It's Past Time DE Replaced Nullifiers

[-N7-Leonhart]

2 hours ago, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

The concept of enemies that could stop our powers were a decent idea. Scrambus and Combas were good examples of how some powers could be stopped.

Combas / Scrambus are a lot of times far worse. They are hard to see and have high range. All of a sudden, my Iron Skin explodes. Or my invisibility dispels. That is not pretty nor it will end well.

Nullifiers instead, are easy to see and easy to avoid. Having played a lot against corpus, Nullifiers are the better ones by far.

[PopGligor]

47 minutes ago, Soldatto said:

And yes, you could use a gun, but here's where my biggest problem is: ... what if you don't have a gun?

What if you want to play these missions with melee and powers only? What if you are trying to be a TRUE TENNO MASTER and cut down your foes with nothing but the righteous fury of your blades?

That's a self-imposed handicap and you should deal with the consequences. Warframe is primarily a shooter, why wouldn't you have a gun? 

@OP - that suggestion is literally worse than nullifiers. Sure, they fulfill multiple tasks, but it is *one enemy* to kill. Now imagine getting the same amount of things to deal with - shield, area-denial, skill denial, etc. and having *four enemies* to kill to clear the area. Not only that, but with the current design, the nullifier is an immediate priority. He's like the headless kamikaze in Serious Sam. Out of your four, which one is the immediate priority? The shield? The ability denial? Which one?

High level defense - ability denier and an area denier come at the same time. One denies all players' abilities, the other will clear frost's snowglobe. Which one is the immediate priority that the squad just knows to take down quickly? Now split that not in two, but in 4.

Nullifiers are visible from very far, they make their presence known and are objective highest priority enemy. This is much better design than what the OP proposes.

I'm not a fan of this game design where enemies are one trivial trick ponies. If it were me, grineer scorpions would also have a shield and be able to smack the player with it. The shield grineer goes away. Toxic and healer ancients would be one enemy, inflicting healing on allies and toxin on enemies in the same attack. And so on. I think warframe has too many redundant enemies already. Splitting one into four, making it obnoxious is a really bad idea.

What I'm noticing is that way too many players on forums are complaining about them and I have yet to see anyone have problem with them in game. Even on the hardest fissures they die in one hit.

[Hellmaker2004]

I like Nullifiers, and i do not want them gone.

And to be honest. I would rather fight ten nullifiers at the same time than one Comba/Scrambus, i find them to be much more unfair.

 

 

[TheBrsrkr]

1 hour ago, Soldatto said:

No, what's truly unfair about Nullifiers is that nearby friendlies like to huddle up inside the bubble, making ENTIRE FIRING SQUADS immune to everything you want to throw at them. Imagine being in the void and you have two corrupted nullifiers huddled together with 3 ancients and a couple bombards for good measure.

Kind of the point of a shield unit. To... Shield things. Again, this is more a problem with the shield favoring high RoF weapons than anything else. 

 

1 hour ago, Soldatto said:

You can't kill the Nullifiers because the Ancients keep them alive, the bombards blast you to smithereens if you get close, and you can't nuke them from far away with your powers because of the damn bubbles.

Shoot the bubble. Shoot the ancients. Shoot the bombards. Get more than one person shooting at them. Use the powers anyway. You won't get all of them,, but you'll get enough to give you a few more seconds to kill the Nullifiers. After that,, open season. 

 

1 hour ago, Soldatto said:

And yes, you could use a gun, but here's where my biggest problem is: ... what if you don't have a gun?

What if you want to play these missions with melee and powers only? What if you are trying to be a TRUE TENNO MASTER and cut down your foes with nothing but the righteous fury of your blades?

If you were to fight 3 bombards and ancients with melee in a group, you would have a bad time anyway. Nullifiers do next to nothing to you up close. This is a problem with melee. 

 

1 hour ago, Soldatto said:

The answer is nullifiers kind of thoroughly F*** you over and there's nothing you can really do about it. That's not a good answer.
Any enemy composition, map style, or mission type that makes melee-only invalid is bad game design in a game like this, where melee-only is allowed and encouraged via lore.

The entire game favors guns over melee. Heavily. This is a problem with melee viability, not Nullifiers. 

[Slaviar]

1 hour ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Kind of the point of a shield unit. To... Shield things. Again, this is more a problem with the shield favoring high RoF weapons than anything else.

Exactly. Shield unit, not power disrupting unit.
(I'm against power disrupting units in general because they punish active playstyles way more than camping. Especially buff reliant frames)

1 hour ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Shoot the bubble. Shoot the ancients. Shoot the bombards. Get more than one person shooting at them. Use the powers anyway. You won't get all of them,, but you'll get enough to give you a few more seconds to kill the Nullifiers. After that,, open season. 

More like:
Shoot bubble, start shooting Ancients, get killed by homing rockets.

1 hour ago, TheBrsrkr said:

If you were to fight 3 bombards and ancients with melee in a group, you would have a bad time anyway. Nullifiers do next to nothing to you up close. This is a problem with melee.

Unless they're one shooting me I never have trouble killing group of high level Corrupted mobs with melee

[TheBrsrkr]

44 minutes ago, Slaviar said:

Exactly. Shield unit, not power disrupting unit.
(I'm against power disrupting units in general because they punish active playstyles way more than camping. Especially buff reliant frames)

It is both. And we need power disrupting units because we use so many powers that enemies can do literally nothing about. 

 

46 minutes ago, Slaviar said:

More like:

Shoot bubble, start shooting Ancients, get killed by homing roc

kets.

That is a problem with you then, because I pull it off just fine. 

 

49 minutes ago, Slaviar said:

Unless they're one shooting me I never have trouble killing group of high level Corrupted mobs with melee

Then there is no problem. 

[V0LK]

It's funny to me that Nullifiers exists solely because of DE's incompetence. They made them to counter power spam instead of looking into power spam. 

[(XBOX)Lem0n Sama]

1 minute ago, TheBrsrkr said:

It is both. And we need power disrupting units because we use so many powers that enemies can do literally nothing about. 

 

That is a problem with you then, because I pull it off just fine. 

 

Then there is no problem. 

Nullifiers have no place in the game other than to troll you. No single enemy should have the ability to shut down several different playstyles by simply being present. The notion that we shouldn't be able to mow down common enemies with wanton destruction not only is a disservice to boss mobs, but is also preventing the game from its goal; to entertain the player using an overpowered space ninja murder machine. What's one enemy unit when you have unlimited enemies? Challenging the player can be done in several other, less intrusive ways. Defending a mob that wears too many hats accomplishes nothing, Nullifiers are quickly becoming too much of a crutch, it seems every time devs run into a problem with encounter design, they simply throw in a few Nullifier bandaids and call it a day. So yes, as with most of the playerbase, I agree they are in fact badly designed.

[Zoracraft]

I like this idea: it's a good compromise between those that want nullies removed and those that want to keep them. As it stands, nullies are a large difficulty spike that defies many things taught in the game, such as ability use and damage. They also do too much for one unit: Some bosses have less going for them than nullies (ambulus, seargent). This change would split the things nullies into different units, retaining the challenge they provide while easing players into the difficulty curve. While some may for whatever reason disagree, I think this is one of the better rework ideas for nullies I've seen.

