No Matter How Hard I Gimp Myself, To Me, Warframe Will Never Be Challenging.

[(PSN)KaxMcc]

Some of the recent threads had gotten me thinking about how each and every player would define the word "challenge". It has become increasingly apparent that many use the word to mean different things and that each individual has their own standards surrounding challenging content. While the topic is slightly semantic in nature I do believe it is important to define what exactly it is this word means and how that definition can influence the messages being sent through feedback.

 

So, with that said, I want to do a couple of things in this thread. I want to lay out my personal definition of challenge, explain why I think Warframe doesn't provide a satisfying challenge, and give a couple of suggestions on how to move forwards.

 

 

What is challenge?

-------------------------

I think the main reason why DE has continued to create situations that I wouldn't classify as challenging is because of a misunderstanding of the difference between "challenge" and "difficulty". To me, they are entirely separate things and DE seems to be adding content that seems to be trying to be "difficult" rather than "challenging". I'd define the two as such:

 

Challenge: A situation that can be overcome through effort.

 

Difficulty: A measure of the significance of the obstacles between a person and their goal.

 

If you notice, by this definition it is possible for a situation to be difficult without really being challenging and vice versa. For example, gambling is by its very nature an activity that while not particularly challenging is very difficult. There are many obstacles keeping you from reaching your goal but there isn't particularly anything you can do about it. Therefore, it cannot be overcome through effort and doesn't classify as being challenging. On the other hand, there are plenty of situations that can be overcome through effort which aren't necessarily difficult, like solving a four-piece puzzle.

 

So why is this an important distinction to make? Because all of Warframe's challenging situations are easy and all of Warframe's non-challenging situations are difficult.

 

 

 

 

Why is Warframe's challenge so unsatisfying?

-------------------------------------------------------------

When it comes to Warframe, the vast majority of its difficult content fails to be challenging due to a single thing. Lack of control.

 

No control means no level of effort will afford the player the ability to win, thus non-challenging. This lack of control can come as a byproduct of many different things ranging from level design to lack of player capabilities.

 

Lets use a quick example to demonstrate what I mean. Imagine a Loki is running around on a T4 survival wrecking face as usual. Lets say he isn't using a perma-invis build and is maintaining his invisibility with energy drops and restores. The current situation isn't necessarily difficult but it would classify as a challenge. The player chose an appropriate build and is executing his strategy. The only factor influencing his success is his own actions. Then he bottoms out on energy and runs out of energy restores, so what next. The only two options he has is to either take cover or utilize parkour to avoid damage. Meanwhile he will also need to be doing enough damage to kill a decent number of enemies so that an energy orb can potentially drop. At this point, challenge is already gone.

 

Why? Because the player no longer has control of the situation. Invisibility is his only reliable source of protection. Taking cover becomes increasingly less sustainable as the enemy count grows. So, in his current situation, that will fail to provide enough defense to allow him to survive. Parkour, on the other hand, provides imperfect protection at best. The only way of achieving an 100% avoidance rate is to stay outside of the enemy's effective range. Which becomes impossible when the player is in certain tile sets or gets surrounded by certain enemy types. The second the player lost the capability to use their abilities, they lost the capability to defend themselves. At that point their success became dependent on some factor outside of themselves.

 

Now, what I described isn't necessarily a guaranteed fail state but, even so, at that moment the game succeeded at being difficult but failed to be challenging. There are plenty of situations in which this happens in Warframe. Most of the time they result in the player taking a small bit of damage that they can easily recover from. But as the enemies grow in level these small windows of unavoidable damage are enough to cause the player to fail entirely.

 

Situations like these are the main source of Warframe's difficulty. If you notice, the main sources of warframe's difficulty stem from the increasing number and variety of enemies, priority targets executing nearly unavoidable attacks, and enemies removing the player's capability to use powers.

 

 Players like me who want something that is both challenging and difficult aren't able to get that from Warframe. We can either have an easy challenge or a difficult gamble. Neither are satisfying.

 

 

 

Whachu gon do bout it?

---------------------------------

 

And now for suggestions. To be honest, I didn’t start writing this with the intention of making suggestions. But whatever, I'll give it a go.

 

When adjusting Warframe to add potential challenges we should be looking to do a few things:

 

1) Add more high-effort capabilities for the player that in return give high rewards. This means mechanics that are difficult to perform but guarantee success if performed correctly.

 

2) As enemy level increases, de-incentivize low-effort capabilities without removing their usage entirely. If this low-effort capability can be replaced with a high-effort capability that serves the same function, even better.

 

3) Mold enemies and situations that are varied and difficult to execute against, but do not remove control from the players at any time.

 

 

My first suggestion would be to change the way parkour related avoidance works. The "chance to miss based on an avoidance stat" system we have currently leaves a lot of room for an unlucky dice roll resulting in the player taking damage.

