Coming Soon: Special Enemy & AI Devstream #87

[jinxeverything]

1) As I walk around the Relay I see lots of NPC walking around but they do nothing at all (don't interact with anything, don't talk), and with their 'vast' numbers as is how would they handle an invasion? Will the NPC in this game ever have a purpose other than a placeholder Syndicate and quests?

2) I play as a client a lot and noticed that when I join a laggy host, doors tend to not to open immediately and I have to run around it to get it to open (for few seconds), can we get the ability to pre-load the mission so we don't suffer under laggy hosts? (assuming I got this right!)

3) Tenno are almost immortal but do they get hungry or are they truly immortal as in they don't food, water and even air to live, what are they now? 

[NoggDog117]

Will the Grineer Ballista and the Corpus Railgun Moa get looked into to make them keep their distance from us? With all the complex enemies being added in, such as the Scrambus and the Bursas, Kuva Guardians and Jesters, each have complicated engagement strategies (One of the Bursas locking down doors and hallways, Scrambus getting into a position to interrupt the most players, etc.) while the snipers seem to follow basic infantry patterns, and as such are usually on the front lines.

[Gremlin]

Can we get some small QOL updates on the weapon stats that show up in the armory? Mainly things like punch through, multishot, and also status duration stats, combo timers, etc. would be very cool! 

 

Also, is there any plans to add a squad system to certain enemies? It might be a good way for battles to feel more intense, when certain enemy squads synergize together (like a grineer scorpion with a bunch of butchers that swarm you when you get hooked).

[DX_Tenno]

Hello DE.

 

When we gonna get the new Hellminth Charger ?

I mean .... with the new design?

 

Thanks alot..... great game

[Nedow40]

Will the movement and pathfinding of the enemies receive an upgrade? I have seen, many times, Ballistas choosing to be at point blank distance, and Detron Crewman shooting at long range.

[Blakrana]

1) Considering the average lifespan of most enemies is rather negligible, what impact does that have on the morale of your efforts refining AI behaviour?

2) Where do you look for inspiration for behaviour patterns? Are there any somewhat unorthodox sources for the actual object in mind?

3) What's the biggest obstacle for programming; pathfinding, combat or idle?

4) How do you approach overall Enemy Design; aesthetically or mechanically and then build out from there?

5) What element of AI and Enemy Design do you consider crucial yet 'invisible' at the end result?

6) What AI behaviour/Enemy Design in other games do you consider either a benchmark or a goal for your own work in general?

7) Any amusing workarounds to make something 'work right'?

Either way, sorry for going on as ever.

[Lordnight5hade]

Will there be stronger AI on lower level planets, such as Earth? With the new graphics that are on the way for the surrounding foliage, it would be a shame to have no reason to run missions there.

[OpenGamefreak]

I dotn't knoow about anyone else but I have found the arena missions on Sedna to be a little slow pace, particularly Nakki. I personaly feel that the enemies either come at me too slow or that there needs to be a few more coming at me, usually both in Nakki's case. 

Are we going to be able to control some enemies like we did in the war within?

Love you DE and keep up the good work!

P.S. All though not enemy or AI related, I just wanted to add that it would be nice to be able to costumize Equinox' forms separatly or at least be able to choose energy color individually.

Edited February 1, 2017 by OpenGamefreak
added a P.S.

[FrozenFractals]

AI related question/toughts:

Current enemy placements in the heat of battle appears to be just hordes of enemies here and there (but mostly everywhere). Could there be enemy squads/platoons/fireteams, or any reasonable/recognizable military tactics? For the Grineer at least, since they are a faction driven by war and desire to conquer.

Infested could also have a ''hivemind'' tactic, spamming smaller and weaker enemies to distract their enemies from bigger and more important targets, usually healers/other ancients/mutalist moas. Not just a batch of weaker enemies that die before a ton of heavier units arrive.

Non-AI related question:

Any plans towards missions where the players' Operator is needed to use more often?

[--Q--Carl]

Hey DE, I was wondering if there's any planned changes for Bombards in the future? 1 issue I've been having a lot lately is their homing missiles following me if they shoot as/just before I stealth and their fire rate is a little difficult to deal with at times (in groups and/or at high level). Also is there any plans to change the knockdown mechanics at all? I've found myself in the position where I just cannot stand up at all until I'm dead because im either getting dragged or knocked down repeatedly with no option other than to sit there and wait until I die because moving or shooting isn't possible at that point.

 

I'm excited to hear what you guys have planned and I'm looking forward to the stream!

[Cynaren]

1) Can Tenno Specters get a 3rd mode besides "follow" and "hold" that lets them play like another player, engagigng enemies without following the player all the time?
2) Why Does the Chroma Effigy get Knocked back by knockdown effects? 
3) When are the Mini-Bosses coming?

4) Maybe Lesser enemies, Instead smarter organized enemies with battle positions/tactics/movesets besides just running towards a warframe in a sequential line or hiding behind visible cover waiting to get murdered.( possible?)
 