[TheBrsrkr]

13 minutes ago, (XB1)MrOrionQuestHD said:

Nullifiers have no place in the game other than to troll you. No single enemy should have the ability to shut down several different playstyles by simply being present. 

Nullifiers give enemies a chance to actually fight you as opposed to not being able to at all because of CC and massive damage. If you call that trolling, look to yourself, or more appropriately your frame and weapon, and ask how it got to this point in the first place. 

 

16 minutes ago, (XB1)MrOrionQuestHD said:

 The notion that we shouldn't be able to mow down common enemies with wanton destruction not only is a disservice to boss mobs, but is also preventing the game from its goal; to entertain the player using an overpowered space ninja murder machine. 

Being an overpowered space ninja murder machine is supposed to be a tall order. Currently, it is not. Nullifiers seek to change that. 

 

19 minutes ago, (XB1)MrOrionQuestHD said:

 What's one enemy unit when you have unlimited enemies? 

A challenge. A need to think before action. A change of pace. A break in the monotony. Something you have to kill. This applies to every enemy in the game. 

21 minutes ago, (XB1)MrOrionQuestHD said:

 Challenging the player can be done in several other, less intrusive ways. 

More time wasted, more money wasted and more resources wasted for the exact same result, when there's only one thing wrong with this one. The fact that it pushes automatics as a meta. That's it. That's all. 

 

24 minutes ago, (XB1)MrOrionQuestHD said:

. Defending a mob that wears too many hats accomplishes nothing, Nullifiers are quickly becoming too much of a crutch, it seems every time devs run into a problem with encounter design, they simply throw in a few Nullifier bandaids and call it a day. 

This one mob has 2 jobs; defend nearby units, and shut down enemy powers. That's not too many hats, that's 2 hats. They throw nullifiers at it because they can't fix the actual issue, your overpowered frames and weapons. Why? Because nerfing is evil. Making this one mob into 4 separate mobs just means that only one of them will be relevant at a time when the other 3 are either locked down or dead. 

 

28 minutes ago, (XB1)MrOrionQuestHD said:

 So yes, as with most of the playerbase, I agree they are in fact badly designed.

So are your abilities, and I see vehement opposition to fixing those. Changing nullifiers changes nothing of consequence. 

[(PSN)VariantX7]

You know, I noticed something else that's potentially wrong with nullifiers as a unit. I think they're too short. They're the same height as normal crewmen. Once they get enough mobs in the bubble with them, unless you're already in melee range, swinging like a madman, the other units will hide it and you'll potentially have to re-collapse the bubble again if you're choosing to engage at a distance with whatever angles are given to you in the situation. Most other support or heavy units in this game tend to float above or are taller than the standard mobs and are easier to pick out and prioritize from the crowds of lesser mobs. Even though it has that big backpack, its head and backpack is still at the same height as all the others so its much harder to pick that guy off in a sea of other crewmen scrambling around. Ancients don't have that problem, they're taller than all the other units, they have auras, and their heads glow. Grineer heavies are also a good bit taller than everyone else and have easy to pick out heads for players to shoot from a distance. Making them as tall as Corpus Techs could make it a bit easier to spot these guys in crowds once the bubbles collapse.

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

4 hours ago, -BM-Leonhart said:

Combas / Scrambus are a lot of times far worse. They are hard to see and have high range. All of a sudden, my Iron Skin explodes. Or my invisibility dispels. That is not pretty nor it will end well.

Nullifiers instead, are easy to see and easy to avoid. Having played a lot against corpus, Nullifiers are the better ones by far.

True. There should be a couple seconds before the dispel takes effect. Moreover, the goal in this is to have them prevent powers from being turned on in the first place, not to shut them down. That being said, for all the reasons I outlined, I don't think Nullifiers are good.

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

6 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Lazy enemy design? Far from it. He nullifier presents a unique threat to every frame that interacts with it because every frame's power is different, and it's lack of that power means different things. The only thing not fair about Nullifiers is that they favor automatic weapons overall,and they recharge too fast for slow weapons to effectively deal with them. 

Nullifiers only provide a unique threat insofar as some frames can safely enter the bubble no matter what's in there and some can't. Moreover the way Nullifiers handle weapons, which you acnowledged is a problem, is lazy design. DE didn't think of a way to allow the bubbles to block damage without being destructable, so they made it based on ROF knowing that would cause problems.

6 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Most abilities end with the same result, debuffing or killing enemies, or buffing you.

Aren't those three things? Three very different things? People don't block damage with guns and don't shoot people with Kevlar vests.

6 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Nullifier bubbles just aren't that big. There's a lot of wiggle room. What Snowglobe and fireball have in common is that they are both abilities designed to have a huge effect on what enemies can do. And they do. If the fire patch is anything like the cold patch with frost, there can be a huge effect with that one cast if you put it in a doorway. Even if if you don't, it means someone is on fire and won't be fighting for awhile. And you know what kind of effects Snowglobe has on the battlefield. Both different in design,, but have the same effect,, enemy impedance. Which Nullifiers stop.

Fireball has only a marginally greater effect than a single bullet that procs; its damage is lower, AoE is tiny, range is capped, and no, it's effect when it hits the ground isn't "anything like the cold patch". And someone being on fire hardly matters in a game with 20+ enemies on screen all the time.

6 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

As opposed to you shooting them down in one shot like every other unit. Right. 

Did you read? Did you read what you yourself wrote? Earlier you yourself cited the issues I'm bringing up right with the bubble, yet when I brought it up you constructed a strawman that ignore those exact points you made. Not to mention, my solution doesn't really allow for that does it?

6 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

DE does not want you to kill the nullifier easily and go back to spamming. However, with weapons that do 30k damage every second, what could they do? Make it so that the damage simply doesn't apply. You call it poor design, but there are very few ways 30k damage can be normalized to not kill something in a couple hits, especially when that thing has to shield other units as well. They either require stat inflation, which is bad design, or ignore some of the player interactions, which is also bad design. That much damage is just hard to account for, but don't they dare nerf it. 

You know which enemy does it right?

The Shield Lancer.

They already had the answer (and indeed a shield is what I proposed as the replacement--if you read my suggestions).

6 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

They're shield units, and they have sniper rifles for good reasons. First off, they stay back and shoot at you while they gather allies in the shield, then they rush you. Big difference. The shield and the sniper serve different purposes. Next, you don't want them to dominate the inside of the bubbles with, say, a Supra or Detron, because they're supposed to be easy to kill inside the bubble, and sniper accuracy is garbage up close. Their point when they rush is to get the units they defend closer to you safely, which is what shield units are for. The sniper rifle is just so they can take shots at you while they wait.

They do not stay back, ever. I've never seen a Nullifier show such behavior. Other enemies run to them; they don't go get other enemies. They always rush, which makes sense because they should be trying to remove buffs, if you consider that their primary purpose. Or maybe sitting back and sniping, if that's their purpose. Or defending allies and removing debuffs... This is why they do too many things. The goals they're supposed to achieve are contradictory.

6 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

These two do not have to be separated for any reason. There is no reason they would be able to remove one and not the other if both are based on the same concept of void energy. These two are the same role. 

That might be true, if you were talking about 1) and 4). I'll explain why it isn't true for 3) below. I could agree to simply have Combas continue to take both roles, with some tweaks so players have a few seconds to plan before they lose their buffs.