 

One possibility is to handle it similarly to the way Destiny handles it. In Destiny, the enemy gunfire is all projectile based and in addition to that those projectiles move at a fairly slow speed. In this situation, the player can side step most projectiles, when at a certain range, and jump out of most explosives. Since the player is required to be moving perpendicular to the path of the incoming fire, the player can still be flanked, but in those situations the player can utilize objects in the environment to cover their weak spots. This enables players to constantly avoid damage by utilizing spacing, movement and cover.

 

Good thing is, Warframe is already partway there. Enemies currently have an effective range, outside of which, the player is literally incapable of being hit. Problem is, the effective ranges of various enemy types overlap resulting in the player's constantly being at risk. In addition to that, the enemy ranges are much much higher than they should be when you consider the spaces that players are expected to combat enemies.

 

With that in mind I'd like to suggest the following:

- Convert the majority enemy ranged attacks into projectiles or pseudo-projectiles( like battlefield's ballistics nonsense). The key is for incoming fire to have some sort of travel time.

 

- Adjust the aiming algorithm so that enemy effective ranges are much shorter. High density units like lancers should have an extremely short effective range whilst less common enemies can have something a bit larger. Additionally, enemies should have separate effective ranges for attacking the player when they are in midair and when they are grounded. I want to say that no effective range should extend past  30 meters.

 

-  When the player is within the effective range the enemy will lock on to the player and be unable to miss. Players that are currently sliding will negate this effect for the duration of the maneuver. This will allow players to slide through an enemy's range without taking hits when unable to maneuver around it entirely. Since the enemy's aim should default to aiming a the player's current position evasion will only be possible when moving in the proper direction whilst traveling at a decent speed.

 

- When the player is outside of the enemy's effective range the enemy will fire at the player's current position. As in, the enemy will not lead their shots or perform any aim corrections.

 

- Adjust the speed of enemy projectiles so that a player moving at a sprinting pace can out-run the projectiles when moving perpendicular to their direction.

 

- It would also be nice if players could blind fire and sprint simultaneously. This would allow players to attack and defend simultaneously while on the ground without needing to spam slide.

 

So, what does this accomplish? It makes avoidance all about spacing and movement. The player would be challenged to learn the effective ranges of the enemies they combat and stay out of them to avoid damage. In addition to that they would also need to "circle-strafe" enemies by sprinting in the correct direction even when outside of the enemy's range. By enabling various enemy types to have their own effective range, some of which require the player to be in midair and others of which require the opposite, players will be able to work towards the end goal of perfect avoidance through reacting to the enemy types that surround them and positioning themselves correctly in their environment.  At least, that’s the intention.

 

On top of that, various types of projectiles could add to the challenge, if done correctly. Projectiles that explode in an AOE would force players to bullet jump out of the immediate area, homing projectiles that can be shot down mid-flight would require the player to briefly redirect their firepower, a flat horizontal disc could be shot out that requires the player either slide under it or jump over it etc.

 

 

Second, rework(nerf) some of the enemy capabilites. In addition to adjusting enemy aim across the board, please remove or adjust any attacks that removes player control through any means. Here's a couple of the worst offenders:

 

Grineer commander's switch teleport: Unavoidable, uncounterable and generally just annoying. Please remove this.

 

Ancient/Scorpions hooks: Need an audible telegraph so that players aren't hooked by an enemy off screen. Wouldn't hurt to telegraph a bit better as well.

 

Bombard Rockets: While it isn't impossible to avoid, it is extremely dependent on the environment. If there aren't a plethora of objects around to absorb the impact of the rocket you pretty much have to run away to avoid being hit. Which doesn't bode well when you actually have to do enough damage to the bombard to kill it at some point. I'd recommend allowing players to shoot the rocket to make it explode midair. If the explosion had a decent enough AOE players would still have to watch their spacing but It would allow a player with quick aim to counter the rocket and still have time to attack the Bombard.

 

 

Third, after successfully granting players the capability to defend themselves outside of CC, Implement enemies that can hard-counter it. How to do this is sort of a point of contention but I think the major flaw in the design thus far is the focus on removing powers over increasing the effort to use them.  As has been shown I the feedback towards the Nullifier, explicitly disallowing the player to use powers, while challenging, isn't really all that fun. From a challenge perspective, it is always better to ask your players to improve beyond their best capabilities rather than gimping them as the latter feels more like a step backwards and, in effect, is unsatisfying. So, that said, I'd like to suggest a few alternate methods.

 

Over-time reduction: Allow enemies to gain a resistance to CC as it is used on them so that players that spam CC repeatedly will quickly cause the affected enemies to become immune to the effects. The immunity should only last  for a short time but the time remaining should increase should the player continue to use CC on that enemy.

 

CC'd enemies become nigh invincible: Allow certain enemies to gain a substantial defensive buff while CC'd so that player's will be unable to CC an enemy and kill them at the same time. It will force players to choose whether they want to CC an enemy for defensive purposes or leave them active to keep them killable.(This one's my personal favorite)

 

Power shields: Shield's similar to the shield lancer's that block incoming powers from a single direction. There could also be a variant of the Grineer's deployable cover for the same purpose.

