Enemy Dynamics And Some New Ones

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Right now, the enemies we have aren't anything special in most cases.  They don't generally cause you to behave differently and adapt to the situation.  You just press 4 or hold LMB until everything's dead.  There's generally not a lot of target prioritization other than whatever is closest to the reticle.  Shield Ospreys and Riotshield Grineer are perfect examples of enemies that change how players play, even if the change is often small.  As such, I present the following enemy types, hoping that they would force players to adapt when they are present as they each provide new mechanics for players to work around.

 

I've included some very rough images to give the gist of what I'm thinking of in some cases.

 

-Corpus-

Swan: relatively large Osprey-like drone

-Armament: none

-Abilities: can fly over to nearby recently fallen enemies (before the carcass vanishes) and revive them with 50% health.  Does not work on bosses and does not undo irreparable damage (bifurcation, vaporization, etc can't be undone; those enemies stay dead).  Rez'd enemies when killed again give half affinity from the first time and cannot be revived again.

-Health: low

-Armor: does not scale with level

-Shields: medium

-Speed: very fast

-Weakpoints: head = 200%, underside = 100%, all else = 50%; electrical damage does double all these and AP does 300% to head and 150% elsewhere

 

Suppressor: tall, thin shield-projecting drone that hovers a short distance off the ground

-Armament: none

-Abilities: projects an impassable shield (including to other shields) from both sides of its vertical shaft, protecting allies and blocking paths.  For clarification, the shield moves with it, effectively like an energy tower shield except there is no shield in the middle where the Suppressor is, so the Suppressor is still vulnerable while the shield is up.

-Health: high

-Armor: low scaling with level

-Shields: has no personal shields, but projected shields are impassable to all but energy weapons

-Speed: slow

-Weakpoints: 200% to head (at bottom of vertical column), 25% to front, 100% to back; same weaknesses as Swan to electrical and AP

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qnseol1vybsddop/IMAG0321.jpg

Top is Swan, bottom is Suppressor

 

-Infested-

Integrate: large, tentacled slug-like being that spawns from walls and travels through them when threatened

-Armament: effectively tentacle-slaps the player, dealing minor damage that heals the Integrate.

-Abilities: spawns from particularly bad infection sites of the ship, akin to the crewman on the Flying Dutchman in Pirates of the Caribbean that has become part of the ship.  When threatened, it will retreat to its spawn point for several seconds, vanishing from view before entering through a random infection site in the same room in an "enraged" state several seconds later.  This only occurs once per Integrate.  An Integrate is considered "threatened" when its health drops below 40% and attacks twice as fast and moves at full speed when enraged.  An enraged Integrate cannot be staggered.

-Health: very high (higher than Ancients)

-Armor: none

-Shields: none

-Speed: slow when first spawned, moves fast when in "enraged" or "threatened" states.

-Weakpoints: same as other light infested with exception that instead of its head being the weakpoint, the seam on its chest and face is

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/me48tshg8f733we/IMAG0320.jpg

 

-Grineer-

Commando: jet-black armored Grineer that isn't as top-heavy as traditional grineer; spawns in groups of four

-Armament: heavy burst rifle, dealing high damage at medium range

-Abilities: no specific ones, just that AI is enhanced from default units, causing them to do things like focus on the weakest target in range

-Health: moderate

-Armor: less than standard Lancers

-Shields: very weak shields

-Speed: moderate by default, can sprint or roll when trying to get to cover

-Weakpoints: head takes double damage to body value; body values similar to Lancer defensive stats, only lessened

 

Siren: camouflaged female Grineer that prefers melee combat

-Armament: carries a silenced Kraken and has an armor-ignoring wrist-blade

-Abilities: can stealth, becoming much more difficult to see unless you are specifically looking for movement.

-Health: low

-Armor: unarmored

-Shields: none

-Weakpoints: same as Powerfist Grineer

Edited July 1, 2013 by Volt_Cruelerz

[inorite3]

When I saw the words "tentacle slug-like" I was instantly reminded of tubifex worms.