6 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Buffs are also powers. They shut down powers. This is not a separate role it's a part of the same role as before. Also, I can't think of a game that has these three separately as units. Sure, there aren't that many games with debuffers anymore, but in games where there are, they are usually paired with shutting down the source of the buff if possible. 

As for area denial powers, those are different because they take effect on a location, not on an enemy. Medics are different from bomb detectors. If I place down a power, a shield shouldn't be able to touch it out of existence. Likewise, being able to prevent an enemy from being effected does not mean you have the ability to remove the source of the problem.

[(XBOX)Lem0n Sama]

7 minutes ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Nullifiers give enemies a chance to actually fight you as opposed to not being able to at all because of CC and massive damage. If you call that trolling, look to yourself, or more appropriately your frame and weapon, and ask how it got to this point in the first place.

That's not exactly a bad thing (being overpowered). very few frames are actually "meta", leaving the rest unpopular and often shunned by the playerbase. It's mobs such as Nullifiers that force opinions like this.

15 minutes ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Being an overpowered space ninja murder machine is supposed to be a tall order. Currently, it is not. Nullifiers seek to change that.

Dare I say, common mobs don't need to do this, this is what boss mobs are for. The endless amounts of ordinary fodder in parts 2 or 3 of a sortie can easily mop the floor with most, if not all the planet bosses (pre-specters of course). If the devs are adamantly convinced that Nullifiers are such a necessity, their powers could easily be melded with existing bosses.

25 minutes ago, TheBrsrkr said:

A challenge. A need to think before action. A change of pace. A break in the monotony. Something you have to kill. This applies to every enemy in the game. 

Again, common enemies shouldn't serve this purpose.

 

26 minutes ago, TheBrsrkr said:

More time wasted, more money wasted and more resources wasted for the exact same result, when there's only one thing wrong with this one. The fact that it pushes automatics as a meta. That's it. That's all. 

This only refers to popping the bubble, the Nullifiers themselves present a much greater threat, and do it just by being there, there's no interaction or clever way to stop them other than pouring bullets on their bubble or skirting just to the outside the bubble in melee range, praying they don't move towards you a few inches. Any frame that relies on defensive powers to stay alive endgame has to avoid them like the plague or risk being 1-shot by almost everything. Heaven help you if you decide to run an unpopular non-meta frame when you die. You'll never hear the end of it.

As for money/time wasted developing other mobs, moot point. Neither of us know exactly how much or less a burden this would involve.

45 minutes ago, TheBrsrkr said:

This one mob has 2 jobs; defend nearby units, and shut down enemy powers. That's not too many hats, that's 2 hats. They throw nullifiers at it because they can't fix the actual issue, your overpowered frames and weapons. Why? Because nerfing is evil. Making this one mob into 4 separate mobs just means that only one of them will be relevant at a time when the other 3 are either locked down or dead. 

Again, I have no problem being overpowered, we're supposed to be, we're designed to be. Warframe very much is, and doesn't try hiding, a horde shooter. We kill tons of mobs, collect loot, and repeat. Every now and then we fight a boss and progress a story. The fun is killing with grace and style, big numbers, fashion frame. If you want challenge there's plenty to be had, we have trials (including nightmare versions), sorties and the various endless missions. Throwing a common mob at us that shuts down various playstyles and invalidates many frames, is poor design.

[TheBrsrkr]

2 hours ago, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

Nullifiers only provide a unique threat insofar as some frames can safely enter the bubble no matter what's in there and some can't. 

Exactly. Every frame has to deal with them differently.  There's no one best way that applies to everything. 

2 hours ago, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

Aren't those three things? Three very different things? People don't block damage with guns and don't shoot people with Kevlar vests.

People block damage with Kevlar  to survive,  and people shoot other people trying to kill them to survive. There is a common theme here that is the overall purpose of these things, even though they achieve it differently. Nullifiers prevent you from doing those things. 

 

2 hours ago, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

SFireball has only a marginally greater effect than a single bullet that procs; its damage is lower, AoE is tiny, range is capped, and no, it's effect when it hits the ground isn't "anything like the cold patch". And someone being on fire hardly matters in a game with 20+ enemies on screen all the time.

A Bombard on fire is not shooting at you because it's on fire. Even if it isn't as good as the cold patch, it's a chunk of damage that might also freeze an enemy where it is, and forces the AI to go around it, which means less enemies engaging you at one time. And honestly, you're not fighting 20 enemies at the same time, even if they're on screen, every minute, all the time. 

 

2 hours ago, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

Did you read? Did you read what you yourself wrote? Earlier you yourself cited the issues I'm bringing up right with the bubble, yet when I brought it up you constructed a strawman that ignore those exact points you made. Not to mention, my solution doesn't really allow for that does it?

I read it. You didn't. Let's have a look again :

10 hours ago, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

.The second problem with Nullifiers is they have absurd restrictions for weapons. Here's a bubble that shrinks when weapons hit it, but not based on damage because... Reasons. From a gameplay standpoint, this was done to make bubbles scale based on players and not level, but I think that, too, is bad design. It goes against everything else used in the game's design.

I underlined the part you missed. You took the context out of the quote by splitting the comment up. Jolly bad show.

Scaling against players is not bad design. Especially when scaling for level involves raw  stat inflation, which is actually bad design. 

2 hours ago, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

You know which enemy does it right?

The Shield Lancer.

The shield Lancer's shield is affected by punch through, which makes it a failure as a shield unit. Modding punch through is a staple on most weapons, and on those that don't such as explosives the shield doesn't help anyway. They're only a threat if they run up to you and hit you with the shield, which isn't exactly shielding. You don't need to change anything about how you approach a shield Lancer. It also fails to block most Radial abilities, further compounding the issue. 

 

2 hours ago, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

They already had the answer (and indeed a shield is what I proposed as the replacement--if you read my suggestions).

The question would still be what's stopping you from spamming ridiculous powers all day, and this shield unit will not be the answer. Unless you plan to make all four of your variants immune to powers, which would just make them worse than Nullifiers. 

 

2 hours ago, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

They do not stay back, ever. I've never seen a Nullifier show such behavior

When you're undetected and shoot at a nullifier, he runs up to you, stops a distance away, and will shoot at you until enough enemies are present in or near the bubble to rush you. They don't run up willy-nilly to get killed. What you say would most likely happen in survival where there's always enough units around to rush you, but on defense, excavation and not tiny interception maps they will try to shoot you before they rush. 

 

2 hours ago, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

Other enemies run to them; they don't go get other enemies. They always rush, which makes sense because they should be trying to remove buffs, if you consider that their primary purpose. Or maybe sitting back and sniping, if that's their purpose. Or defending allies and removing debuffs... This is why they do too many things. The goals they're supposed to achieve are contradictory.

Their goal isn't to sit back and snipe, their goals are to shield their allies and nullify powers. The sniper rifle prevents them from being a threat up close so that you can kill them within the bubble, and their allies are supposed to defend them when inside. Giving them anything else would make them a threat inside the bubble, which is not what they're for.  They don't run around breaking units out of CC, they run to you with allies in tow. If they don't have allies in tow, they wait till they do. It's still one goal achieved from 2 angles,the same way we do it. 