 

CC counter: Certain enemies will have a unique overshield that will reflect the effects of any powers back on the user. The overshield should only take a second or two to deplete and have a fairly long recovery phase. This unit would be  more to keep player's from spamming powers indiscriminately and force them to keep an eye on who they are using their powers on. It would also make players a bit more wary of using AOE powers all of the time. With that in mind, of course, these enemies should be easily identifiable, sparse,  and when outside of the player's LOS they should only negate the power rather than countering it.

 

The idea is to make power usage take more effort. Which means that enemies should be designed so that, rather than removing the capability to use the power altogether, they force the player to think about when and where the best time to use their powers would be. I think a key part of that design is adding drawbacks for using power's "improperly". Which means each enemy needs to be designed with a proper method for powers to be used against them. Food for thought.

 

That's really all I've got for now. This thread was originally meant to serve as a kicking point to talk about challenge in general rather than to spout my own ideas. So feel free to add any ideas to the pile if you like. And, as always, thanks for reading.

 

TL;DR: Nerf Trinity

Just kidding. The bolded text sums it up.

 

edit:Formatting

Edited January 30, 2016 by (PS4)KaxMcc

[Plushy]

As a Nyx player, I am offended by you supposed changes to CC.

[Chipputer]

I love this post and I love you. I particularly love that you pointed out that each individual person has a different idea of what is and isn't challenging, as it seems that some people on the forums haven't quite figured out that two people agreeing on an overall point doesn't mean they agree on the fine details.

 

Also, I love that tl;dr.

[DelialFallen]

Very good points, and a good post.  I may not agree with all your ideas and suggestions, but this certainly helps the debate move into an interesting direction for change.

[(PSN)DrHildibrand]

While I disagree with some points, overall it is well written. I would debate which points, but I have to head to the gym and take care of a few things making my time very short.

[JuanDeages]

I'm not really sure how much I agree with this, but I will hit some of the high notes than concern me. Comments prefaced and ended with **:

 

 

Some of the recent threads had gotten me thinking about how each and every player would define the word "challenge". It has become increasingly apparent that many use the word to mean different things and that each individual has their own standards surrounding challenging content. While the topic is slightly semantic in nature I do believe it is important to define what exactly it is this word means and how that definition can influence the messages being sent through feedback.

 

So, with that said, I want to do a couple of things in this thread. I want to lay out my personal definition of challenge, explain why I think Warframe doesn't provide a satisfying challenge, and give a couple of suggestions on how to move forwards.

 

 

What is challenge?

-------------------------

I think the main reason why DE has continued to create situations that I wouldn't classify as challenging is because of a misunderstanding of the difference between "challenge" and "difficulty". To me, they are entirely separate things and DE seems to be adding content that seems to be trying to be "difficult" rather than "challenging". I'd define the two as such:

 

Challenge: A situation that can be overcome through effort.

 

Difficulty: A measure of the significance of the obstacles between a person and their goal.

 

If you notice, by this definition it is possible for a situation to be difficult without really being challenging and vice versa. For example, gambling is by its very nature an activity that while not particularly challenging is very difficult. There are many obstacles keeping you from reaching your goal but there isn't particularly anything you can do about it. Therefore, it cannot be overcome through effort and doesn't classify as being challenging. On the other hand, there are plenty of situations that can be overcome through effort which aren't necessarily difficult, like solving a four-piece puzzle.

 

So why is this an important distinction to make? Because all of Warframe's challenging situations are easy and all of Warframe's non-challenging situations are difficult.

 

 

 

 

Why is Warframe's challenge so unsatisfying?

-------------------------------------------------------------

When it comes to Warframe, the vast majority of its difficult content fails to be challenging due to a single thing. Lack of control.

 

No control means no level of effort will afford the player the ability to win, thus non-challenging. This lack of control can come as a byproduct of many different things ranging from level design to lack of player capabilities.

 

Lets use a quick example to demonstrate what I mean. Imagine a Loki is running around on a T4 survival wrecking face as usual. Lets say he isn't using a perma-invis build and is maintaining his invisibility with energy drops and restores. The current situation isn't necessarily difficult but it would classify as a challenge. The player chose an appropriate build and is executing his strategy. The only factor influencing his success is his own actions. Then he bottoms out on energy and runs out of energy restores, so what next. The only two options he has is to either take cover or utilize parkour to avoid damage. Meanwhile he will also need to be doing enough damage to kill a decent number of enemies so that an energy orb can potentially drop. At this point, challenge is already gone.

