is.

Edited October 25, 2015 by Nelizar

[TrinityPrime]

 

Fight artificial with all natural! Cheese for everyone!

[Hixlysss]

Honestly the devs need to hard cap enemy levels. These "endless" mission types are fun and all, but they eventually reach a point where you are getting SLAMMED. A stray bullet hitting you from an enemy suddenly takes all of your shields and half your HP, where as it takes all four tenno to focus fire to drop a heavy unit with three clips.

 

And to counter the whole "But then you can just gear yourself to match the max level and the game isn't challenging anymore!" We have special units in the game, nullfiers, swarm mutalists, scorpions, all of which disrupt what a tenno is doing. Basically warframe needs to lean away from infinite scaling and work more on making enemies DO things besides just shoot bullets.

[IrisDragoon]

my opinion on artificial difficulty?

 

here ya go:

 

[Hixlysss]

my opinion on artificial difficulty?

 

here ya go:

 

Hmm. The video brings up a point of "If you pay attention, you won't get hurt." But warframe is such a fast paced game that paying attention is difficult. Combine that with just...a lack of information that you the player are given unless you actively seek it out outside the game(Which honestly is bad game design imo.)

[Cubewano]

it'd be nice if instead of just pumping out more ability voiding enemy units to the game, de did like they planned to with bosses and made made abilties have some sort of diminishing effectiveness on all enemy units. 

[Lightsmith]

Is this really artificial difficulty? Based on McDuffman's linked video I don't think it is. Other than enemy scaling there isn't much difficulty in the game. Enemy scaling wouldn't really fit into that. There is no expectation of failure at a certain point, just an algorithm that goes on well beyond what players can reasonably do. That isn't really a problem, since the option would be for DE to cap it, which would lead to groups being able to run endless missions for days if desired.

 

DE doesn't really like Endless missions, as they have distracted players from other mission types. Defense, Interception, Excavation and Survival runs are done far more than Capture, Sabotage, Deception, Hive, Spy and Exterminate. That is because you get a larger number of rewards from Endless missions.

 

DE has attempted alternatives to enemy scaling if you factor in Spy missions. Unfortunately to do that, you would need a large number of variables otherwise people just memorize the steps and it becomes trivial.

 

So what is the alternative? Well Diablo 3 (and others I'm sure) has their elites with growing mix of BS auras and effects. Personally I much prefer Warframe's scaling over that. Less "OMG that's total BS" moments than Getting Arcane, Desecration, Stone Gaze (or w/e) enemy.

 

DE has stated they have an idea or a WIP where enemies (or specific ones) learn from your warframe over the fight, so if you're always using a specific power then it starts to wise up against it. I'm sure this isn't a simple task to create, but maybe we'll see it with the Sentients.

Hmm. The video brings up a point of "If you pay attention, you won't get hurt." But warframe is such a fast paced game that paying attention is difficult. Combine that with just...a lack of information that you the player are given unless you actively seek it out outside the game(Which honestly is bad game design imo.)

I don't think Warframe really applies to either examples in the video, the difficulty in this game is not like those. There are no tricks, etc really.

Edited October 25, 2015 by Lightsmith

[Lightsmith]

Honestly the devs need to hard cap enemy levels. These "endless" mission types are fun and all, but they eventually reach a point where you are getting SLAMMED. A stray bullet hitting you from an enemy suddenly takes all of your shields and half your HP, where as it takes all four tenno to focus fire to drop a heavy unit with three clips.

 

And to counter the whole "But then you can just gear yourself to match the max level and the game isn't challenging anymore!" We have special units in the game, nullfiers, swarm mutalists, scorpions, all of which disrupt what a tenno is doing. Basically warframe needs to lean away from infinite scaling and work more on making enemies DO things besides just shoot bullets.

I disagree. I'd rather get to a point where it's clear I can't continue than be doing fine and a random elite with BS Random Abilities (see previous D3 reference) comes out and wrecks me when I seem to be doing fine.

Edited October 25, 2015 by Lightsmith

[timerwin63]

my opinion on artificial difficulty?