 

3 hours ago, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

That might be true, if you were talking about 1) and 4). I'll explain why it isn't true for 3) below. I could agree to simply have Combas continue to take both roles, with some tweaks so players have a few seconds to plan before they lose their buffs.

Combas are damn near invisible in the fray and are not shield units. Also, they're really annoying. 

 

3 hours ago, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

.

As for area denial powers, those are different because they take effect on a location, not on an enemy. Medics are different from bomb detectors. If I place down a power, a shield shouldn't be able to touch it out of existence, being able to prevent an enemy from being effected does not mean you have the ability to remove the source of the problem.

All of our powers work the same: Void energy. If it gets cut off, no more powers. That's what the shield does. Dissipate void energy. From a lore perspective anyway. From a gameplay perspective, it would make no sense for a shield unit to cancel all the powers up to the point where they placed a power and can't shield then anymore. No powers work in the bubble. Simple. That's not separate. 

3 hours ago, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

. Likewise, being able to prevent an enemy from being effected does not mean you have the ability to remove the source of the problem.

It also doesn't mean that you can't solve the problem. Also, the effects that powers have practically make it necessary.  I can't name a game with a unit that doesn't do both. 

[Slaviar]

5 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

And we need power disrupting units because we use so many powers that enemies can do literally nothing about

Spamming is only possible in camping missions. And until now Nullifiers weren't problem in them

5 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

That is a problem with you then, because I pull it off just fine

Before level 50, sure. After this popping bubble will often result in death.

25 minutes ago, TheBrsrkr said:

A Bombard on fire is not shooting at you because it's on fire

Problem is Bombard shoots you very often when they are blinded or on fire. In fact they almost always shoot one rocket despite panicking.

26 minutes ago, TheBrsrkr said:

The shield Lancer's shield is affected by punch through, which makes it a failure as a shield unit. Modding punch through is a staple on most weapons, and on those that don't such as explosives the shield doesn't help anyway. They're only a threat if they run up to you and hit you with the shield, which isn't exactly shielding. You don't need to change anything about how you approach a shield Lancer. It also fails to block most Radial abilities, further compounding the issue.

It's a problem with Shield Lancers. Their shield shouldn't be affected by punch through and should block at least radial abilities.

28 minutes ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Combas are damn near invisible in the fray and are not shield units. Also, they're really annoying. 

For once we agree

Edited July 10, 2016 by Slaviar
I've hit submit accidentally

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

4 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Exactly. Every frame has to deal with them differently.  There's no one best way that applies to everything. 

There are two "best ways". 1) slide into the bubble with melee. 2) shoot the bubble. Some frames cannot do 1) against sufficiently leveled enemies, so that leaves one "best way" for many frames. That's not interesting gameplay; that's just knowing your frame. Which of the two types it is.

Quote

People block damage with Kevlar  to survive,  and people shoot other people trying to kill them to survive. There is a common theme here that is the overall purpose of these things, even though they achieve it differently. Nullifiers prevent you from doing those things. 

There is a common theme... That's not a logical reason why the shield would magic-touch away abilities. A shield blocking stuff? Fine, makes sense. A shield making other shields disappear? Makes no sense.

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A Bombard on fire is not shooting at you because it's on fire. Even if it isn't as good as the cold patch, it's a chunk of damage that might also freeze an enemy where it is, and forces the AI to go around it, which means less enemies engaging you at one time. And honestly, you're not fighting 20 enemies at the same time, even if they're on screen, every minute, all the time. 

For energy, a resource that (in theory) we need to manage, I can light one enemy on fire, and this is supposed to be "a huge effect on what an enemy can do"? I can do that consistently within five bullets on the majority of my weapons. That means little.

Also, there is no fire patch from Fireball so I don't know what you mean. These abilities are entirely different. They do different things, work in different ways, and have different rules. Yet an enemy makes them disappear.

Ans my bad, I fight 20 enemies at the same time for half the time. Or a third of the time. You pick; point is, it still happens, and it happens a lot.

Quote

I read it. You didn't. Let's have a look again :

I underlined the part you missed. You took the context out of the quote by splitting the comment up. Jolly bad show.

I addressed the strawman separately because you acted as if I hadn't even tried to acknowledge what you said. Moreover, it doesn't change that you are the one who stated you have some of the exact same problems I do. But you were quick to mock the statement anyway, when I made it. Beyond that, the thing you underlined is clearly a separate idea. Before I said that the bubble shrinking made no logical sense; after I said that it makes sense from a balance standpoint, but that this was still flawed. Your response of "for you to just shoot them" is a strawman about the first point that clearly ignores the suggestions below. The rest of what you said was about the second idea, from a balance and design standpoint.

Quote

Scaling against players is not bad design. Especially when scaling for level involves raw  stat inflation, which is actually bad design. 

I agree that pure stat inflation is bad design, but that's not relevant.

But another example of bad design is lack of consistency. So if you spend the whole game telling players higher stats = more damage, and then you introduce one single enemy that violates that, breaking the game rules you yourself, as a developer, set? That's bad design. 

Quote

The shield Lancer's shield is affected by punch through, which makes it a failure as a shield unit. Modding punch through is a staple on most weapons, and on those that don't such as explosives the shield doesn't help anyway. They're only a threat if they run up to you and hit you with the shield, which isn't exactly shielding. You don't need to change anything about how you approach a shield Lancer. It also fails to block most Radial abilities, further compounding the issue. 

Right. But does my example have those flaws? Did you ask or suggest they be considered? Or did you just say "no"?

Quote

The question would still be what's stopping you from spamming ridiculous powers all day, and this shield unit will not be the answer. Unless you plan to make all four of your variants immune to powers, which would just make them worse than Nullifiers. 

How would they be worse than Nullifiers if that were the case? And see the first page of responses for your answer to how they would respond to powers.

Quote

When you're undetected and shoot at a nullifier, he runs up to you, stops a distance away, and will shoot at you until enough enemies are present in or near the bubble to rush you. They don't run up willy-nilly to get killed. What you say would most likely happen in survival where there's always enough units around to rush you, but on defense, excavation and not tiny interception maps they will try to shoot you before they rush. 

No. Nullifiers work by pacing forward sniping at you, with enemies inside. They don't rush you, because that counters the sniper. They don't sit back, because that counters the bubble. Again, they do contradictory things.

Quote

Their goal isn't to sit back and snipe, their goals are to shield their allies and nullify powers. The sniper rifle prevents them from being a threat up close so that you can kill them within the bubble, and their allies are supposed to defend them when inside. Giving them anything else would make them a threat inside the bubble, which is not what they're for.  They don't run around breaking units out of CC, they run to you with allies in tow. If they don't have allies in tow, they wait till they do. It's still one goal achieved from 2 angles,the same way we do it. 

So... Their sniper rifle allows you to kill them up close, but their team of enemies in tow prevents you from killing them up close, but they shield their allies from preventing you from killing them from afar, where now they can snipe you... How are you supposed to engage them? No one knows, because they do too much.

Quote

Combas are damn near invisible in the fray and are not shield units. Also, they're really annoying. 

I agree, so there are some changes. See my reply above.

They don't need to be shield units, however. The fact that they annoy you suggests they can get close enough to make a difference.