 

Why? Because the player no longer has control of the situation. Invisibility is his only reliable source of protection. Taking cover becomes increasingly less sustainable as the enemy count grows. So, in his current situation, that will fail to provide enough defense to allow him to survive. Parkour, on the other hand, provides imperfect protection at best. The only way of achieving an 100% avoidance rate is to stay outside of the enemy's effective range. Which becomes impossible when the player is in certain tile sets or gets surrounded by certain enemy types. The second the player lost the capability to use their abilities, they lost the capability to defend themselves. At that point their success became dependent on some factor outside of themselves.

 

Now, what I described isn't necessarily a guaranteed fail state but, even so, at that moment the game succeeded at being difficult but failed to be challenging. There are plenty of situations in which this happens in Warframe. Most of the time they result in the player taking a small bit of damage that they can easily recover from. But as the enemies grow in level these small windows of unavoidable damage are enough to cause the player to fail entirely.

 

Situations like these are the main source of Warframe's difficulty. If you notice, the main sources of warframe's difficulty stem from the increasing number and variety of enemies, priority targets executing nearly unavoidable attacks, and enemies removing the player's capability to use powers.

 

 Players like me who want something that is both challenging and difficult aren't able to get that from Warframe. We can either have an easy challenge or a difficult gamble. Neither are satisfying.

 

 

 

Whachu gon do bout it?

---------------------------------

 

And now for suggestions. To be honest, I didn’t start writing this with the intention of making suggestions. But whatever, I'll give it a go.

 

When adjusting Warframe to add potential challenges we should be looking to do a few things:

 

1) Add more high-effort capabilities for the player that in return give high rewards. This means mechanics that are difficult to perform but guarantee success if performed correctly.

 

2) As enemy level increases, de-incentivize low-effort capabilities without removing their usage entirely. If this low-effort capability can be replaced with a high-effort capability that serves the same function, even better.

 

3) Mold enemies and situations that are varied and difficult to execute against, but do not remove control from the players at any time.

 

 

My first suggestion would be to change the way parkour related avoidance works. The "chance to miss based on an avoidance stat" system we have currently leaves a lot of room for an unlucky dice roll resulting in the player taking damage.

 

One possibility is to handle it similarly to the way Destiny handles it. In Destiny, the enemy gunfire is all projectile based and in addition to that those projectiles move at a fairly slow speed. In this situation, the player can side step most projectiles, when at a certain range, and jump out of most explosives. Since the player is required to be moving perpendicular to the path of the incoming fire, the player can still be flanked, but in those situations the player can utilize objects in the environment to cover their weak spots. This enables players to constantly avoid damage by utilizing spacing, movement and cover.

 

Good thing is, Warframe is already partway there. Enemies currently have an effective range, outside of which, the player is literally incapable of being hit. Problem is, the effective ranges of various enemy types overlap resulting in the player's constantly being at risk. In addition to that, the enemy ranges are much much higher than they should be when you consider the spaces that players are expected to combat enemies.

 

**Here I would like to make my first point. I am not a fan of making everything a projectile. Every shooter I have played before this has worked with a full cast of hitscan weapons. Why? Everyone had them, and everyone could just as easily be killed by them as they could kill you with them.

 

Knowing the enemy has hitscan weaponry available to them creates a certain sense of urgency. Kill them before they kill you. I would much prefer our level of defense and lethality in relation to the enemy be equalized. Remember when the Salad treasure ship event rolled around? What about when we got to fight the Nightwatch Corps? This is about that sweet spot. They deal enough damage to make the player wary, but they don't outright one shot you.

 

Also, the fact that enemies have varying ranges that overlap... this is intentional. It gives the feeling of squad composition. It adds an element DE can play with in terms of how you prioritize targets. The only problem with that as of right now is how snipers up close can't hit anything, but from afar they are GeT_RiGhT. I'm not really sure how to handle them without trivializing them, or making them even more insane.**

 

 

With that in mind I'd like to suggest the following:

- Convert the majority enemy ranged attacks into projectiles or pseudo-projectiles( like battlefield's ballistics nonsense). The key is for incoming fire to have some sort of travel time.

 

- Adjust the aiming algorithm so that enemy effective ranges are much shorter. High density units like lancers should have an extremely short effective range whilst less common enemies can have something a bit larger. Additionally, enemies should have separate effective ranges for attacking the player when they are in midair and when they are grounded. I want to say that no effective range should extend past  30 meters.

 

-  When the player is within the effective range the enemy will lock on to the player and be unable to miss. Players that are currently sliding will negate this effect for the duration of the maneuver. This will allow players to slide through an enemy's range without taking hits when unable to maneuver around it entirely. Since the enemy's aim should default to aiming a the player's current position evasion will only be possible when moving in the proper direction whilst traveling at a decent speed.

 

- When the player is outside of the enemy's effective range the enemy will fire at the player's current position. As in, the enemy will not lead their shots or perform any aim corrections.

 

- Adjust the speed of enemy projectiles so that a player moving at a sprinting pace can out-run the projectiles when moving perpendicular to their direction.

 

- It would also be nice if players could blind fire and sprint simultaneously. This would allow players to attack and defend simultaneously while on the ground without needing to spam slide.

