[Suggestion]Recovering the Challenge of Starting Out

[Kaotyke]

The comparisions between playing in a fresh account and having almost everything maxed is like comparing Day and Night.

When we start we have to take our time if we want to actually kill something, we cant go in guns blazing and they will all be dead. No, thats for later.

At the start we progress by breaking things and ducking into cover. Over time we stop breaking things, the sheer level of CC and damage we can output makes the enemies irrelevant...

But then we have the Sorties, its a step in the right direction except... the enemies are still with the "Horde" mentality and they are bullet sponges that can kill you so fast its not even funny.

Some people say that you need to make a better AI... and maybe they are right, but you said yourselves that it takes away processing power and the level of damage and CC we put out might be too much for the AI to do anything before its stunned or killed.

The challenge of the beggining of the game is the fact that we cant kill our enemies fast enough, they do enough damage to be threatening, but not overwhelmingly so, and we dont have a lot of CC options and I noticed: they DONT horde us.

My suggestion, to bring that kind of challenge back will require a few things...

1) The enemies may be bullet sponges to be able to take the amount of damage a fully modded weapon can dish out

2) They have a limit on how much damage they can give, like when we are starting: enough to threaten, but not to outright kill. Something like: 7 shots and your shields are down, 2 rockets and Shields down. (what I mean is: give the enemies a damage cap, make them thougher with level, harder to kill. But the damage output reaches a limit)

3) The level of CC we can dish out... we need to give enemies an unit that BUFFS them against CC, it does not make them immune, it does not nullify our powers, it gives them resistence. They become stunned for a second or two and them come back, the dimishing returns some enemies have. Make it an ability of an enemy unit and make it hard to kill by giving it high mobility, staying in the back or having a LOT of Armor (along with weakpoints to counter that), giving the buff from a distance, but cant attack, making them like the Ancient Heallers in a way: gives others proc immunity but without damage redution and with resistence to Warframes' CC powers.

4) Reduce the number of enemies spawning in those types of missions. The difference I saw with early game and late game is that the horde also increases, give us fewer enemy units in the level but make them actual ELITE units, like the synthesis target of Simaris: it has enough abilities to be hard to hit: It can fly like Hellions, but it keeps moving while in the air and not juts hover or use the Jetpack as a glorified Super Jump, they can turn invisble by a cloaking device to flank you, but can be seen because of the distortion in the space they are, can deploy Energy Shields that stops your bullets but they can shot safely forcing you to relocate because it has a cooldown or break the shield by brute force: shooting it non stop or running throught it because its imaterial, ALL of them have a way to try and evade a CQC Tenno if they are ranged units: fast Rolls, grappling hooks like Kela has... and the CQ units can close the distance fast or use cloaking to flank you, Enemy Radar wont detect them, but the Kubrows and Kavats can and will prioritize them if they are close enough to their owner.

5) The missions are unrushable: those enemies can trigger lockdowns immediatly without using a panel if a team is just passing by them, the only way to open the doors is to kill the one who gave the signal, as a precaution, the enemy will be marked and the door to be locked is the one 2 title-sets ahead of the player who is "leading".

Maybe with the lowering of the number of enemies, you will be able to do it without killing the processing power and actually giving the AI a chance to do things.

Of course, those types of enemies are not in every planet, you can keep the current gameplay of a horde shooter, but my suggestion is that those Units, Game Modes and Mechanics are unique to some special places like very high level planets, Alerts, Trials... Maybe make them like the current Fissure System, we can use them and they are always avalible, random title-sets and game modes and can happen in any planet.

Edited October 16, 2016 by Venom-Snake
grammar

[AurumandArgentum]

Wait are you suggesting that we get nerfed and enemies get buffed? PREPOSTEROUS ENEMIES SHOULD ONLY BE NERFED.

Sarcasm aside yea this would be good, because more enemies does not equal more challenge and make CC less godmode.

[Chipputer]

The problem with damage capping is that it completely neglects the feeling of progression. If you cap the player's damage then you're removing the ability for them to work for higher numbers. If you cap the enemy's damage, you're giving the players incentive to forego modding for survivability and, instead, mod for damage. Neither situation is preferable.