Quote

All of our powers work the same: Void energy. If it gets cut off, no more powers. That's what the shield does. Dissipate void energy. From a lore perspective anyway. From a gameplay perspective, it would make no sense for a shield unit to cancel all the powers up to the point where they placed a power and can't shield then anymore. No powers work in the bubble. Simple. That's not separate. 

This still doesn't make sense from a logical perspective. Void powers can create physical things, or other types of energy, or change something's composition. You're telling me that if I shine a bright light in somebody's eyes (Radial blind), and some bubble comes to block the void energy, that person will just become unblinded? You're telling me that if I use void energy to crush the bones in someone's body, that your void energy removal will make everyone able to get up and walk off like nothing happened? You're telling me that if I use void energy to create a physical object, and then impale someone with it, that spear will just disappear and the person will walk off like nothing happened?

From a gameplay perspective, it makes sense that the same shield that blocks powers makes mine disappear? Why is DE still, 18 months later, trying to put together a coherent set of situations where the bubble does something? Because it makes sense?

DE didn't bother explaining Nullifiers because they make no sense. Because they were a reaction to Viver, and it's time something better were put in their place.

Quote

It also doesn't mean that you can't solve the problem.

With the same magic bubble?

Quote

Also, the effects that powers have practically make it necessary.  I can't name a game with a unit that doesn't do both. 

You know that's not a real argument. I can't name a game where a sniper is given the ability to debuff players by getting close to them!

Besides, this is Warframe. How many games are like this one?

Edited July 10, 2016 by (PS4)WiiConquered

[blackheartstar_pc]

On 7/10/2016 at 11:18 AM, TheBrsrkr said:

They don't run around breaking units out of CC,

I like the idea of a new enemy unit that would do this. I imagine it being a quick running none engaging type. Just can't picture what would be better. If it did a "anti radial blind" quick un-CC or if it had a aoe as it runs similar to nulifiers but only pulling allies out of the cc state. Maybe one way for a Corpus unit and the other way for a Grineer guy.

Edited July 11, 2016 by blackheartstar_pc

[TheBrsrkr]

Man, the forums are on fire these days. 

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

There are two "best ways". 1) slide into the bubble with melee. 2) shoot the bubble. Some frames cannot do 1) against sufficiently leveled enemies, so that leaves one "best way" for many frames. That's not interesting gameplay; that's just knowing your frame. Which of the two types it is. 

Shoot the bubble? Sure, then what? You're not always going to get an open shot at the nullifier after the bubble goes down, and everything in the bubble is going to be shooting at you. What do you prioritize? After it pops, it's easy enough to keep down to a size where it won't be much of a threat. But if you spend too long shooting at everything else, it'll come back. What do you push? The whole point is to get you to juggle a bit more on what your priorities are. It doesn't end after the bubble pops. 

 

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

 

There is a common theme... That's not a logical reason why the shield would magic-touch away abilities. A shield blocking stuff? Fine, makes sense. A shield making other shields disappear? Makes no sense.

It makes sense if one shield is made to stop void energy,  and the other one is literally made of void energy. 

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

 

For energy, a resource that (in theory) we need to manage, I can light one enemy on fire, and this is supposed to be "a huge effect on what an enemy can do"? I can do that consistently within five bullets on the majority of my weapons. That means little.

One enemy on fire is one enemy not shooting at you. One Bombard and eight lancers shooting at you is a lot more dangerous than just 8 lancers  shooting at you because a Bombard is a heavy target, and if you let him get those shots off, you'll have a bad time. But you can set him on fire and deal with something else while he's down. A sudden ancient healer. Most if not all of the lancers. You get to shoot at him without him shooting back. Force another group to  make their way around it, buying you more time. You just have to know how to apply it. Even so, what's your point? That it's different? It comes from the same source, void energy. We know what happens to that in the bubble. 

 

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

Also, there is no fire patch from Fireball so I don't know what you mean. 

 

Pretty sure when you cast fireball on the ground you get a  fire patch that enemies avoid. 

 

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

Ans my bad, I fight 20 enemies at the same time for half the time. Or a third of the time. You pick; point is, it still happens, and it happens a lot

In the Simaralcum, maybe. Of the 20 units on screen in a regular match  not every single one of them is shooting at you. Not even solo. Not even before you start killing. It's more like anywhere from five to fifteen at the most, and don't tell me that five enemies don't make a difference. Some will be melee and die first very quickly. Some will be nocombatants like the drones that I can't remember the name of right now. Some will fire mostly ineffectively at you from really far away. Some will be trying to get to you. Some will shoot at your companion. Most will shoot at your allies. 

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

I addressed the strawman separately because you acted as if I hadn't even tried to acknowledge what you said. Moreover, it doesn't change that you are the one who stated you have some of the exact same problems I do. But you were quick to mock the statement anyway, when I made it. 

You said that it's bad design because it balances around players. That's not bad design. Your changes ignore exactly what I have said, that there is simply no way to have one without the other, because both would be meaningless. A shield that powers go through when people spam powers all the day long would mean absolutely nothing, and something that block powers without a shield or some ridiculous stat inflation will be equally useless as it gets shot away as a minor annoyance. They would only make a meaningful difference when they were together,  which your design does not allow for, since the power nullifier would end up closer to us than to the shield and wouldn't stay in the shield long if we aren't in it, and if both of them need to be together to matter anyway, why split them in the first place? 

 

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

  Beyond that, the thing you underlined is clearly a separate idea. 

Why was it in the same paragraph then? 

 

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

Before I said that the bubble shrinking made no logical sense; after I said that it makes sense from a balance standpoint, but that this was still flawed. Your response of "for you to just shoot them" is a strawman about the first point that clearly ignores the suggestions below. 

You would be able to just shoot them if they didn't have the shield. The suggestions below don't change that. 

 

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

I agree that pure stat inflation is bad design, but that's not relevant.

It is perfectly relevant. It's one of the few tools that can combat the stat inflation on the other side. Enemies can't deal with 10k damage a second. The 40k damage isn't going anywhere if the playerbase has anything to say about it, which they do. So how do you get an enemy to be relevant when they are surviving less than a second of combat? You can either force the stats up to make their impact relevant, or you can ignore player stats to give them more time to be relevant. There is not an in between. You can't ignore some of the damage when the rest of it is more than enough to kill you. If you ignore most of the damage, it's basically the same as stat inflation.  It's all or nothing. Which of these binaries will you choose for your units? Because the right thing to do would be to make it so that the damage the enemies will face will be lower so that mechanics that you mention have a place to shine. But that's not going to happen because nerfs are evil. 

 

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

But another example of bad design is lack of consistency. So if you spend the whole game telling players higher stats = more damage, and then you introduce one single enemy that violates that, breaking the game rules you yourself, as a developer, set? That's bad design. 

Higher stats still mean more damage. Except when you're shooting at nullifiers. And things covered by the ancient healer aura. And bombards. And manics. And Bursas. And shield Dargyns. This isn't news. Lots of things have conditions for you to do your full damage to them. Hundreds of games work on this concept. This  isn't a lack of consistency, it's an addition of challenge. 

 

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

Right. But does my example have those flaws? Did you ask or suggest they be considered? Or did you just say "no"?

