Ancient Disruptors: Their Problems And How To Fix Them

[Liminal]

Don't forget that awesome bug that makes them keep sliding forward to you at max speed. Funny but infuriating!

[OoKeNnEtHoO]

If you see a disruptor pull back his arm, run/roll backwards.

 

Don't try to run forward to pass it.

 

Rolling sideways works as well though it is slightly harder to perform.

 

 

 

There is no problem with the disruptor.

 

The problem is with the player's expectations.

 

 

That said, I can agree on the "They are everywhere" portion but that really has a lot to do with how the enemies are spawned in the game.

Edited June 19, 2013 by OoKeNnEtHoO

[Mainabi]

ancient etc overhaul suggestion here > https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/66390-enemies-overhaulrework-pics-incoming-and-wall-of-text-18th-june-infested/

[Mhak]

I think it'd be fun if they extended the ancient's abilities to the other races.

 

 

E.g.

Heavy gunners and Bombards remove your shields and energy with their radial blast.

Scorpions' grapples cannot miss, and remove your shields and energy.

Rollers knock you down and deplete your shields/energy in a radius when they explode.

Shockwave moas resist all damage types but armor piercing and are immune to electrical damage.  Their shockwaves radiate instantly, can only be dodged by rolling, and remove your shields and energy.

 

I think this would be good, challenging enemy design.

I like those ideas except for #2 - either it cant miss *or* it drains shields/energy, but both seems devastating. Anything that can't miss but insta-drains energy is skerry.

 

Also in general I'm down for more shield/energy drains just not 100% ones. I'd prefer if they were used a little more often by enemies so long as they didn't drain ALL your shields/energy if you're unlucky enough to get tagged by one.

[Phoenix86]

i think L2P, why remove 1 of the few challanging enemies this game has?

[SleepingGuy]

Shouldn't be a problem if your potatoe is fully grown.

[Parker9791]

well well..

the infested might be actually mutated tennos that failed to be tennos.

if u have read carefully. golem on Jupiter say that we are the same flesh. Means everything is related to the current tenno, us.

[IcarusNine]

I like those ideas except for #2 - either it cant miss *or* it drains shields/energy, but both seems devastating. Anything that can't miss but insta-drains energy is skerry.

 

Also in general I'm down for more shield/energy drains just not 100% ones. I'd prefer if they were used a little more often by enemies so long as they didn't drain ALL your shields/energy if you're unlucky enough to get tagged by one.

Ancients don't miss (even through walls), and scorpions aren't nearly as common anyways.

 

We also need an enemy that removes and debuffs stamina (so you can't regain it for several seconds).

[Madotsuki]

"lololol the gaem iz so easy, disrupters r the only challenge, lrn2play nubs lol"

Y'know what, the problem here is that Disruptors actually are not challenging at all. They are just frustrating. If i see one coming it is EXTREMELY easy to kill them, just use an ice mod, shoot them in the knee, stagger-spam them with melee etc. Long as you got enough ammo to feed these bullet sponges you're fine. If you see one attacking, just outrun its range, it's the only way to guarantee a dodge so that's boring but at least it works.

Disruptors are only a threat when they attack while you're getting CC'ed to hell by the other infested staggers/knockdowns, or when one randomly sneaks up on you, which is not an uncommon occurence since they make no unique sounds at all and the game just LOVES randomly spawning hordes behind you in the room you cleared less than 20 seconds ago. And when they sneak up on you and hit you, in ONE SINGLE HIT: you are knocked down (which guarantees an unavoidable second hit from the Disruptor as long as you're not knocked out of range); have all of your shields taken down so if there were other infested around (especially chargers) or you're playing a frame with low health like Mag, you are just boned; have all your energy removed which, not only makes the rest of the fight extremely boring as abilities are one of the few things keeping the game unique, and replenishing energy is completely based on RNG drops unless you just happen to have the Energy Siphon artifact equipped, and if you're using an ability-based frame like Loki you are also immediately screwed; and you get your screen scrambled which makes it extremely hard to see anything or escape. ONE HIT.

How are they "challenging" in any way?

Edited June 19, 2013 by Madotsuki

[Mhak]

Ancients don't miss (even through walls), and scorpions aren't nearly as common anyways.

 

We also need an enemy that removes and debuffs stamina (so you can't regain it for several seconds).