They're pretty gross, so I don't know if you want to look them  up.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Looked them up.  Don't really find it that gross..

 

Anyways, that's not exactly on-topic.

Edited July 1, 2013 by Volt_Cruelerz

[Madotsuki]

Interesting ideas, +1 and bump.

Swan: I don't think this one would be very useful, since the sheer amounts of ways to gib people (ice, sharp melee, cube etc.) would give them very few targets to actually revive. Plus, it would be possible to exploit the Swan for xp by keeping a few alive to continuously revive crewmen for cheap kills.

Suppressor: I like the idea of a corpus unit that can deploy barrier shields instead of personal shields, but I would prefer a Crewman for the job instead of an individual droid.

Integrate: Seems really hard to implement as an enemy, and doesn't really seem to do much that the other existing units can't anyway aside from being able to hide in walls to annoy players.

Commandos: A great addition as an advanced unit on higher levels.

Siren: Invisibility doesn't seem to fit the Grineer theme, it fits the Corpus more. Plus, Grineers have 4 light melee units already, we don't really need more right now.

[Tsukinoki]

I like the ideas, except for the suppressor and here is why:

They spawn in a short hallway, none of the lower level party has any energy weapons, the shield completely fills the hallway, the suppressor is now invincible and the party cant continue.

That is one HUGE issue with the suppressor idea is its ability to make missions completely uncompletable, similar to how saryn's molt used to be when some troll tossed it down blocking access to the area beneath stairs in the ship levels.

Making something that completely blocks player movement and weaponry could make any corpus level completely impossible to finish.

One thing I would like to mention though is that with the name suppressor I think what would work better is that it projects a field around it that either:

Disables shield regeneration

OR

Disables ability usage

Either of these could work because we know the corpus have been capturing Tenno cryo pods to experiment on. They could have developed technology that blocks our ability usage, doesn't drain energy just when you try to use an ability you get an error message, or doesnt drain our shields, just prevents them from regenerating if they get damaged.

That would create a challenging enemy as well and wouldn't run into the issues stated above.

Edited July 1, 2013 by Tsukinoki

[Clarencezer]

When I saw the words "tentacle slug-like" I was instantly reminded of tubifex worms.

They're pretty gross, so I don't know if you want to look them  up.

Lol i looked them up,now i feel like they are all over crawling under my skin :d

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Interesting ideas, +1 and bump.

Swan: I don't think this one would be very useful, since the sheer amounts of ways to gib people (ice, sharp melee, cube etc.) would give them very few targets to actually revive. Plus, it would be possible to exploit the Swan for xp by keeping a few alive to continuously revive crewmen for cheap kills.

Suppressor: I like the idea of a corpus unit that can deploy barrier shields instead of personal shields, but I would prefer a Crewman for the job instead of an individual droid.

Integrate: Seems really hard to implement as an enemy, and doesn't really seem to do much that the other existing units can't anyway aside from being able to hide in walls to annoy players.

Commandos: A great addition as an advanced unit on higher levels.

Siren: Invisibility doesn't seem to fit the Grineer theme, it fits the Corpus more. Plus, Grineers have 4 light melee units already, we don't really need more right now.

Swan: perhaps re-killing doesn't give exp then?

 

Suppressors: Deploy isn't perhaps the right word.  The idea was for it to carry them with it, making it a mobile tower shield in effect.

 

Integrate: spawning from the walls is the main thing, nothing else is terribly elaborate.

 

 

I like the ideas, except for the suppressor and here is why:

They spawn in a short hallway, none of the lower level party has any energy weapons, the shield completely fills the hallway, the suppressor is now invincible and the party cant continue.

That is one HUGE issue with the suppressor idea is its ability to make missions completely uncompletable, similar to how saryn's molt used to be when some troll tossed it down blocking access to the area beneath stairs in the ship levels.

Making something that completely blocks player movement and weaponry could make any corpus level completely impossible to finish.