Quite frankly, I don't have that kind of time. It takes an hour or more to type one of these things on a phone, and making it unnecessarily long when all of your units are based on a flawed premise is not what I want to do with my free time. Just that part about the strawman meant I had to read your comment, read my comment, go back to page one, read the OP again, flip back and forth to compare between the two, then come type a response that I had to scroll between your and my posts to make sure I'm not talking garbage. What I say is this: the nullifier is only a successful shield unit because of the factors you have split into 4 different units, making all of them extremely vulnerable to everything wrong with abilities and weapons. 

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

How would they be worse than Nullifiers if that were the case? And see the first page of responses for your answer to how they would respond to powers.

Instead on one single highly visible easily targeted enemy, you now have 4 separate targets, only one of which is immune to powers, which would simply lead to pre U15 gameplay of spam spam spam spam spam shoot a random tough guy spam spam spam because players sacrifice fun for efficiency. If they are affected by CC, they would just join the others in lockdown. If they aren't affected by CC, they all just turn into personal nullifiers you have to deal with differently.  Meanwhile every other unit is left as defenseless as they were before nullifiers until the one that blocks powers shows up to stop that off, then he gets killed to death and the cycle continues. If you try something in between, you just end up with a very specific meta designed to deal with them. If the shield doesn't shield them from powers, it makes no difference because the whole point of the shield was to let them have an impact on you. The MOA  won't get a chance to start suction, and even if it did, they'd just kill it with a trollcannon,unless it did it from really far away. Even then, a frost can reset the globe instantly, and the ridiculously meta ones reset theirs every 8 seconds anyway. Preventing new debuffs depends heavily on when they spawn, and even then it won't matter unless they have a massive range and will still get CCd and killed to death. 

 

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

No. Nullifiers work by pacing forward sniping at you, with enemies inside. They don't rush you, because that counters the sniper. They don't sit back, because that counters the bubble. Again, they do contradictory things.

The sniper rifle is nowhere as important as the bubble, and they don't rush until they have enough units to defend them. What do you expect them to do by themselves, go up and die? Because that's what it looks like you're expecting them to do. They're not in any hurry, you are. 

 

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

 So... Their sniper rifle allows you to kill them up close, but their team of enemies in tow prevents you from killing them up close, but they shield their allies from preventing you from killing them from afar, where now they can snipe you... How are you supposed to engage them? No one knows, because they do too much. 

They shield them from afar to get close to you. They back each other up. You can shoot them from afar and get rid of the shield before they rush you, or you can go up close and get rid of the shield so that the group is  defenseless against your powers. There's more than one answer there. What you  do depends on your frame and playstyle. You act like the shield favoring doesn't shrink when you shoot it. It's not invincible. 

 

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

They don't need to be shield units, however. The fact that they annoy you suggests they can get close enough to make a difference.

They don't do much once they're there. They're just annoying. If there's enemies nearby then sure, they get a chance to come at you, but they just aren't that big of  a deal, especially if they don't shut down all your powers. I've only met a few, and I've killed them pretty easily without getting too much crossfire. 

 

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

This still doesn't make sense from a logical perspective. Void powers can create physical things, or other types of energy, or change something's composition. You're telling me that if I shine a bright light in somebody's eyes (Radial blind), and some bubble comes to block the void energy, that person will just become unblinded? You're telling me that if I use void energy to crush the bones in someone's body, that your void energy removal will make everyone able to get up and walk off like nothing happened? You're telling me that if I use void energy to create a physical object, and then impale someone with it, that spear will just disappear and the person will walk off like nothing happened?

 

Yes? 

First off, all non direct damage abilities are channeled by the frame for their continuous effects. You mean to tell me that there's enough water to strengthen ice to the point where it can resist and absorb gunfire, while keeping up a contained blizzard inside strong enough to slow enemies? Nope. The energy for that has to come from somewhere, and has  be maintained. Same with the conversion of matter. Something has to be keeping it in that state, not just one and done. Nullifiers block that. Plus, the blind is caused by NANOMACHINES SON, which could be shut down by an EMP much less something that blocks void energy, and nullifiers don't undo any damage done. 

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

From a gameplay perspective, it makes sense that the same shield that blocks powers makes mine disappear? Why is DE still, 18 months later, trying to put together a coherent set of situations where the bubble does something? Because it makes sense?

Your shield is a power. Powers are void energy. Void energy is dissipated by nullifier shields. This isn't even complicated. Why wouldn't it? As for why DE is doing this, maybe because weapon power and ability spam is way out of control, and the forums are constantly alight with those things staying exactly the same ad everything else changing around them? This  is one such change.

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

DE didn't bother explaining Nullifiers because they make no sense. Because they were a reaction to Viver, and it's time something better were put in their place. 

Can you blame them? Nothing's changed. Everything, in fact, has gotten worse until very recently. Nullifiers are still needed, and will still be needed until the current state of damage and power usage has been changed. If everything else could last more than half a second, then they wouldn't need such a strong shield. If powers didn't last half a minute and couldn't  be casted whenever,  then we wouldn't need to completely block powers. If damage was at a reasonable level, we wouldn't need to completely block damage. But these things are here, and they do cause problems. The nullifier is a counter to those. You get rid of them, we don't need nullifiers anymore. 

 

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

With the same magic bubble?

Yeah. 

 

On 7/10/2016 at 6:18 PM, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

You know that's not a real argument. I can't name a game where a sniper is given the ability to debuff players by getting close to them!

First off, just because you have a sniper rifle doesn't make you a sniper. Next, snipers (at least those with bows) are usually paired with assassin's for debuffs using poison. Also, Zer0 has a couple of effects that can count as debuffs to close range targets. In fact, Zer0 ''s entire role was to be dangerous at very close and very far range, just lie nullifiers. XCOM had thin men that would debuff you when you came close with poison spit. There's one coming in overwatch as well. It's uncommon, but it has happened before. 

[Twilight053]

I simply really, REALLY HATE Nullifier's Lanka and their oneshot wonders. Give them Dera and they'll be good.

Edited July 12, 2016 by Twilight053

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Man, the forums are on fire these days. 

Shoot the bubble? Sure, then what? You're not always going to get an open shot at the nullifier after the bubble goes down, and everything in the bubble is going to be shooting at you. What do you prioritize? After it pops, it's easy enough to keep down to a size where it won't be much of a threat. But if you spend too long shooting at everything else, it'll come back. What do you push? The whole point is to get you to juggle a bit more on what your priorities are. It doesn't end after the bubble pops. 

I have never needed, nor seen, anyone use such juggling. There are almost no scenarios where the enemies inside the bubble are too dangerous for you to find the Nullifier, but not dangerous enough that you can alternate between damaging the bubble and killing the enemies.

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

It makes sense if one shield is made to stop void energy,  and the other one is literally made of void energy. 

So touching one part of the globe makes all of it stop? Touching physical objects make them disappear?

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

One enemy on fire is one enemy not shooting at you. One Bombard and eight lancers shooting at you is a lot more dangerous than just 8 lancers  shooting at you because a Bombard is a heavy target, and if you let him get those shots off, you'll have a bad time. But you can set him on fire and deal with something else while he's down. A sudden ancient healer. Most if not all of the lancers. You get to shoot at him without him shooting back. Force another group to  make their way around it, buying you more time. You just have to know how to apply it. Even so, what's your point? That it's different? It comes from the same source, void energy. We know what happens to that in the bubble. 

