Energy Leech, or: How I learned to stop worrying and just play Frost

[Zaniel_Aus]

OK, so, energy leech as DE's new favourite meta and replacement in the "no imagination" stakes for nullifiers.

Today we were doing the Infested excavation sortie (eximus stronghold modifier) and dear god, the leeching. I was playing Ember who has an ultra-efficient WOF running Zenurik dropping large energy restores and basically spent the whole mission at zero energy. I could not use a single power for the whole mission and our Frost had to drop a large energy restore at every single excavator just to get a single dome up.

At one point we threw down 2 large energy pads and our energy just sat at zero, and couldn't get off the ground, in spite of receiving 200 energy a cycle.

This is EXTREMELY unoriginal design, its just as bad as nullifiers. There are a large number of frames who have high cost/high payoff skills such as Mirage, Nova, etc etc. When even super efficient frames like Ember, Valkyr and Excalibur can't even activate their low cost powers, these more energy-expensive frames have zero capacity to operate. You have to move to frames like Frost/Nyx etc that can perform their role with a single super-long lasting cast of Globe/Chaos Storm etc.

Frames are their powers, diversity for all the frames is good, permanent zero energy just makes 80% of the frames in game a Tonkor with legs. This is bad.

Leech as a concept is OK but its gone into complete overkill. Can I suggest that either:

1) Limit the percentage of eximus that are leeches to say 1-in-10 (or less); or

2) Cap the maximum leech that can affect a frame simultaneously at 2.

Low energy cap missions are a similar problem but hasn't quite run out of control yet (though I note in the recent Stalker event they tried their hand at capping at 25 energy, look forward to more of this in the future)..

You need to get past game design as "Oh we'll just prevent you from using any abilities, that'll be fun".

[-Temp0-]

Every time I see infested + eximus condition I just insta bring EV. Pretty much the only time I bring it somewhere on my own volition. Resons are simple, I just hate and I mean hate running out of energy. Pretty sure majority feels the same, so two birds in one stone. I still remember one of the first sortie defense missions I've played - against Corpus with the same conition, it was just insane. Even tho there also was EV in the team, no energy for days because there were way too many leeches + nullifiers.

Since that recent nerf that involved the leeches it's either don't rely on the energy at all or make sure it's more than enough if it's that kind of situation for me. Some warfarmes became almost unplayable, especially those like hydroid since his only somewhat useful ability outside of farming was undertow. Now, wasted.

[djternan]

I absolutely agree.  I was playing Frost for that mission and dropping energy restores at every excavator.  I got through it with Synoid Simulor and enough duration to keep things frozen with Avalanche for awhile.

 

Having your energy constantly drained to 0 ruins a large part of what makes Warframe better than the generic shooter.  

[akira_him]

You forgot to mention line of sight issues on enemy auras

[hammerheathen]

I dunno, this just kinda seems how infested are most of the time because of their eximi pools. Once the eximus units start rolling out, unless you are beating the horde spawns you aren't allowed the have energy. I've been ignoring it for a while and just pretend I'm playing a sadistic version of deadspace.

 

[(XBOX)CitrusTheNile]

I completely agree with this post. Ran the survival Sortie yesterday with eximus infested with Valkyr and I was never able to use Hysteria due to having 0 energy the whole 15 minutes. That was not fun and the ability for them to suck energy from channeling abilities is a HUGE nerf in my opinion. 

[K4r4k4s4]

Eximus Stronghold excavation is the hardest mod on sortie and it forces to use the the most meta things. Also Corpus excavation actually is much worse then Infested coz of Nulls. But it can be done relatively easy with help of new power creep Inaros, and old boring tricks like Mirage blind-all-dem-map and Trin EV spam or just use of Naramon if you rely only on yourself. And this is something need to be fixed.

[Tritanya]

6 hours ago, djternan said:

Having your energy constantly drained to 0 ruins a large part of what makes Warframe better than the generic shooter.  

This.  A thousand times, this.  If I wanted to play a generic shooter, I wouldn't be here.

Nullification at least you can escape or avoid, to some extent, but there's no escaping a swarm of energy leeches.  It does, in fact, ruin the play experience - not that I have to be able to press 4 and win all the time, but when I can't use any powers even after collecting multiple energy orbs because I've been overwhelmed by a stack of energy leeches that I simply can't kill fast enough, I might as well just ignore powers entirely and bring the frame with the highest armor and health and shields.  And at that point I've become just another bland 3PS character in a gaudy suit.