Ancients miss all the time when I roll parallel to the attack or outside their range... By "miss" I mean they fire off an attack that does not hit me. That's very common with ancients. They may never miss due to their own bad aim, I have to work for it, but they can still miss and they miss more often than they hit if you keep your head on a swivel.

 

I seriously love the stamina drain idea.

Edited June 19, 2013 by Mhak

[Mhak]

"lololol the gaem iz so easy, disrupters r the only challenge, lrn2play nubs lol"

-snip-

How are they "challenging" in any way?

I hope you didn't take my preference for *more* difficulty in this game as opposed to less as an insult. The only challenge in this game is very high level waves on endless defense imho, and maybe some bosses until you learn their tricks.

 

Many of us explained how they're challenging. They're an enemy you have to build a strategy around avoiding at all costs or all your power is gone, which can often mean the difference between success and victory on endless defense. That strategy isn't easy to make when they're supported by loads of CCing melee critters. By definition that is challenging. I would also agree they are frustrating, which only really supports the argument that they're a challenge to fight, doesn't it? If you could brush them off and not worry about them (the opposite of being frustrated), then you could hardly call them a challenge, yeah?

[Liminal]

I hope you didn't take my preference for *more* difficulty in this game as opposed to less as an insult. The only challenge in this game is very high level waves on endless defense imho, and maybe some bosses until you learn their tricks.

 

Many of us explained how they're challenging. They're an enemy you have to build a strategy around avoiding at all costs or all your power is gone, which can often mean the difference between success and victory on endless defense. That strategy isn't easy to make when they're supported by loads of CCing melee critters. By definition that is challenging. I would also agree they are frustrating, which only really supports the argument that they're a challenge to fight, doesn't it? If you could brush them off and not worry about them (the opposite of being frustrated), then you could hardly call them a challenge, yeah?

But then again, it's poorly thought out challenge. An enemy who consistently instakills you would be challenging as well, but that doesn't make for good game design.

I think the guy who posted "let's add shield and energy drain to many Grineer and Corpus enemies" sarcastically had it right. Rework them. Make them less binary: right now they are either completely irrelevant or incredibly frustrating depending on whether or not you got hit (for whatever reason).

[NinjaChicken]

My only issue with the disrupter, as with all ancients' is their unpredictability with their ranged attack (arm launcher thing). Even if it is slowed (via ice), and do your dodge roll, if you're in its proximity, that is going to it you no matter what. If you timed it right, the dodge roll should avoid the attack, a show of skill IMO.

Also, if you don't know already, blocking can avoid the drain and knock back from the disrupter, but ain't nobody got time for that, right?

[WhisperByte]

Tried blocking. Still got drained

[Nerokerubina]

How about having Ancient Disruptors be able to jump onto you, make you fall down, stunlock you and then explode? We could even have multiple disruptors jump you at once.

 

Oh god, that'd be amazing.

[CeePee]

A single enemy should not be able to drain 487 energy out of my Ember.

 

What I suggest is making the drain ability just like the shield draining corpus-thingies. When the disruptor hits you with the drain, you can stop it by dodge rolling, ending up losing plenty of energy for getting hit, but not losing all of it.

 

Something like 10 energy per second should be bad enough to make you want to dodge it.

[Mhak]

I would keep it percentage based, just not 100%. 50% would still be very punishing but not ultimately game-breaking on high levels of endless defense.

[Winterbraid]

I'd say the Disruptors aren't the problem. The problem is the fact that enemies can stagger-lock you into a clumsy, non-ninja-like pile of helplessness.

 

In fact, the *real* and mostly unmentioned problem is that stagger-lock is the *only* thing that can ever really kill you in this game. Because, y'know, regenerating shields.

Edited June 20, 2013 by Winterbraid

[GetAtMeMods]

ITT OP cant block.

[Madotsuki]

I'd say the Disruptors aren't the problem. The problem is the fact that enemies can stagger-lock you into a clumsy, non-ninja-like pile of helplessness.

 

In fact, the *real* and mostly unmentioned problem is that stagger-lock is the *only* thing that can ever really kill you in this game. Because, y'know, regenerating shields.

Well, having a large enough horde of enemies or 1-2 high level Techs can kill you through sheer firepower, but I get what you mean.

[DeckChairVonBananaCamel]

I literally saw like six in one hallway about an hour ago.

i once had 5 ancient healers and i found that more frustrating, they heal each other so fast its practically impossible to kill them!