 

So, what does this accomplish? It makes avoidance all about spacing and movement. The player would be challenged to learn the effective ranges of the enemies they combat and stay out of them to avoid damage. In addition to that they would also need to "circle-strafe" enemies by sprinting in the correct direction even when outside of the enemy's range. By enabling various enemy types to have their own effective range, some of which require the player to be in midair and others of which require the opposite, players will be able to work towards the end goal of perfect avoidance through reacting to the enemy types that surround them and positioning themselves correctly in their environment.  At least, that’s the intention.

 

On top of that, various types of projectiles could add to the challenge, if done correctly. Projectiles that explode in an AOE would force players to bullet jump out of the immediate area, homing projectiles that can be shot down mid-flight would require the player to briefly redirect their firepower, a flat horizontal disc could be shot out that requires the player either slide under it or jump over it etc.

 

 

Second, rework(nerf) some of the enemy capabilites. In addition to adjusting enemy aim across the board, please remove or adjust any attacks that removes player control through any means. Here's a couple of the worst offenders:

 

Grineer commander's switch teleport: Unavoidable, uncounterable and generally just annoying. Please remove this.

 

**Agree, this ability is obnoxious.**

 

 

Ancient/Scorpions hooks: Need an audible telegraph so that players aren't hooked by an enemy off screen. Wouldn't hurt to telegraph a bit better as well.

 

**I don't think the problem with this ability is even the lack of telegraphing, but the fact that they can grab you mid dodge, or behind the back. It feels cheap. There needs to be a way to actually dodge it consistently. Melee block and certain abilities/ability casts are on the short list of methods that will actually negate the drag.**

 

 

Bombard Rockets: While it isn't impossible to avoid, it is extremely dependent on the environment. If there aren't a plethora of objects around to absorb the impact of the rocket you pretty much have to run away to avoid being hit. Which doesn't bode well when you actually have to do enough damage to the bombard to kill it at some point. I'd recommend allowing players to shoot the rocket to make it explode midair. If the explosion had a decent enough AOE players would still have to watch their spacing but It would allow a player with quick aim to counter the rocket and still have time to attack the Bombard.

 

**I wish you could shoot their rockets lol. Why not?**

 

 

Third, after successfully granting players the capability to defend themselves outside of CC, Implement enemies that can hard-counter it. How to do this is sort of a point of contention but I think the major flaw in the design thus far is the focus on removing powers over increasing the effort to use them.  As has been shown I the feedback towards the Nullifier, explicitly disallowing the player to use powers, while challenging, isn't really all that fun. From a challenge perspective, it is always better to ask your players to improve beyond their best capabilities rather than gimping them as the latter feels more like a step backwards and, in effect, is unsatisfying. So, that said, I'd like to suggest a few alternate methods.

 

**Honestly, I don't much mind the concept of Nullifiers for this purpose on its own. Their bubble feels fair to me in this sense. What isn't fair about them is their insane damage and how much non-power damage they can soak. Also how much they trivialize single shot weaponry is a bit lame. I think if DE would fix Nullifiers, they would be on their way to a fairly good solution.

 

An example of a unit that just feels cheap are Nul Combas. Their dispel aura is invisible, large, and their damage is incredibly lethal. I hate this unit with a passion. They should go away.**

 

 

Over-time reduction: Allow enemies to gain a resistance to CC as it is used on them so that players that spam CC repeatedly will quickly cause the affected enemies to become immune to the effects. The immunity should only last  for a short time but the time remaining should increase should the player continue to use CC on that enemy.

 

CC'd enemies become nigh invincible: Allow certain enemies to gain a substantial defensive buff while CC'd so that player's will be unable to CC an enemy and kill them at the same time. It will force players to choose whether they want to CC an enemy for defensive purposes or leave them active to keep them killable.(This one's my personal favorite)

 

**Do not like this, at all.**

 

 

Power shields: Shield's similar to the shield lancer's that block incoming powers from a single direction. There could also be a variant of the Grineer's deployable cover for the same purpose.

 

**If these units have a vulnerability phase, I could see them working alongside nullifiers as a unit to protect their allies from our CC and lethal powers. Perhaps these shields can be destroyed?**

 

 

CC counter: Certain enemies will have a unique overshield that will reflect the effects of any powers back on the user. The overshield should only take a second or two to deplete and have a fairly long recovery phase. This unit would be  more to keep player's from spamming powers indiscriminately and force them to keep an eye on who they are using their powers on. It would also make players a bit more wary of using AOE powers all of the time. With that in mind, of course, these enemies should be easily identifiable, sparse,  and when outside of the player's LOS they should only negate the power rather than countering it.

 

The idea is to make power usage take more effort. Which means that enemies should be designed so that, rather than removing the capability to use the power altogether, they force the player to think about when and where the best time to use their powers would be. I think a key part of that design is adding drawbacks for using power's "improperly". Which means each enemy needs to be designed with a proper method for powers to be used against them. Food for thought.