[o.0-]

I wonder if a buffer of sorts can be considered. So could be percent based and/or fixed, so for example, Energy Leech as no effect on less than 20% Energy and say a 0.5 a second energy regeneration.

So if you have 450 energy, it can not be leeched below 90 and you can still regenerate 0.5 a second as a result. If you have 150 energy, then you have 30 that is protected and so on.

If such an idea could work, the actual values can be tweaked as necessary.

[(PSN)shadowraith_666]

the worst enemy combo i've come across so far is Corrupted Nullifier + corrupted Ancient + Parasitic Ancient... not fun, you have to deal with the nullifier bubble first, then the corrupted ancient, nullifier and then lastly the parasitic ancient.

also the entire infested enemy group can be parasitic eximus.

[ArcusVeles]

I hate the energy train and toxin auras a lot.  I went Saryn for that sortie and could barely get off a Spore, but at least once I got that going it continued to spread like wildfire.  Like your Frost I had to use a restore sometimes just to get out that much though.  It was pretty bad.

[(PSN)COGSPARTAN117]

15 hours ago, (XB1)CitrusTheNile said:

I completely agree with this post. Ran the survival Sortie yesterday with eximus infested with Valkyr and I was never able to use Hysteria due to having 0 energy the whole 15 minutes. That was not fun and the ability for them to suck energy from channeling abilities is a HUGE nerf in my opinion. 

Yep, I agree. Unaware of this nerf, I ran the Sortie survival yesterday solo with Ivara... you can imagine how that went.

Almost all frames with toggled abilities are practically unplayable in most high level missions now. I was very excited for this update, but this nerf is really killing it for me, especially since some of my most favorite frames are Ivara, Excal, and Wukong.

[Feallike]

..... I have yet to have a eximus leach fail a sortie for me. :/ You just enemy prioritize or move cautiously. The only time that I have found where their is absolutely no way to completely prevent from getting some energy leached is during Survival where you can't predict spawns as well.

 

Also why is the fact that you can't just spam one ability a bad thing exactly? All it does it force you to play cautiously or save energy orbs and not pick them up immediately. If you need a EV to complete a sortie you probably shouldn't be playing them... I think most players are just spoiled by the regular game and aren't use to playing not balls to the walls. >.>

Edited April 9, 2016 by Feallike

[CY13ERPUNK]

+9999 OP

energy drain aka parasite eximus aka zero counterplay

basically the only def is to spam energy pizzas, ie spam resources, ie sinks, so the only counter play to these enemies is to abuse the trin EV ability and/or burn thru an enormous amount of resources/creds just to maintain a positive energy throughout the mission [also KYAGB if you are running a QT/R build, as if it wasnt nerfed into the ground enough already]

now functionally, is having an enemy that drains our energy a bad idea in and of itself? no not really, but with the current state of the game, the only way to survive 90% of the time is to spam your abilities [personally i have always found the push in this direction a bad thing however], so thusly, the energy drain enemy poses the gravest risk to any tenno, far beyond any other enemy

even the hated nullys/combas are nothing compared to the energy drain eximi, as at LEAST you can run away from the nullys/combas, but even if you try running away from the energy drainers, their AoE is huge, and usually they come in droves, so running away typically still drains most/all of your energy

personally i think they should ONLY drain energy upon hitting you, whether thru ranged or melee, doesnt matter, but they should have to connect for the drain to work, not just the constant AoE bubble

this was the major complaint about the entire eximi/leader concept and implementation, they just gave enemies a bunch of passive AoE 'dmg' auras, and its just nowhere as interesting as making a new model/unit/stats/AI/tactics/etc the eximi/leaders 'buff' the enemies around them sure, but they are not like squad leaders or anything, they dont change the enemy's morale or tactics [considering the enemy AI in WF is pretty simple 'horde' stuff anyways, no real complex interactions]

[EvilChaosKnight]

I would've been fine with energy leeches and toxic auras if there was a way to avoid their influence.

How about this idea: both parasitic and toxic eximi would instead buff their allies in proximity. Toxic ones will add some toxic dmg and parasitic ones will make other units drain some of your energy when they hit you.