 

Pretty sure when you cast fireball on the ground you get a  fire patch that enemies avoid. 

Test it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I sincerely doubt the AI would avoid a fire patch when they walk through anything else. It's irrelevant though: I acknowledge that it makes sense for a patch on the ground to be dealt with in the same way as any other stationary object. What I disagree with is the idea that the exact same thing can heal, debuff, buff, and remove stationary objects.

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

In the Simaralcum, maybe. Of the 20 units on screen in a regular match  not every single one of them is shooting at you. Not even solo. Not even before you start killing. It's more like anywhere from five to fifteen at the most, and don't tell me that five enemies don't make a difference. Some will be melee and die first very quickly. Some will be nocombatants like the drones that I can't remember the name of right now. Some will fire mostly ineffectively at you from really far away. Some will be trying to get to you. Some will shoot at your companion. Most will shoot at your allies. 

You can nitpick if you like. If there's fifteen enemies shooting at you, that in no way changes my fundamental point.

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

You said that it's bad design because it balances around players. That's not bad design. Your changes ignore exactly what I have said, that there is simply no way to have one without the other, because both would be meaningless. A shield that powers go through when people spam powers all the day long would mean absolutely nothing, and something that block powers without a shield or some ridiculous stat inflation will be equally useless as it gets shot away as a minor annoyance. They would only make a meaningful difference when they were together,  which your design does not allow for, since the power nullifier would end up closer to us than to the shield and wouldn't stay in the shield long if we aren't in it, and if both of them need to be together to matter anyway, why split them in the first place? 

If there's no way to have one without the other, why do Ancients exist and work? Why do Combas, which force players to stop spamming long enough to locate and shoot them?

My design does allow for anti-debuffers to be in the same place with the shields, because unlike Nullifiers, these enemies have a priority to heal allies. And the shield doesn't go down under CC.

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Why was it in the same paragraph then? 

The first part explained why Nullifiers don't make logical sense. The second part suggested what DE may have been thinking, but explained why that didn't work. Your answer was dismissive, despite what you said earlier.

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

You would be able to just shoot them if they didn't have the shield. The suggestions below don't change that. 

But that point wasn't dismissive of the solution (hand the shield to one enemy), it was dismissive of the problem. The problem you also pointed out, which gives the impression that you aren't actually trying to have a discussion.

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

It is perfectly relevant. It's one of the few tools that can combat the stat inflation on the other side.

I know I'm splitting up your paragraph, but this here is failed design (you acknowledge this later in the paragraph--I'm not accusing you of ignoring it). Cheese cannot out-cheese other cheese. Only balancing us can fix things. Simply saying "make the enemies more cheesy" only makes that cheese more necessary for everyone.

And indeed, spam builds are the best for dealing with Nullifiers. Why? Because if they remove your ability, it is easy to put another one down as soon as you kill it. Non-spam builds don't have this benefit.

Maybe this alone is the best descriptor of the problem: there are foundational flaws with this game, but DE has anointed one enemy to try to fix them. Of course it doesn't work!

I don't intend for my suggestions to fix foundational flaws, because I understand that's a fool's errand. This suggestion allows for more interesting interactions between players and enemies than Nullifiers.

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Enemies can't deal with 10k damage a second. The 40k damage isn't going anywhere if the playerbase has anything to say about it, which they do. So how do you get an enemy to be relevant when they are surviving less than a second of combat? You can either force the stats up to make their impact relevant, or you can ignore player stats to give them more time to be relevant. There is not an in between. You can't ignore some of the damage when the rest of it is more than enough to kill you. If you ignore most of the damage, it's basically the same as stat inflation.  It's all or nothing. Which of these binaries will you choose for your units? Because the right thing to do would be to make it so that the damage the enemies will face will be lower so that mechanics that you mention have a place to shine. But that's not going to happen because nerfs are evil. 

This is a game built on increasing player power to fight more enemies with more health and more damage. So the solution (if we assume your restrictions) is to keep using that model and give players enemies that can handle that type of damage.

You're not looking at the problem right. The problem isn't the numerical amount of damage players can do, because the game has been built so that it can change. The problem is that the balance is so bad that some players do 40K with high level equipment while others do 15K with other high level equipment, giving enemies no balance point for health. Nullifiers don't fix that (see Simulor, Synoid), and neither would any other enemy. Only balancing can do so. Whether it's by buffing some and nerfing others, or if DE is really that intimidated, buffing everything, doesn't matter.

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Higher stats still mean more damage. Except when you're shooting at nullifiers. And things covered by the ancient healer aura. And bombards. And manics. And Bursas. And shield Dargyns. This isn't news. Lots of things have conditions for you to do your full damage to them. Hundreds of games work on this concept. This  isn't a lack of consistency, it's an addition of challenge. 

Your damage does scale against things covered by ancients. Shooting a low level enemy with a shotgun will kill it, ancient or not.

Your damage does scale against bombards. I actually have no idea what you mean here.

Your damage does scale against manics. Manics can get OHKO'd by the most damaging single-shot weapons, provided they're low level.

Your damage does scale against Bursas. What I said about Manics is also true for them.

Your damage does scale against shield Dargyns. I have no problems with getting people to aim--that's the point of a shooter. But if I hit a shield Dargyn with a single-shot weapon I will kill it, while with an auto weapon I won't be able to one-hit.

 

So no, not a single one of your examples works here, further underscoring my point (and that there are other ways to block da,age within the confines of a scaling game).

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Quite frankly, I don't have that kind of time. It takes an hour or more to type one of these things on a phone, and making it unnecessarily long when all of your units are based on a flawed premise is not what I want to do with my free time. Just that part about the strawman meant I had to read your comment, read my comment, go back to page one, read the OP again, flip back and forth to compare between the two, then come type a response that I had to scroll between your and my posts to make sure I'm not talking garbage. What I say is this: the nullifier is only a successful shield unit because of the factors you have split into 4 different units, making all of them extremely vulnerable to everything wrong with abilities and weapons. 

All of my units are vulnerable to something, or vulnerable at some point. That encourages variety--if you've been Loki running around invisible, and now the debuff enemy is upon you, you might find switch teleporting away from it a viable option. If you're a Nova that's been running M-Prime, but now a healer is fixing all the enemy troops, you might want to use AMD to dispatch with it. That's not a bad thing in any way.

Also, I admire your dedication. I wouldn't bother typing this much on a phone.

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Instead on one single highly visible easily targeted enemy, you now have 4 separate targets, only one of which is immune to powers, which would simply lead to pre U15 gameplay of spam spam spam spam spam shoot a random tough guy spam spam spam because players sacrifice fun for efficiency.

Pre-U15? You really think Nullifiers made all that go away? Again, no single enemy can fix broken mechanics.

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

If they are affected by CC, they would just join the others in lockdown. If they aren't affected by CC, they all just turn into personal nullifiers you have to deal with differently.  Meanwhile every other unit is left as defenseless as they were before nullifiers until the one that blocks powers shows up to stop that off, then he gets killed to death and the cycle continues.

Doesn't that depend on which frame you use and which abilities you use?

Besides, if the rebuffing enemy spawns half as often as Nullifiers it will be fine.