 

That's really all I've got for now. This thread was originally meant to serve as a kicking point to talk about challenge in general rather than to spout my own ideas. So feel free to add any ideas to the pile if you like. And, as always, thanks for reading.

 

TL;DR: Nerf Trinity

Just kidding. The bolded text sums it up.

 

edit:Formatting

 

My 2 cents.

[BluelitHalo]

These ideas are nearly identical to what I've had in regards to adding challenge to Warframe.  There needs to be way better counterplay between us and the enemies, because the ability to cheese each other with cheap mechanics and large numbers is just not a sustainable system.

Edited January 31, 2016 by AzureEmulation

[Specific.Zod]

Very good advice for improving combat mechanic. But for CC part, unless they change theme of bombard/napalm/scorch and corpus units, most of it are useless, because in a horde of enemies I don't have time to nip picking where the combra/tech/bombard/napalm is. Nulifier has big bubble which is already ez to see but still hard when you enter the bubble if there are more inside bubble.

I want to add one more thing: Get rid of mods system. Not delete it, but make it sub-optimal, add a skill tree for each frame, in skill tree there are branches for further optimization of each skill, in here mods will be used. Not like current mod system, slap in some mods and your frame become godlike, If it like this , warframes should be called war-mods. Since every frame use same mods, so what the point of those defense mod they add in?

[(PSN)KaxMcc]

**Here I would like to make my first point. I am not a fan of making everything a projectile. Every shooter I have played before this has worked with a full cast of hitscan weapons. Why? Everyone had them, and everyone could just as easily be killed by them as they could kill you with them.

 

Knowing the enemy has hitscan weaponry available to them creates a certain sense of urgency. Kill them before they kill you. I would much prefer our level of defense and lethality in relation to the enemy be equalized. Remember when the Salad treasure ship event rolled around? What about when we got to fight the Nightwatch Corps? This is about that sweet spot. They deal enough damage to make the player wary, but they don't outright one shot you.

 

Warframe doesn't fit well into that category of games for a number of reasons.

 

First, Warframe is primarily a movement based shooter as opposed to cover based. This means that the game is designed around the expectation that players will remain in the line of sight whilst using movement to avoid incoming damage. With hitscan, the player is unable to feasibly react to incoming damage due to the fact that there is no object to move around. They would basically be trying to outrun the enemy's aim.

 

In PvP this isn't much of an issue due to the fact that you can reasonably expect players to have imperfect aim. In PvE, on the other hand, you need to explicitly make enemies miss in a way that is dependent on factors controllable by the player. Otherwise, the player will be unable to adapt to those circumstances to avoid incoming damage consistently.

 

Since there is no object with hitscan, you end up getting aim algorithms that attempt to simulate the natural margin of error that humans have. Within those algorithms a degree of randomness is introduced, and thus, we end up with the aforementioned issue with lack of player control.

 

Second, TTK is not consistent in Warframe. Even if there were a situation where the algorithm is made well enough to simulate human-like twitch aiming, the scales would turn heavily in favor of the enemy's as they scaled upwards. At lower levels, where we are capable of killing enemies in a few hits, the idea of "kill or be killed" fits well enough. But as the enemy's level increases so does the overall TTK. Eventually players will hit a point where they will end up taking damage regardless of whether they were faster on the draw. 

 

 

Also, the fact that enemies have varying ranges that overlap... this is intentional. It gives the feeling of squad composition. It adds an element DE can play with in terms of how you prioritize targets. The only problem with that as of right now is how snipers up close can't hit anything, but from afar they are GeT_RiGhT. I'm not really sure how to handle them without trivializing them, or making them even more insane.**

 

 

The issue with enemy ranges overlapping is that it isn't done in a way that players can reasonably play around. In the vast majority of situations there isn't a single area that the player can put themselves in that isn't within the effective range of some enemy. This means that players are constantly at the mercy of RNG as to if and when they take damage.

 

Best example of this is a mix of Ballista and Bombards hanging out right next to each other. Getting in close will get you tagged by a Bombard's rocket or hit by the splash damage. And going out ranged will result in you getting one shot out of the sky by the Ballista pretty much instantly.

 

 

**I don't think the problem with this ability is even the lack of telegraphing, but the fact that they can grab you mid dodge, or behind the back. It feels cheap. There needs to be a way to actually dodge it consistently. Melee block and certain abilities/ability casts are on the short list of methods that will actually negate the drag.**

 

 

You can actually dodge the hook pretty reliably with a roll. If you roll just as the hook fires you will pretty much always dodge it. Since, you can roll at just about any time it becomes a matter of reading the attack and timing the button press. Only problem being, you can't read the attack if you can't see the enemy.