[-Temp0-]

7 hours ago, Feallike said:

..... I have yet to have a eximus leach fail a sortie for me. :/ You just enemy prioritize or move cautiously. The only time that I have found where their is absolutely no way to completely prevent from getting some energy leached is during Survival where you can't predict spawns as well.=

Aren't you a funny one, make sure to "prioritize" something in a mess like this next time you'll hit this condition:

You can probably see clear enough 2 leeches only in front of me (third was on the right and his aura can't be seen there), but beside the frame there also were a bunch of enemies and a bunch of leeches. Eximus stronghold condition is broken sometimes, seriosuly is.

At least infested weren't that much of an issue because it's infested. Corpus with the same condition was way worse.

Edited April 9, 2016 by Nomen_Nescio

[BlackCoMerc]

On 4/8/2016 at 6:13 AM, Zaniel_Aus said:

OK, so, energy leech as DE's new favourite meta and replacement in the "no imagination" stakes for nullifiers.

Today we were doing the Infested excavation sortie (eximus stronghold modifier) and dear god, the leeching. I was playing Ember who has an ultra-efficient WOF running Zenurik dropping large energy restores and basically spent the whole mission at zero energy. I could not use a single power for the whole mission and our Frost had to drop a large energy restore at every single excavator just to get a single dome up.

At one point we threw down 2 large energy pads and our energy just sat at zero, and couldn't get off the ground, in spite of receiving 200 energy a cycle.

This is EXTREMELY unoriginal design, its just as bad as nullifiers. There are a large number of frames who have high cost/high payoff skills such as Mirage, Nova, etc etc. When even super efficient frames like Ember, Valkyr and Excalibur can't even activate their low cost powers, these more energy-expensive frames have zero capacity to operate. You have to move to frames like Frost/Nyx etc that can perform their role with a single super-long lasting cast of Globe/Chaos Storm etc.

Frames are their powers, diversity for all the frames is good, permanent zero energy just makes 80% of the frames in game a Tonkor with legs. This is bad.

Leech as a concept is OK but its gone into complete overkill. Can I suggest that either:

1) Limit the percentage of eximus that are leeches to say 1-in-10 (or less); or

2) Cap the maximum leech that can affect a frame simultaneously at 2.

Low energy cap missions are a similar problem but hasn't quite run out of control yet (though I note in the recent Stalker event they tried their hand at capping at 25 energy, look forward to more of this in the future)..

You need to get past game design as "Oh we'll just prevent you from using any abilities, that'll be fun".

Agree completely. This is just bad design. Period. 

Quality is really lacking in late game enemy design. It's turning late game missions into sheer tedium. This is the primary reason I am seeking a replacement game for Warframe at present.

[(XBOX)CitrusTheNile]

9 hours ago, (PS4)COGSPARTAN117 said:

Yep, I agree. Unaware of this nerf, I ran the Sortie survival yesterday solo with Ivara... you can imagine how that went.

Almost all frames with toggled abilities are practically unplayable in most high level missions now. I was very excited for this update, but this nerf is really killing it for me, especially since some of my most favorite frames are Ivara, Excal, and Wukong.

It also just increases the "need" to have EV trinity. She was already considered one of the best support frames. Now I fear it will be even worse. 

Edited April 9, 2016 by (XB1)CitrusTheNile

[DaftMeat]

Was never a fan of Leech Eximus, but they're just a symptom of a greater problem: the implementation of Energy in Warframe.

The game is a generic shooter without Energy, because it's the Warframe abilities that make it stand out. Without innate Energy replenishment, any game I play without Energy Siphon or an EV Trin just seems to plod along. Even using Energy pads don't help much unless you're staying immobile in Defense or Mobile Defense; I find them less than ideal for fast-paced games. Leech Eximus heavy runs are the perfect example of this problem.

Parasite Eximus units are bad enough, but stacked units just lead to uninteresting gameplay, IMO. Even after that, I really hope Energy replenishment becomes automatic in the future as well.

Edited April 9, 2016 by DaftMeat

[blazinvire]

9 hours ago, DaftMeat said:

Was never a fan of Leech Eximus, but they're just a symptom of a greater problem: the implementation of Energy in Warframe.

The game is a generic shooter without Energy, because it's the Warframe abilities that make it stand out. Without innate Energy replenishment, any game I play without Energy Siphon or an EV Trin just seems to plod along. Even using Energy pads don't help much unless you're staying immobile in Defense or Mobile Defense; I find them less than ideal for fast-paced games. Leech Eximus heavy runs are the perfect example of this problem.