 

here ya go:

 

Personally, I'd instead point to this video to define artificial difficulty, as the one mentioned by McDuffMan really only works within the confines of Dark Souls:

 

 

With that out of the way, my opinion on artificial difficulty is that it's annoying and doesn't belong in games. The issue with "solving" the artificial difficulty problem in Warframe is that with the way the game is designed now (fast-paced, infinitely scaling, automatically generated horde-mode shooter) that, with the exception of possibly boss fights, it'd be impossible to remove the artificial difficulty altogether. The only real "solution" I see would be taking endless missions out of the game completely, which a lot of people would dislike.

Edited October 25, 2015 by timerwin63

[Oishii]

Outside of endless missions I don't see any artificial difficulty in warframe and even then going far into them serves little purpose.

 

Really I don't know where this artificial craze on the forums came from. Before saying there is artificial difficulty ask if perhaps if it's something that you as a player can improve upon before claiming artificial difficulty.

Edited October 25, 2015 by Oishii

[(PSN)Pharen]

Personally, I'd instead point to this video to define artificial difficulty, as the one mentioned by McDuffMan really only works within the confines of Dark Souls:

 

 

With that out of the way, my opinion on artificial difficulty is that it's annoying and doesn't belong in games. The issue with "solving" the artificial difficulty problem in Warframe is that with the way the game is designed now (fast-paced, infinitely scaling, automatically generated horde-mode shooter) that, with the exception of possibly boss fights, it'd be impossible to remove the artificial difficulty altogether. The only real "solution" I see would be taking endless missions out of the game completely, which a lot of people would dislike.

Agree with some of what he said, but gotta shoot him down on the Dark Souls "designed difficulty". Forcing a player to stop moving to do certain actions for no reason is artificial difficulty no matter what way you look at it, as is hiding an enemy behind a piece of scenery where the camera angles cannot see them, also certain animations have dead zones in them that serve nothing but to add artificial difficulty. Warframe had that issue too early on, and the animation team snipped out a couple of dead frames and now our movement is significantly smoother, something DS could greatly benefit from.

[Plushy]

I'm not all that great at the end-game hard stuff. I really like taking out hundreds of grineer in just a few minutes. Its easy mindless fun and there's enough variety in ways to go about doing it that I don't get bored. I wish there were better ways to do that for longer. The closest I've gotten is excavation. I don't count exterminate because its a slow search for enemies that only spawn in small groups per room and then you have to backtrack because of the single guy you missed because the minimap is glitchy.

[TheBrsrkr]

I think DE's kinda blocked in the corner on this one. No one likes the cheese, not even them. It isn't creating challenge, more so forcing it. But there isn't much leeway to work with on the non cheesy scale, like AI changes. What's the point of having a good AI when we can literally shut enemies down before they can do anything, make whatever they can do irrelevant, or kill them in less time than it takes to blink? The actual challenge offfighting the AI is completely eclipsed until the cheese cannot work, and at that point they kill you AI or not. There isn't much that can be done that actually works.

[7grims]

Thanks timerwin63 for showing what is the artificial difficulty.

 

I don't think I can remember any shooting game, that doesn't feed on artificial difficulty.

If the idea isn't doing high skilled moves, it isn't doing puzzles either, it isn't find things or exploit, it is shooting, and shooting games all work with AD.

And as far as endless missions there is no other way to create an end of mission, besides direct increase of enemy levels.

 

Well, I might just be wrong, there is always someone out there, with some new out of the box idea.

[(PSN)DesecratedFlame]

my opinion on artificial difficulty?

 

here ya go:

 

That doesn't apply here.  I plat'ed Dark Souls, and it is not the same thing.

 

Artificial difficulty is NG+ in Dark Souls, and in Warframe it is endlessly scaling enemies, gimmicky enemies, and invincibility phases.

 

You counter it by not relying on making enemies "tougher" by increasing only their "numbers" (e.g. Health, Damage, Armor), giving them annoying gimmicks, nor giving them invincibility phases.