 

 

**Honestly, I don't much mind the concept of Nullifiers for this purpose on its own. Their bubble feels fair to me in this sense. What isn't fair about them is their insane damage and how much non-power damage they can soak. Also how much they trivialize single shot weaponry is a bit lame. I think if DE would fix Nullifiers, they would be on their way to a fairly good solution.

 

An example of a unit that just feels cheap are Nul Combas. Their dispel aura is invisible, large, and their damage is incredibly lethal. I hate this unit with a passion. They should go away.**

 

My biggest 2 problems with nullifiers is that they don't really encourage you to do anything that’s actually more difficult than what you are already doing and, at the same time, they encourage the player to simply not use their powers at all as opposed to encouraging them to use them differently.

 

From a challenge perspective they are pretty boring.

 

**Do not like this, at all.**

 

Why? I'm curious.

 

 

**If these units have a vulnerability phase, I could see them working alongside nullifiers as a unit to protect their allies from our CC and lethal powers. Perhaps these shields can be destroyed?**

 

Actually, these units are supposed to be more about hitting them from the correct direction. I figure allowing them to protect their front in conjunction with a slow turning speed would allow players to get behind them to get hits in.

 

I actually wouldn't want the shields to be destructible. I think we need stricter methods of engaging enemies outside of just spraying things down with bullets if we want things to actually be difficult.

Edited January 31, 2016 by (PS4)KaxMcc

[(PSN)VariantX7]

Just want to point out bombard rockets CAN be shot down, its just unbelieveably difficult to do in a pinch for the majority of weapons to do so. The the ignis is able to do this with incredible ease, the sonicor can as well with its gigantic projectile, but you'll likely take splash damage anyway because you have to hit the rocket at the very edge of the weapons range to avoid the splash damage.

 

And yeah hooks are just plain dumb as they are implemented. Its something that you can avoid as long as you're facing it, but warframe spawns things in every direction it possibly can, so a perfectly avoidable attack nails you cleanly because it makes no sound whatsoever. Meanwhile, the grinner heavy gunners are probably the most perfectly designed unit in the game,  incredibly powerful and resilient compared to most grineer units, but gives the player an audible tell to allow them to recognize the threat from any direction and act appropriately. These are units that would make sense in a corridor shooter like the CoD campaign, because that game almost never spawns things behind you.

Edited January 31, 2016 by (PS4)VariantX7

[Troll_Logic]

If you're so awesome and warframe is too easy no matter what you do, just don't equip mods.

 

If warframe is so easy after that, then I'll call you a great player.

[Quovander]

Some great points here and is well written. No arguments here. Now if only it came in the form of a video :V

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

If you're so awesome and warframe is too easy no matter what you do, just don't equip mods.

 

If warframe is so easy after that, then I'll call you a great player.

Please read what the post actually contained. Challenge =/= difficulty. And OP I agree with a lot of what you suggested, especially the projectile change. As for the power-blocking enemy deploys less, this would be an effective, enjoyable replacement for Nullifiers IMO.

[Gurpgork]

This is a very well thought out post. What's interesting is that you came up with a potential way to make the game challenging in an interesting way without taking away the ability to use powerful abilities on a whim. Nicely done.

 

 

^Relevant.

 

If you're so awesome and warframe is too easy no matter what you do, just don't equip mods.

 

If warframe is so easy after that, then I'll call you a great player.

 

The thing about this is that it's no different from going very long into an endless mission. It just means that enemies will be bullet sponges sooner, and that you'll be one-shotted sooner. There's nothing interesting about getting one-shotted by an enemy that is too tough for you to kill.

Edited January 31, 2016 by Gurpgork

[DiabolusUrsus]

This post made my day. It does a great job of explaining why "Just nerf yourself" rebuttals don't really make sense, and pretty much just boil down to a fear of change. 

 

What Warframe really needs are at least three difficulties: God Mode, Normal, and Masochist. God Mode offers heavily reduced rewards in consideration of the fact that you're pretty much steamrolling enemies, and Masochist could reward completion badges/sigils. 

Edited February 1, 2016 by DiabolusUrsus

[Endorphinz]

If you're so awesome and warframe is too easy no matter what you do, just don't equip mods.

 

If warframe is so easy after that, then I'll call you a great player.

 

Someone didn't read the post.

 

Maybe OP should have chosen a different title though, because the one currently is just going to attract more people like this.

[Eminem2420]

I don't agree with the nerf to CC. And it feels like i'm the only person in WF that doesn't want it to be rage inducing difficult. I am fine with how WF is, i didn't come into WF looking for an extremely difficult challenge. In my opinion, WF just isn't designed for that. 

[(PSN)martin576]

I don't agree with the nerf to CC. And it feels like i'm the only person in WF that doesn't want it to be rage inducing difficult. I am fine with how WF is, i didn't come into WF looking for an extremely difficult challenge. In my opinion, WF just isn't designed for that. 

I'm with you.

[Chipputer]

I don't agree with the nerf to CC. And it feels like i'm the only person in WF that doesn't want it to be rage inducing difficult. I am fine with how WF is, i didn't come into WF looking for an extremely difficult challenge. In my opinion, WF just isn't designed for that. 

