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

[Rambit23Z]

Binary is good. I say that because when players are put in situations on a regular basis that can have a large number of possible factors influencing their success, a binary action leading to a temporary win state is much more controllable and thus much more comfortable to adapt to from a player's perspective.

 

If you imagine every encounter like a series of tests I think you may understand where I'm coming from. Say someone throws a multiple choice question your way and you have 5 seconds to answer it. So you pick one, submit your answer and NOPE…wrong. Then, a couple minutes later you get tested again, same question, same 4 choices. This time you choose another answer and congrats, you get it right. You keep getting tested and eventually more and more questions of varying types get thrown at you. Eventually you get to the point in which the second you see a question you immediately know the answer. After this point, things get tougher. Now you only get 3 seconds to answer every question. Now 2. Now 1. After a certain point it isn't about the questions at all it's about immediately recognizing how you are being tested and reacting. That is combat design in a nutshell. Each enemy is a test and each player action is a potential answer.

 

Now imagine a similar situation but instead of multiple choice…you get open ended questions. Even worse, there are questions that are very similar to one another but end up having different types of correct answers. The player being tested ends up focusing on the minute details. Reading over each question thoroughly and correcting different parts of their written response to ensure they get a correct answer. But wait, you only have like 5 seconds or less to react. So how do you get the correct answer in time?

 

Answer is, you usually don't. That’s the big difference between challenge design in fast paced games and more tactical ones. You really have to pay attention to the way you are testing your players to ensure that they can reasonably overcome the challenges you implement.

 

That being said, since Warframe is fast paced it lends itself better to more binary challenges. There isn't anything wrong with scaling based on distance. It's more a question of how the scaling would affect the way in which the player needs to react in order to reach the win state and how to ensure that the player is able to reach the win state regardless of the various factors that may be present.

 

To be honest, I can't really think of a way in which that could be implemented and still turn out good.

 

Let me explain my "scale" philosphy so that you get a better insigth. For pure convenience, lets use 5m and 10m.

 

5m is guaranteed to hit, 10m and above is guaranteed to miss. Now, say that the player is in th 7-8m range, thus he would be hit by about 50% of the bullets fired. This makes it go from; Minimal damage-a little damage-some damage-a bit more damage-a lot of damage.

 

As opposed to no damage-Tons of damage.

 

You do raise some good points though.

 

 

I don't doubt that what you described is possible but the issue I brought up was more in concerns to consistency and player control. There are a wide number of situations that a player will inevitably run in to in which their survival or lack thereof is the result of luck rather than skill. While parkour is still useful(sometimes incredibly) I'm convinced, at this point, that it is fundamentally unreliable as a primary source of defense.

 

I think it's reliable, but I've played this game since U6 primarily solo, so I've pretty much mastered the art of staying alive. There are two situations where it's not usable at all. Stalker and his homing Dread/Despair. It was basically a who instagibs who contest. There's Malice and his Opticor. Who thought it would be a good idea to give a instakill hitscan weapon to and AI and then put bullet attractor on top of that. But the biggest problem is hitscan, if the Grineer had projectiles(Really fast ones) it would significantly make them more surviveable, especially at range. Anyway, most players haven't played for that long, so I can see that expecting everyone to be able to dodge as much is expecting too much.

 

 

EDIT: About CC, I feel like putting on cooldowns would work decently well, alot of people wouldn't like it, but it would stop or atleast limit the spam.

Edited February 2, 2016 by Rambit23Z

[Necrius]

Sound effect for hook shot: "Get over here!" xD

[Grayphilosopher]

I really like your distinction between difficulty and challenge. I've always considered it similarly.

 

I love the idea of having projectile travel time. The way it works currently with enemies just having a %chance to hit you based on whichever evasive maneuvers you're using effectively just let's you "reduce incoming DPS" in the long run. I like the idea of being able to actually outmaneuver enemy fire instead of just leaving it to chance.

 

Now for some of your other suggestions.

 

Grineer commander teleport:

I don't think it's that bad, honestly. What does bother me about it though, is that once you've been teleported, you're effectively "stunned" for like a full second while looking around all confused. I'd love to see this stun removed and let the disorientation of being switch teleported be a factor on it's own. That way you're at least able to quickly take evasive action, based on your own reaction speed.

 

Ancient/Scorpion hooks:

I'll agree here. They need a tell, possibly a counter. Imagine if you could hit quick-melee during the grab to "slice" the hook line and free yourself prematurely.

 

Bombard rockets:
Like at least one guy has mentioned, you can in fact shoot them mid-air. It's just terribly difficult if your weapons aren't accurate enough. I'd argue they should have their firing rate further reduced to avoid the knockdown chains. If they have enough rockets in the air before they hit you, ur fukt m8. A slightly slower fire rate for them would give you at least a split second to try and react to the next rocket.

 

Nullifiers:
I don't much mind these either. In fact I quite like them..then again that might be because I've never encountered them in hordes above level 50. That said however, I don't mind the nullify effect they have, but I do mind that it's also an impenetrable shield. I'd rather they have something like an overshield on themselves while the bubble is just a nullifying sphere that doesn't block bullets. Alternatively, make the shields reduce on damage taken rather than hits taken as so many people have suggested.

