Enemy Vulnerabilities Need Reworking

[shygddt]

Some of the key problems:

 

- Infested are supposedly weak to fire, but fire does nearly nothing to them at high levels (60+) especially vs. ancients

- Similar problem with Corpus crewmen, but not as bad because they have a bigass weakpoint

 

This leads to:

 

- Increasingly bullet spongy enemies as both enemy health and armor increase with level

- Armor Pierce being the only effective element at high levels

- Armor Ignore/Pierce weapons outclassing the rest (not calling for nerfs, just saying other weapons should be viable at high levels too because I love my gorgon)

- Damage-based warframe skills becoming useless at high levels due to damage scaling (e.g. Crush)
 

I think a simple fix would be to have Electricity and Fire elements deal 100% damage to both Corpus and Infested respectively, without any damage scaling. Or, add in mods that allow warframe abilities/weapons to completely convert damage into Armor Ignore type (/cough puncture mods)

 

Ideas?

[PaperAlien]

Infested resistances are absolutely obnoxious, for the exact reason you stated, and also because they have innate resistance to AP, the one element that should be piercing armour. Also, armour shouldn't scale. Period.

Edited July 5, 2013 by PaperAlien

[Troublechutor]

Aside from complaints about the plat/incentive models in place, high level resistance threads are the most common topics around.

 

I'm willing to bet that they know about this already.

 

+1 for what it's worth.

[lstalri]

Aside from complaints about the plat/incentive models in place, high level resistance threads are the most common topics around.

 

I'm willing to bet that they know about this already.

 

+1 for what it's worth.

Lol, something like that. 

 

 

I agree that that the infested crawlers resistance scaling is pretty ridiculous, but the ancients foot and head do not scale at all, ever.  Which means they will always take the same amount of damage.  The current vulnerabilities system doesn't just reward a player for hitting the proper location, towards the higher levels it starts to require people to hit them, else they don't do anything to the target.  This is why AI (armor ignore) and AP (armor piercing) weapons are so coveted in game: because people don't have to aim properly in order to continue doing damage. 

 

Personally, I don't have an issue with this system.  That may be because I play with almost exclusively snipers, so I'm used to hitting vulnerability locations anyway, but as difficulty goes up, I don't see why you can't demand more from the players than to simply put out bigger, badder numbers.  What's wrong with forcing the players to take their time and hit a weak point instead of being able to spray their entire body with bullets and they die anyway? 

[shygddt]

I agree that that the infested crawlers resistance scaling is pretty ridiculous, but the ancients foot and head do not scale at all, ever.  Which means they will always take the same amount of damage.  The current vulnerabilities system doesn't just reward a player for hitting the proper location, towards the higher levels it starts to require people to hit them, else they don't do anything to the target.  This is why AI (armor ignore) and AP (armor piercing) weapons are so coveted in game: because people don't have to aim properly in order to continue doing damage. 

 

Personally, I don't have an issue with this system.  That may be because I play with almost exclusively snipers, so I'm used to hitting vulnerability locations anyway, but as difficulty goes up, I don't see why you can't demand more from the players than to simply put out bigger, badder numbers.  What's wrong with forcing the players to take their time and hit a weak point instead of being able to spray their entire body with bullets and they die anyway? 

 

I agree with you about the aiming part, but you have to consider pure damage-based frame abilities which can't target weak points (for example, Ember vs. high level infested) Incidentally, this is why CC frames are so desirable right now, for their ability to give players more time to aim.

 

Look, I get that this is a co-op game, and if DE intends there to be such a gulf then so be it. I'd just like some variety in the endgame.

[lstalri]

As for Ulti's:

Embers flame damage doesn't (shouldn't) scale towards resistance.  If you've read the wiki, it deals 2x damage to its infested targets, rather than what the actual resistance of the target is.  Saryn is poisen.  Rhino has reports of being AI (armor ignore).  Ash is AI and does 3x damage to light infested (could use a speed increase and some fixes with the targeting to make it a little more practical, but the damage aspect of it is just fine).  Excal is AI.  Corpus do not scale in electrical resistance (don't quote me on the crewmen, I don't remember their scaling resistances off the top of my head), and therefore overload will always turn corpus to goo.  Crush is always known as being useless and most definitely needs either a complete rework or an insane buff.  And avalanche is just an awkward unnecessary addition to the role that frost place.  Any other ulti should be looked at for its CC or Utility rather than its damage (this include banshee's sound quake because of the 6 second stun she induces, allowing others time to catch their breath). 

 

Conclusion: no, ulti's are, in general, not a huge concern when it comes to resistance. 

 

Other well-known damage output skills:

Banshee's Sonar: scales with the weapon the user uses

Ash/Loki's cloak: scales with the weapon the user uses

Ash's Shuriken: AI and does 3x damage to light infested

Saryn's venom: no poison scaling as of yet

Vauban's tesla: scales poorly because corpus just gain lots and lots and lots of hp, otherwise it doesn't really change in how it works.  It still stuns (although bastille/vortex does a much better job a cc in that regard)

Excaliburs Slash Dash: AI(armor ignore)

Ember's abilities: refer to ulti, should have the same multipliers for all skills and ignore resistances (constant 2x damage to fested, otherwise it does normal elemental scaling with corpus/grineer). 

Frost's Ice wave: could use a little more CC (maybe a slight knockback) to go along with the slow, otherwise it just ends up being a damage skill, but not what it should be viewed as for the long term

Nyx' psychic bolts: No idea why you're using this, but you actual can target a vulnerability spot by zooming in on it after casting the ability

Rhino Charge: for the knockdown/back, not the damage

Volt: scales the same way as her ulti

 

Conclusion: Resistences show that already bad skills really are bad, or it draws out another + side of the skill that it should really be used for instead of the damage that it happens to do. 

Edited July 5, 2013 by lstalri

[shygddt]

Not sure where you got that information, but Ember's abilities are listed as affected by resistance on the wiki, and Corpus crewmen also have resistance to electricity (also from the wiki)

 

I know there are AI abilities, but imo the pure damage/element damage abilities need to at least ignore armor vs. enemies with weaknesses towards them.

[fatpig84]

Makes sense for what it's worth.