 

The proper way to make them more difficult is to give them better A.I. the further you get into the game.

[Lightsmith]

Personally, I'd instead point to this video to define artificial difficulty, as the one mentioned by McDuffMan really only works within the confines of Dark Souls:

 

 

With that out of the way, my opinion on artificial difficulty is that it's annoying and doesn't belong in games. The issue with "solving" the artificial difficulty problem in Warframe is that with the way the game is designed now (fast-paced, infinitely scaling, automatically generated horde-mode shooter) that, with the exception of possibly boss fights, it'd be impossible to remove the artificial difficulty altogether. The only real "solution" I see would be taking endless missions out of the game completely, which a lot of people would dislike.

Unrelated note: What is the came called in that video, the one at the start with the white creature?

 

I think the biggest opportunity for DE is "Nightmare" versions. That is where Mechanics should be improved. There was an event recently (Snipetron one) what did a good job adding new elements, like mini bosses or w/e. Rather than the current "No Shields" version.

 

The issue with Warframe and Artificial Difficulty is that DE can't do simple Designed difficulty on a large scale (all enemies) since it would cause issues for casual players. Also, since Warframe is a grind if DE spends a lot of a time creating a difficult task, many players will work through it and have it memorized so it become trivial quickly, or it will be annoying that players just tend to avoid it (I feel this way about Spy missions), a third possibility is players just play that mission solo (as I do with Spy) because PUGs aren't reliable.

 

My thoughts are:

-Leave current gameplay as is (Normal Mode)

-Improve Nightmare to be more mechanics and improved AI (Design Difficulty there)

-Boss fights have minor mechanics, nothing players can't struggle through without knowledge, Tyl Regor is like this.

-NIghtmare Bosses are more mechanics driven

-Raids follow the similar suggestions as above.

-Remove Endless, Its drastic, but finding a way to remove endless missions perhaps capping the length of time. Say at 60 Waves, 60 Minutes, 12 Interceptions. This way DE doesn't have to worry about that aspect, i.e. account for people playing endless mission with new difficulty and being able to run it forever.

-Nightmare Endless missions could be added in addition that either Return the Endless aspect like we currently have (with varying difficulty changes) or that give better rewards / frequencies than regular endless. (By Endless I mean the current Endless mission types, Defense, Survival, etc.)

 

Personally I think "Progressively tougher AI" is harder to program into a game. You'd likely have to have a whole new AI at certain tiers, which given the possible tiers of difficulty, I think 2 (Regular and Nightmare) is a fair suggestion, beyond that may be to much.

Edited October 25, 2015 by Lightsmith

[Numbsky1]

Armour scaling and the 1 facepalm solution to it, namely slotting 4x CP and cheese away is one of the worst Ai difficulty scaling features in the entire gaming industry. Auras need stacking penalties and armour scaling needs to be less ridiculous. 

[Liberty83]

my opinion on artificial difficulty?

 

here ya go:

 

 

Just wanted to point out, what is described in that video isn't artificial difficulty.

 

Artificial difficulty it an arbitrary increase of some aspect of problem that a player faces (be it enemy or environment).

 

Take a Grineer Heavy Bombard : The Challenge associated with this unit is it fires homing rockets that have an aoe blast that can knock you down and deal heavy damage.  It is an armored unit and has a weak point on its head long with a weakness to CC and staggers. 

 

Once you learn these mechanics, you understand how to dodge the rockets or keep them stun locked while doing the needed damage to kill them and can do it at an accelerated rate by aiming for the head.

 

Artificial difficulty is taking this unit and simply increasing the damage it does and reducing the damage it takes.  Nothing fundamentally changes about how you approach the encounter, what kind of damage type you use or where you aim.  It is now just a larger sack of HP that punishes failed dodges or CC locks more severely. 

 

 

Artificial difficulty is the easiest / laziest form of threat progression in gaming because it doesn't force you to do anything new.  It just forces you to do something longer / more of something that you already understand.