One thing I would like to mention though is that with the name suppressor I think what would work better is that it projects a field around it that either:

Disables shield regeneration

OR

Disables ability usage

Either of these could work because we know the corpus have been capturing Tenno cryo pods to experiment on. They could have developed technology that blocks our ability usage, doesn't drain energy just when you try to use an ability you get an error message, or doesnt drain our shields, just prevents them from regenerating if they get damaged.

That would create a challenging enemy as well and wouldn't run into the issues stated above.

 

You misunderstand.  The shield is projected to either side of the suppressor, effectively forming a tower shield.  The Suppressor is still vulnerable while the shield is up because there is no shield in the middle (where it is).  So it's not remotely capable of blocking a hallway permanently.  Just shoot the darn thing and the shield goes down.

 

I wouldn't mind other drones that had those effects though.

[Tsukinoki]

@Volt_Cruelerz

With how you put it "On both sides" I took it to mean front and back, and just wanted to bring it up. Im not trying to rag on your ideas, just hammer out some of the finer points and bring up some potential issues with it.

Thank you for clarifying on that, though I will say that they would still need to be careful to only allow one to spawn at a time, otherwise you could get two that are just slightly angled and therefore block an entire hallway and at the same time protect each other from gun fire.

From the top down view it would look like this:

|. .|

| X |

|/ \|

The '.' are the suppressors and the X is the cross section of the shields, the '|' is the walls of the hallway. (Sorry for the horrible ascii art, I hope that it helps with understanding what Im trying to say though)

Again, not trying to rag on your ideas because I actually like them and think they would be a great idea to include in the game, Im just trying to work out potential problems that may crop up and help you refine things.

Edited July 1, 2013 by Tsukinoki

[Volt_Cruelerz]

The shields are solid objects, they can't pass through each other like that.

[Tsukinoki]

@Volt_Cruelerz

Im just bringing it up to clarify everything.

And that would take a bit of working with the engine to make on/off barriers that cant pass through each other, because you then have to think of how they would interact with door ways, elevators and the rest.

Overall, i will say again that its a pretty solid idea that just needs a bit more hammering out and careful thought but it could honestly work out very nicely.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

@Volt_Cruelerz

Im just bringing it up to clarify everything.

And that would take a bit of working with the engine to make on/off barriers that cant pass through each other, because you then have to think of how they would interact with door ways, elevators and the rest.

Overall, i will say again that its a pretty solid idea that just needs a bit more hammering out and careful thought but it could honestly work out very nicely.

Not really, just do a box volume check on either side of it before deploying the shields.  If it's free, deploy.  If not, wait.  The shields then would just be their own solid object meshes that would just be mounted to the Suppressor.  Not terribly elaborate.

 

Or you could do what the mobile defense mission does and just not spawn the collision box until after it's deployed and then things currently inside just move out at some point.

Edited July 1, 2013 by Volt_Cruelerz

[Harazard]

How about an Grineer Clone who is an part of failed clone experiment to make tougher grineer and this soldier will act purely like an juggernaut  with an charge attack like Ancients and using short range punches which are slow but extremely effective.And it's biggest weak spot is it's back of the grineer so greatest way to deal against them is to use the Juggernaut's  slow movement to go behind him and shoot like a boss but be wary the jugg will have lots of HP to compensate his weakness.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

How about an Grineer Clone who is an part of failed clone experiment to make tougher grineer and this soldier will act purely like an juggernaut  with an charge attack like Ancients and using short range punches which are slow but extremely effective.And it's biggest weak spot is it's back of the grineer so greatest way to deal against them is to use the Juggernaut's  slow movement to go behind him and shoot like a boss but be wary the jugg will have lots of HP to compensate his weakness.

I feel like the Grineer would just execute that clone.  Even if they didn't, I don't feel like that matches the theme of the Grineer very well.  Unless of course we had different enemies at each planet.  If there was a planet that had the primary Grineer cloning facilities, then having the periodic juggernaut wouldn't be inappropriate.  But right now, I feel like we need more in the standard brew before we start adding seasonal spices.