 

Over-time reduction to CC:

Eh..I'm not sure. I fear it might end up making a lot of the CC based frames suffer tremendously.

 

CC'd enemies become nigh invincible:

See previous point. One of the only suggestions I directly disagree with. I think making them invincible would negate the purpose of the CC in the first place. I think I understand what you intend though, that you'd be supposed to kill the other enemies while the CC'd ones are temporarily disabled, as if to thin the number of enemies and make them more managable for a time.

But with the way enemies spawn in virtually infinite hordes, and given that a lot of CC abilities are AOE damage abilities, I think it'll just quickly turn into a massive clusterfuck. Not to mention requiring a whole lot of ability redesigning.

 

Although I did notice you wrote certain enemies, and I suppose a certain unit type, or types, could have this feature without problems.

 

CC counter shield:

This one I love, nothing to add....I'd also love to see a Loki disarming himself.

[(PSN)KaxMcc]

Let me explain my "scale" philosphy so that you get a better insigth. For pure convenience, lets use 5m and 10m.

 

5m is guaranteed to hit, 10m and above is guaranteed to miss. Now, say that the player is in th 7-8m range, thus he would be hit by about 50% of the bullets fired. This makes it go from; Minimal damage-a little damage-some damage-a bit more damage-a lot of damage.

 

As opposed to no damage-Tons of damage.

 

You do raise some good points though.

 

Oh ok. When you said scaling I sorta assumed you were talking about the chance to get hit. Scaling the damage taken based on distance isn't a bad idea.

 

 

About CC, I feel like putting on cooldowns would work decently well, alot of people wouldn't like it, but it would stop or atleast limit the spam.

 

I agree with you but I feel like cooldowns aren't even worth mentioning at this point. If DE were willing to implement cooldowns I feel like they would have done so already. The idea has been getting thrown around for over a year now and the conversations that usually follow afterwards consist of the same tired arguments DE has probably seen a million times.

 

And if DE won't budge on it, that means it's time to move on to other suggestions.

 

 

 

I don't think it's that bad, honestly. What does bother me about it though, is that once you've been teleported, you're effectively "stunned" for like a full second while looking around all confused. I'd love to see this stun removed and let the disorientation of being switch teleported be a factor on it's own. That way you're at least able to quickly take evasive action, based on your own reaction speed.

 

Even with the stun removed, I can easily see it causing situations that are more irritating than anything. With enemies available that have the capability to down you in an instant, there's always the possibility that the commander will switch teleport you directly into an attack causing you to get killed the second you appear.

 

If I were to have it modified it in any way, I'd just have it telegraphed so that it could at the very least be avoidable or preventable.

 

 

Bombard rockets:

Like at least one guy has mentioned, you can in fact shoot them mid-air. It's just terribly difficult if your weapons aren't accurate enough. I'd argue they should have their firing rate further reduced to avoid the knockdown chains. If they have enough rockets in the air before they hit you, ur fukt m8. A slightly slower fire rate for them would give you at least a split second to try and react to the next rocket.

 

I did a lot of testing in the simulacrum with the whole rocket thing, and no matter what I did I could never get the rocket to detonate prematurely. I feel like, at the very least, hitscan weapons would be able to cause the rocket explode since all is should take is covering the incoming rocket with your reticule for a bit of time. I was able to do that pretty consistently but still no effect at all.

 

At any rate, I'd be fine with it going either way. A slower fire rate could also potentially work out in practice.

 

 

Although I did notice you wrote certain enemies, and I suppose a certain unit type, or types, could have this feature without problems.

 

Yeah, my bad I failed to clarify on that part. Actually, all of the CC based suggestions were meant to be applied on special enemies rather than as a blanket across all enemies.

[(PSN)StarDustKillah]

I agree. I think DE should have CC abilities be only 25% as effective against boss/mini boss type enemies.

 

I'm saying that after seeing so many Nova's annihilate Stalker's Acolytes. Turning something that would be some what challenging, into just standing still & shooting something in the face.

[ranks21]

you want difficulty? get rid or rage + quick thinking and corrosive projection and  play without a trinity or energy siphon then come back and tell me you lasted 1 hr just meleeing without using your abilities.

 

starting with the highest level infested  endless mission.

Edited February 7, 2016 by ranks21

[(PSN)aiptekfanboy]

go play bloodborne for pve with no levelups

 

go play Dust 514 as a new character for PvP

please post a video of how your day 1 character did in PVP shooter since hey! you want a challenge...lol!!

[(PSN)ArnnFrost]

I'm a veteran Souls player and I don't mind dying like an idiot to a tough enemy as long as that enemy is fun to 1v1.

I think we need a boss or Stalker-like that is actually not dumb and fights you as if its an actual player, counter attacks, dodges and parkour o.0 stalker right now uses the same AI my crazy-&#! kubrow does... COME ON x.x

[Chipputer]

please post a video of how your day 1 character did in PVP shooter since hey! you want a challenge...lol!!

Because PVP = PVE