 

Dynamic difficulty would be like having a level 30 bombard act as it currently does.  Then at say level 50, the bombard gains enhanced body armor, requiring more of a skill shot to effectively take it down. At level 80 it might gain an armored face plate you need shoot / blast off before its weak spot is exposed.  At level 100 it might gain a small personal shield that you need to punch through then destroy the device, which could be put on the chest so you have a different weak spot to attack first. 

 

While this might be a bit much for a non boss unit in a game that spawns so many enemies, you get the general idea.  Each phase of difficulty increase adds something new the player has to tackle, not just how long he or she has to hold M1 over the threat in order to get rid of it. 

 

The thing is, dynamic difficulty definitely requires work / effort where as artificial difficulty is pretty much plugging numbers into a spread sheet. 

[Acos]

I think it's a buzz-word used by people who can't be bothered to articulate whatever point they're trying to make. An oversimplified response to something with the same amount of force and merit as screaming "nerf!" and "buff!". 

As an example, "artificial difficulty" would cry that enemies with a lot of health are bad because enemies should be more interesting rather than simply being giant bags of hit points. Then they go wipe out a boss in 1.5 seconds with their absurdly powerful guns and 4's and complain that the boss is boring to fight. Better game design would have it so that the boss lives long enough to actually have a chance at being interesting. At the same time, the player needs to be mentally engaged in what they're doing, so the boss fight needs to actually end somewhere around where the player is still interested in what they're doing, which is going to vary from person to person. 

Game balance and design is much more often a matter of opinion than it is pure, emotionless formula. 

Edited October 25, 2015 by Acos

[Kastorius]

It's more like artificial annoyance than actual artificial difficulty.

 

Enemies' near-perfect accuracy is bad (it's not only Bombard missiles that can chase a player around three corridors and a catwalk; all enemy bullets do that, it's just hard to notice) because it removes any ability to evade damage through maneuvering, except by standing completely behind cover or using abilities. Beyond that, only RPG stats like shields matter.

 

Nullifiers are annoying for obvious reasons. They don't really add any sort of genuine challenge, except the need to whittle them down ASAP. They just make it more time-consuming to mow down hordes of enemies.

 

As for the massive HP bloat at very high enemy levels, well, every shooter with RPG stats seems to do it, and I don't think "better AI" is the solution, because in my opinion the AI should be at its best throughout the game. "Saving" the best AI for high-level enemies deprives the rest of the game from having interesting enemy behavior. Regardless, HP bloat does feel artificial.

[7grims]

Just saw this good example of designed difficulty, and it made me recall this tread:

 

http://img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/aojqy5e_460sv.mp4

(enemy dodging bullets)

 

 

Enemy AI, goes a long way in providing non-artificial difficulty ;)

[7grims]

-Remove Endless, Its drastic, but finding a way to remove endless missions perhaps capping the length of time. Say at 60 Waves, 60 Minutes, 12 Interceptions. This way DE doesn't have to worry about that aspect, i.e. account for people playing endless mission with new difficulty and being able to run it forever.

 

 

The factor u are forgetting is RNG, and leveling up.

Endless missions are both good to grind for recources, mods, cores, end of wave/round prizes.

On the aspect of leveling up, it will again provide faster progression of xp gain.

 

And as for endless missions the uprising flow of artificial difficulty is the correct answer, the game is setting a choice of more rewards if you keep going, versus, the risk of loosing it all if you quit, there is hardly any other way to set a endless mission without artificial difficulty.

Ever since DE introduced survival back in U9 or so, I immediately thought, all warframe should be about endless missions.

Non-endless missions are boring and repetitive. most ppl have figured out years ago, which frame to take to each type of these so they can beat the goal fast, and non-endless its unrewarding.

 

Maybe non-endless missions would be fun and worth, if they were longer, if they were properly rewarding, and if the AI would provide a good challenge (cause other then AI, I have no idea how one could cut out the artificial difficulty on shooting games, its not only warframe that haves these issues).

Edited October 25, 2015 by 7grims

[(PSN)DesecratedFlame]

The factor u are forgetting is RNG, and leveling up.