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

If you try something in between, you just end up with a very specific meta designed to deal with them. If the shield doesn't shield them from powers, it makes no difference because the whole point of the shield was to let them have an impact on you. The MOA  won't get a chance to start suction, and even if it did, they'd just kill it with a trollcannon,unless it did it from really far away. Even then, a frost can reset the globe instantly, and the ridiculously meta ones reset theirs every 8 seconds anyway. Preventing new debuffs depends heavily on when they spawn, and even then it won't matter unless they have a massive range and will still get CCd and killed to death. 

How is this any different than a bunch of players with Somas sitting inside a bubble? Again, you cannot fix broken mechanics with band-aids. It doesn't work. It's not working for Nullifiers.

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

The sniper rifle is nowhere as important as the bubble, and they don't rush until they have enough units to defend them. What do you expect them to do by themselves, go up and die? Because that's what it looks like you're expecting them to do. They're not in any hurry, you are. 

Nullifiers pace forward towards you. And going up and dying is ultimately what they do, every time, because they are snipers with an ability they need to be close to get use out of.

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

They shield them from afar to get close to you. They back each other up. You can shoot them from afar and get rid of the shield before they rush you, or you can go up close and get rid of the shield so that the group is  defenseless against your powers. There's more than one answer there. What you  do depends on your frame and playstyle. You act like the shield favoring doesn't shrink when you shoot it. It's not invincible. 

You cannot shoot from afar. That's playing a game of chance with the sniper the Nullifier has.

You can sometimes shoot them up close, when there's nothing consequential inside the bubble. But at these times the Nullifier doesn't matter.

You cannot shoot them up close when dangerous enemies are inside the bubble. If you try to cut down the bubble, you will get killed. If you try to slide in, unless you have long-range melee weapons or shotguns you will get killed.

All they do is force a specific meta. Tanky frame, or auto rifle, or Orthos.

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

They don't do much once they're there. They're just annoying. If there's enemies nearby then sure, they get a chance to come at you, but they just aren't that big of  a deal, especially if they don't shut down all your powers. I've only met a few, and I've killed them pretty easily without getting too much crossfire. 

So they work in combination with other enemies? This is a horde shooter; no common enemy should pose an insane threat alone. It is the combination of enemies that makes more challenge.

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Yes? 

First off, all non direct damage abilities are channeled by the frame for their continuous effects. You mean to tell me that there's enough water to strengthen ice to the point where it can resist and absorb gunfire, while keeping up a contained blizzard inside strong enough to slow enemies? Nope. The energy for that has to come from somewhere, and has  be maintained. Same with the conversion of matter. Something has to be keeping it in that state, not just one and done. Nullifiers block that. Plus, the blind is caused by NANOMACHINES SON, which could be shut down by an EMP much less something that blocks void energy, and nullifiers don't undo any damage done. 

You mean to tell me that all that energy will disappear if it's touched?

You mean to tell me that it takes energy, once bones are broken, to keep them broken?

And a blinding effect, activated outside a bubble that can be seen through, will affect those inside it.

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Your shield is a power. Powers are void energy. Void energy is dissipated by nullifier shields. This isn't even complicated. Why wouldn't it? As for why DE is doing this, maybe because weapon power and ability spam is way out of control, and the forums are constantly alight with those things staying exactly the same ad everything else changing around them? This  is one such change.

Again, touching some portion of the Void creation doesn't justify it all disappearing.

Again, bad mechanics can't be fixed by one enemy. Nullifiers don't do it either.

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Can you blame them? Nothing's changed. Everything, in fact, has gotten worse until very recently.

This alone shows my point. This game's balance got shot, and Nullifiers are a band-aid for children. It's still bleeding, it's still getting worse, it's probably getting infected at this point. The only thing that can actually fix stuff are things like the pre-Lunaro hotfixes; things that get to the source, not the symptoms.

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Nullifiers are still needed, and will still be needed until the current state of damage and power usage has been changed. If everything else could last more than half a second, then they wouldn't need such a strong shield. If powers didn't last half a minute and couldn't  be casted whenever,  then we wouldn't need to completely block powers. If damage was at a reasonable level, we wouldn't need to completely block damage. But these things are here, and they do cause problems. The nullifier is a counter to those. You get rid of them, we don't need nullifiers anymore. 

Where are the Grineer and Infested Nullifiers then? Nullifiers in no way, shape, or form are effective at dealing with the long-standing flaws of the game.

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

 

Yeah. 

 

First off, just because you have a sniper rifle doesn't make you a sniper.

But if you aren't a sniper, should you be using one?

3 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Next, snipers (at least those with bows) are usually paired with assassin's for debuffs using poison. Also, Zer0 has a couple of effects that can count as debuffs to close range targets. In fact, Zer0 ''s entire role was to be dangerous at very close and very far range, just lie nullifiers. XCOM had thin men that would debuff you when you came close with poison spit. There's one coming in overwatch as well. It's uncommon, but it has happened before. 

Snipers as one of a variety of tools? Perhaps. But simultaneously sniping while having close-range debuffs?

[(PSN)shadnic200]

And here I thought Bursas filled the niche

 

[Azrael]

I worry that if the arguing gets out of control, this thread will be dismissed as just another flame war...

I just want to say that I'm all for challenge and anti-cheese. If the nullifier were replaced with one or multiple enemies that were more challenging, and did a better job of stopping cheese, but didn't limit my loadout and frame choices as much, I would be happy.

One of the clear problems with nullifiers, imo, is that they are the *only* unit in the void that can stop ability spam. They have to be powerful, because DE put it all on their shoulders: "Stop tenno cheese! You're the only one who can!" If we split this task between multiple units, we could cut down on some of their own cheesiness.

 

48 minutes ago, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

And indeed, spam builds are the best for dealing with Nullifiers. Why? Because if they remove your ability, it is easy to put another one down as soon as you kill it. Non-spam builds don't have this benefit.

This is actually a really good point. A build meant to spam some cheap skill isn't harmed as much as someone who occasionally casts a long-duration ability. Once again, they fail at what they are meant to do: Instead of stopping cheap spamming with Excalibur, they stop things like magnetize and snowglobe and they dispel self buffs.

 

5 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

I've only met a few, and I've killed them pretty easily without getting too much crossfire. 

Wait, is this for real? You're telling us all about what nullifiers are like and that we're wrong about them, and you've only met a few? How have you even avoided them? I've killed hundreds, at very least! Maybe closer to a thousand, I'm not really sure. It's definitely been quite a few, and I've only been playing for a year. C'mon, man, "I've killed a couple of them without trouble" isn't really much of an argument...

[(PSN)NoVa_Erk]

On 10.7.2016 at 9:44 AM, PureIcarus said:

You were talking about Combas.... not Nullifiers. This is the first post i have seen where someone is actually talking about ways to fix or rework nullifiers... The vast majority before it were "Its Bad Design!" "Change it!" and they give no constructive effort...

While i personally do not support a nullifier change... i do support someone willing to take the time and make the effort to actually work out a solution and give ideas on the matter.

My ideas stationary abilities like snow globe are drained health by the bubble of nullies.  The timed abilities are drained the time and the energy drain abilities are draining faster while in a nullifier field. It is not balanced at the Moment in warframe so no one can use their powers anymore because of These nulli Master race 

[Top_Kekkonen]

Warframe abilities should not be removed/blocked by any mob in the game. imo