Parasite Eximus units are bad enough, but stacked units just lead to uninteresting gameplay, IMO. Even after that, I really hope Energy replenishment becomes automatic in the future as well.

^ Felt this needed emphasis.

Leechers and nullifiers and such are symptoms, the current energy system is just so unpredictable and precarious it'd be damn near impossible to find a balance while still presenting interesting obstacles to spice up gameplay.  Without the leechers and nullifiers, it's a cheesefest where enemies are permanently CC'd and blasted with endless power usage, and with them, we have a basic third-person-shooter with some mad parkour.

Doing something about the leechers and nullifiers is a bandaid and will likely turn things back into a cheesefest, which will invariably lead it back to a no-power situation, so on and so forth.

The core energy system needs fixing first.

[DatDarkOne]

I had been wondering where all my energy was going on some missions.  This has answered that one.  Ivara without energy in that situation isn't good at all. 

[Arcira]

23 hours ago, Feallike said:

..... I have yet to have a eximus leach fail a sortie for me. :/ You just enemy prioritize or move cautiously. The only time that I have found where their is absolutely no way to completely prevent from getting some energy leached is during Survival where you can't predict spawns as well.

 

Also why is the fact that you can't just spam one ability a bad thing exactly? All it does it force you to play cautiously or save energy orbs and not pick them up immediately. If you need a EV to complete a sortie you probably shouldn't be playing them... I think most players are just spoiled by the regular game and aren't use to playing not balls to the walls. >.>

Are you kidding? I have a max warframe with lv5 polarisation, max mods and max weapons but nothing of this prevent enemies from draining my energy. None said it's impossible to do this kind of sortier but it is incredible annoying to play those missions. Also, if you read the post you would see that this is not about spamming one ability rather than using any ability. Focus on one specific enemy? No comment about that one.

I don't understand why people defending obvious design flaws. What's the point? Or is it even about the topic? Maybe you think you are the better player and want to show us how bad we are? Your last sentence implies something called arrogance.

Armor scaling into oblivion...ok.... 

abilities disabling effects...well.... 

and now ridiculous invisible aoe energy drain........

This direction is wrong very wrong and it needs to be addressed. This is not challenging because you just have to abuse the lack of balance in this game. But it's not fun either and won't be fixed by implementing more and more "oh you want to use this ability? too bad" stuff.

Edited April 10, 2016 by Arcira

[hukurokuju5]

the aura range is too large

the aura range is not clearly indicated; range not telegraphed= impossible to counterplay by positioning out of range.

 

I'd say they are WORSE than nullifiers because there is no telegraphing.  you would also have to mouse over the enemy and read the damn name to know which one to kill.

10/10 bad design would critique again

 

[[DE]Momaw]

Brainstorming....

* ELeech enemies don't subtract energy, instead they modify your power efficiency. They start by modifying -5% efficiency at the limit of their aura range, and the effect ramps up to -50% efficiency when standing right next to them.

* Player can only be affected by a single ELeech at a time, effect does not stack

* ELeech enemies always drop an energy orb on death

[enJohneering]

On 4/9/2016 at 1:04 AM, Feallike said:

..... I have yet to have a eximus leach fail a sortie for me. :/ You just enemy prioritize or move cautiously. The only time that I have found where their is absolutely no way to completely prevent from getting some energy leached is during Survival where you can't predict spawns as well.

 

Also why is the fact that you can't just spam one ability a bad thing exactly? All it does it force you to play cautiously or save energy orbs and not pick them up immediately. If you need a EV to complete a sortie you probably shouldn't be playing them... I think most players are just spoiled by the regular game and aren't use to playing not balls to the walls. >.>

Since you're the only one so far not wholeheartedly agreeing with this thread, I'll just mention that sure, it's possible to complete the mission. I also haven't failed any sortee I've attempted yet. However, being unable to use your abilities really makes the game bland. If they do want to take away energy, then they should make a special challenge mode for that with more reasonable terms, like the current energy nerf condition that has it at around 25% max energy? Something like that. And to your argument of saving orbs, most abilities have cast times that don't allow you to cast as soon as you pick up and orb unless you wanna die right there and then. I LOVE challenge modes, but honestly every mission where I've found myself stuck at 0 energy is certainly tough, but it isn't really fun either. 

DE should consider adjusted leech spawn rates in eximus missions, because otherwise they are really just terrible.