Endless missions are both good to grind for recources, mods, cores, end of wave/round prizes.

On the aspect of leveling up, it will again provide faster progression of xp gain.

 

And as for endless missions the uprising flow of artificial difficulty is the correct answer, the game is setting a choice of more rewards if you keep going, versus, the risk of loosing it all if you quit, there is hardly any other way to set a endless mission without artificial difficulty.

Ever since DE introduced survival back in U9 or so, I immediately thought, all warframe should be about endless missions.

Non-endless missions are boring and repetitive. most ppl have figured out years ago, which frame to take to each type of these so they can beat the goal fast, and non-endless its unrewarding.

 

Maybe non-endless missions would be fun and worth, if they were longer, if they were properly rewarding, and if the AI would provide a good challenge (cause other then AI, I have no idea how one could cut out the artificial difficulty on shooting games, its not only warframe that haves these issues).

Endless missions should have a level cap though.  Be that level 60 or level 99, it doesn't really matter. But once they have that cap, DE can start having a set level to balance end-game gear around. And it would finally be a level that both DE and players would be able to agree is endgame, because DE typically seems to believe that end-game levels are far, far lower than players do.

 

That way, DE could actually nerf weapons and test them against end-game so players would not immediately feel their weapon of choice had just been made useless.  It would also give DE a base to buff currently weak and near useless weapons against.

 

Being able to balance weapons and gear against a set level of enemy means they could get rid of the ridiculous "one-shot them before they one-shot you" gameplay we currently have.  And because they would be able to add in real balance, they could also stop relying on annoying, gimmicky enemy types (e.g. Tar Moas) and artificial difficulty in an attempt to add more challenge to the game.

[Hypernaut1]

Outside of endless missions I don't see any artificial difficulty in warframe and even then going far into them serves little purpose.

 

Really I don't know where this artificial craze on the forums came from. Before saying there is artificial difficulty ask if perhaps if it's something that you as a player can improve upon before claiming artificial difficulty.

its just one of those things that gets parroted on the forum without any real truth behind it.

 

Its just a vague undefined term that can be tossed around to discredit the devs when someone doesn't like one thing or the other about an enemy.  Its either enemies have "artificial difficulty" or they use "cheese tactics" its a lose/lose scenario. Either enemies have "bad ai" or they have "telepathic A.I" 

 

This is a fast paced mass mob murder action game- not Rainbow 6. Enemy difficulty will be based on elevated stats, and their ability to counter your abilities. Their not going to have advanced squad formation tactics. Even if they did have advanced tactics, we would just slaughter them in an instant anyway. How would DE stop us from just slaughtering enemies? Make them quick? people hate the Manic. Make them counter our abilities? people hate nullifiers. Make them strong? people cry about "one shotting" Give them Armor? People say their just bullet sponges.

Edited October 25, 2015 by Hypernaut1

[(PSN)DesecratedFlame]

its just one of those things that gets parroted on the forum without any real truth behind it.

 

Its just a vague undefined term that can be tossed around to discredit the devs when someone doesn't like one thing or the other about an enemy.  Its either enemies have "artificial difficulty" or they use "cheese tactics" its a lose/lose scenario. Either enemies have "bad ai" or they have "telepathic A.I" 

 

This is a fast paced mass mob murder action game- not Rainbow 6. Enemy difficulty will be based on elevated stats, and their ability to counter your abilities. Their not going to have advanced squad formation tactics. Even if they did have advanced tactics, we would just slaughter them in an instant anyway. How would DE stop us from just slaughtering enemies? Make them quick? people hate the Manic. Make them counter our abilities? people hate nullifiers. Make them strong? people cry about "one shotting" Give them Armor? People say their just bullet sponges.

Nice strawman fallacy you got there, but there is even a video right on the first page of this thread that defines what artificial difficulty is. 

 

In case you missed it, artificial difficulty is trying to increase difficulty by increasing the opponents' numbers (e.g. increasing their HP number, increasing their Damage Output numbers, increasing their Armor Value numbers).