Rage inducing difficulty?

 

You literally don't understand what people who want any form of challenge are asking for.

[fakeBOSHI]

I don't agree with the nerf to CC. And it feels like i'm the only person in WF that doesn't want it to be rage inducing difficult. I am fine with how WF is, i didn't come into WF looking for an extremely difficult challenge. In my opinion, WF just isn't designed for that.

Rage inducing? You mean like how enemies become near unkillable AND 1 shot you after you've dumped 2 mags in them? or the one where you get hooked and stun locked into eternity before finally being put out of your misery? Or the one where a ring of fire destroys you behind cover because it was behind u? Oh, or what about the one where you face 3+ nullifier that have bubbles that overlap and you have single shot high dmg weapons to take down high level enemies but by the time you destroy 1 bubble, another one covers him and starts to regenerate the first one?

You've also missed the point of the OP which was to increase the depth of player-npc interactions. It only creates difficulty in the sense that you need to familiarize yourself with how to approach types and groups of enemies and use ur brain a bit more when using powers to make everything about as much fun as shooting crates for 2 hrs.

[Shockwave-]

Your entire notion of challenge and difficulty is convoluted and confuses your point. the difficult something is the more of a challenge it is to overcome.They are intertwined. (Poker is challenging... well winning is, playing and loosing is both not difficult and not a challenge, while playing and winning, over time, is both difficult and challenging).

 

Regardless, the rest of your post is clearly what WF has needed - a general outlook of giving limited powers, limited usages (so players have to make choices) and giving players more agency in attack and defense rather than just bullet sponging. Anything that moves WF in that direction is good for the game.

[DiabolusUrsus]

I don't agree with the nerf to CC. And it feels like i'm the only person in WF that doesn't want it to be rage inducing difficult. I am fine with how WF is, i didn't come into WF looking for an extremely difficult challenge. In my opinion, WF just isn't designed for that. 

 

Please stop exaggerating challenge into pseudo-hardcore elitism. (Not you, specifically, but people with your general perspective.) 

 

When I say I want the game to be more challenging, I mean...

 

I want enemies that put up a fight without using cheap handicaps like Corrupted Bombards and their ability to have four missiles in the air before your knockdown takes effect.

 

I want balance that allows me to appreciate powerful weapons without being so universally powerful that I can't really distinguish between different enemies let alone factions when it comes to pacing or tactics.

 

I want a game where the end-game challenges test my ability to control my Warframe, not the extensiveness of my collection.

 

I want more challenge, because enemies that can only effectively fight you by tying your hands behind your back and killing you in a split-second strike me as boring, frustrating, and decisively un-fun. The fact that these same enemies can be rendered completely ineffectual with the right exploits is equally infuriating. 

 

I don't want Warframe to become rage-inducingly difficult. I want it to stop being that way. 

[Rambit23Z]

Alright so most of this seems pretty decent, especially the point on projectiles. It's the reason why I prefer fighting Corpus.

 

Anyway, a few counter-points I guess.

 

I'm not a fan of the "unable to miss unless maneuvering" It becomes too binary. I'd much prefer a scale of sorts depending on distance.

 

"CC'd enemies are nigh invincible" Problem with this is that it removes one of the biggest reason to CC, which is to give you an opening to attack without being attacked yourself.

 

"Bombards" Simply give them the same rockets as Kela De'Thaym, fast, straightforward flying explosive payloads. No 180-hit-you-in-the-back-after-you-dodged-it-BS.

 

And one last point on evasion. I think you're somewhat underestimating just how much you can dodge by simply maneuvering. During todays Sortie Survival(Corpus) I was left as a squishy Loki with no teammates(they all died), ammo, energy, 15% Life support with 2 minutes left to survive. Yet during those 2 minutes + 30 seconds when running to extraction, I only got hit once. That one shot almost sone-shot me but I dodged everything else. I did this through 5 tiles, all of them containing countless nullifiers, tech, sapping ospreys, detron crewmen and railgun moas, tightly packed into 5 big balls of death. Yet I came out scot-free. (I was within 1-5 meter distance to these crowds most of the time too)

 

Now, that only applies to Corpus and somewhat to Void. The grineer and their hitscan is still a problem though. (Which is why they should have projectiles too, but faster of course)

[(PSN)martin576]

How long do you Tennos think Warframe will go from now? I think it's a very popular game, especially on PS4 where I play, but what happens, when the majority of the PS4 / XO players reach the level where too many of the PC players now, where they wanna change / retune / rework EVERY single bit of this game? Reading this forum daily suggest me soon we need a personal Warframe Maker update, or worst, a Warframe Minecraft.

[Gahrzerkire]

DE EVERYTHING HE SAID. THIS DUDE IS BRILLIANT SUCK HIS BRAIN DRY USE EVERYTHING.