Take a look at Vindictus:
They cap your effective attack power stat at 10,000 over the enemy's defense (at least, they used to, not sure if they still do). If you have 18,000 attack and the enemy only has 5,000 defense, you're effectively only able to use 15,000 attack power. If you reach 10,000 attack over the current final boss's stats, the only effective option is to invest in survival stats from then on. This leads to players who are impossible to kill and also able to deal insane amounts of damage to the enemy.

[Kaotyke]

13 minutes ago, Chipputer said:

The problem with damage capping is that it completely neglects the feeling of progression. If you cap the player's damage then you're removing the ability for them to work for higher numbers. If you cap the enemy's damage, you're giving the players incentive to forego modding for survivability and, instead, mod for damage. Neither situation is preferable.

Then what can be done? Having enemies OHK you is undesireable and not a challenge, but an excercise in frustration, so it has to get a cap. I dont understand why you say forego survivabilty for damage, since our Survivability comes from Modding the Warframe and the Damage comes (Mostly) from the weapons.

I will have to change the OP a bit, I dont mean that to be for EVERY game mode and every planet, but from places considered "end-game" like Sorties or Higher level Planets.

[Chipputer]

Just now, Venom-Snake said:

Then what can be done? Having enemies OHK you is undesireable and not a challenge, but an excercise in frustration, so it has to get a cap. I dont understand why you say forego survivabilty for damage, since our Survivability comes from Modding the Warframe and the Damage comes (Mostly) from the weapons.

I will have to change the OP a bit, I dont mean that to be for EVERY game mode and every planet, but from places considered "end-game" like Sorties or Higher level Planets.

Scaling exists for the express purpose of forcing you out of missions you've spent a long time in. Nothing needs to be done to fix that-- it's working exactly as intended. Of course being one shot isn't a challenge. The challenge, then, comes from keeping yourself from even being touched.

I don't understand what there is to misunderstand about foregoing survivability for damage. When there's no reason to mod for higher survival why wouldn't you just use mods that let you deal more damage, or control longer, or hit further away? I'd drop Vitality for Overextended in the blink of an eye if I didn't have a reason to have more than 300 HP due to damage capping making it possible for me to survive level 100 enemies hitting me.

Making it only for "end game" doesn't change anything about what you're suggesting. At lower levels you're already able to survive. At higher levels you're suggesting making the higher levels of the enemies essentially mean nothing. It accomplishes nothing more but making it easier for you to survive in situations that are intended to kill you quickly or force you to pull out.

[Koldraxon-732]

I think we should start making use of the Forma/Catalyst/Mod Capacity/Exilus/Mastery information in how the enemies scale to us, while not having to change their level boundaries. This can be executed in a number of ways.

One possibility is in these spoilers, but this is just one possible concept, and thus isn't the only way.

Spoiler

 

One of these ways is to have Mastery and item level (influenced by 2x by Catalysts, Reactors or in some other manner) influence how effective weapons and Warframes are against the enemies of a certain boundary. For example, our current weapon/Warframe capabilities would work on missions of half the level, but the mods' effectiveness is degraded appropriately.

For missions over level 30, Reactors and Catalysts will enable the item to function with a slight boost to general damage until level 60, where the weapon and Warframe would be able to take enough punishment to fight back and kill them, albeit at a rate that isn't as mass-genocidal as it is now (as enemies would be fewer, but their squad configurations would have more meaning and much more potential for lethality, like a bunch of snipers with a bunch of tough, distracting, melee targets).

Mastery rank would add it's amount into the item's level maximum (60 with Catalyst/Reactor or 6 Forma, and that's not adding the MR into the mix) which would increase it's potency in high-level situations (82 with current max Mastery Rank of 22) and should give the Tenno (people) enough of a boost to get out of situations that would usually force us to run around or stun or die (such as Sorties, I would guess).

As for Sorties, they do not reward enough. I don't do them because of that exact reason; 3 missions for nothing.