[oceano4]

AkVasto Prime? :'(

[YpsitheFlintsider]

Are you guys also giving Hema blueprints away? Because like

[-CAT-Drakulon]

I wanna new tennogen skin 

[OniDax]

1) I'm going to ask about melee-only enemies. Right now, all they do is hack and slash, as does the player. Have you ever considered making some special melee enemies more of a dueling type of enemy? By that, I mean, have you ever wanted to make fighting them more of a duel instead of the players quickly slicing through them? If you were ever to consider this approach, it would require changing how melee enemies fight, as well as how the player engages with such enemies. I recently played the For Honor Closed Beta, and they have a dueling-focused melee system. While it's more complex than what Warframe needs, it was basically a system where you enter duel mode by the press of a button; when you're not in duel mode, you're just hacking and slashing. When in duel mode, your camera is focused on your opponent, whether AI or player. You move your mouse in a specific position (top, bottom left or bottom right -  three corners of a triangle, really) to block an enemies attacks, and to strike your opponent, you have to move your mouse in a position that is different than that of your opponent. Again, while Warframe doesn't need such a complex system, have you ever at least considered having some kind of focused duel mode for special melee enemies (such as Prosecutors or Teshin's specters or Teshin, etc)?

2) Any chance on seeing some enemy visuals be reworked? For example, the default Grineer Capture target doesn't look like an HVT (High Value Target), and it'd be nice if he looked more like a Grineer Captain or something (maybe make him look kinda like the Seeker). Also, the Butchers look too militarized imo; it'd be interesting if the Butchers looked like the current default Grineer Capture target. That would also go along way to helping the Grineer look a bit more diverse with their enemy units. Also, there is no Frontier Ballista. Any chance on seeing a Frontier Ballista looks kinda like the Frontier Eviscerator?

3) Any plans on making the Corpus more aesthetically diverse? They either look like different-colored Crewmen, different-colored Moas, different-colored Fusion Moas, different-colored Ospreys, different-colored Bursas, or different-colored skateboard people. It be nice if the various Corpus enemies were unique (and adding reskins of the Rescue targets won't make them more diverse).

For the Crewmen, it'd be nice if they weren't just a bunch of jumpsuit wearing, box-helmet wearing mechanics. Some more security-looking Corpus enemies would be nice.

For the Proxies, well, I'd just like it if the Corpus had a greater variety of proxies; I'm not talking different versions of Moas or different versions of Ospreys. I'm talking about different kinds of robots altogether. Think about the variety of droids that you would find in, say, Star Wars (to use a popular example): protocol droids, trashcan-looking astromech droids, other trashcan-looking droids, big trashcan-looking droids, tiny trashcan-looking droids, floating-ball droids, enforcer droids, droids that roll up into a ball to move, anthropomorphic droids that march in single file and shoot guns, and so on. The point is, the Corpus proxies are extremely limited in their variety, and I'm asking if you have any plans on making the Corpus proxy army a much more varied force. I think adding in a greater variety of different kinds of proxies would go a long way towards fleshing out the Corpus as a faction (and everyone knows they need to be more fleshed-out). It'd certainly go a long way toward making them feel like a fully-fledged faction equal to the Grineer.

5) Have you guys ever considered adding randomly-generated minibosses for endless missions, such as elite enemy commanders or specialized snipers or expert swordsmen or bounty hunters? I'm not talking about the Juggernaut, where he's got a special condition for him to spawn. I'm talking about something more like the Bursas, an enemy which will spawn semi-rarely. And I'm not talking about an enemy that is invincible in the front, but that has some skill in terms of the way in which that enemy fights. Something like an occasionally-spawnign Grustrag Three miniboss.

6) Also, any chance that the Syndicate Death Squads could finally be updated to reflect the actual Syndicate allies? On a related note, any chance of seeing a visual rework to the Syndicate allies to make them look more like the Syndicate leaders? I only ask this because, were you to change the Death Squads, it'd be unfortunate if they were just a bunch of enemies wearing different-colored versions of the same jumpsuit (we really need to get rid of that jumpsuit model).Also on the topic of Syndicate Death Squads, have you ever considered having the Death Squads ignore players who are on the highest rank with those Syndicates? it'd be a nice touch for those enemies to not attack Tenno who are allied with them.

7) Any plans on organizing enemy Grineer and Corpus units into fireteams, squads, and/or platoons? It'd be nice if there was an order and structure to the Grineer and Corpus, especially the militarized Grineer.

Edited February 1, 2017 by AntoineFlemming

[MKZ4]

- when is oberion rework is coming and will there be a prime version of him coming soon?

- will we be able to extract endo out of our ranked mods without losing the mod its self?

(check this link to know what i mean) 

- also as u know....the ship has no purpose right now ....only to build your stuff and check kubrow an all that things......what about if we get missions for the ship that we can actually fly the ship and shoot stuff ...that will be amazing.

- and what about of making us change our fashion frame in dojo instead of leaving to change it then coming back again?

- also how about more mini games.....like volt races so people can race together with there volts to see whos faster ?

Edited February 1, 2017 by MKZ4

[danitot]

Currently, my warframe to-do list contains 1 thing: kuva farming.
I'm not into endless type kuva missions and rather going for floods.(I really don't run endless missions) And yet I have no kuva missions.
The question is: will we have any reason to visit the Kuva fortress for kuva? ( I think it makes sense that they strore it there somehow )
I'd love to have a reason to learn the tiles there, because I'm sure it's well made, but at the moment, it feels like a labyrinth with no sense at all.

Edited February 1, 2017 by danitot

[Jago47]

1) Will the acolytes make a return?

2) Will grineer commander changed in the futur so that they actually command other grineer to do something?

3) Will ther be a change to corpus snipers due to the fact that they are litherally Nullifiers without bubble, for example that they can become invisible for a short period (like the sergeant)?

[Nevyn]

Will we ever see a boss act like a Capture Target and try to get to their ship/teleport points? Political figures don't stand and fight, irl, they run for it protected by a shield of expendable  bodyguards (who could be eximuses in Warframe). Or at least have them show up anywhere on the map. For example, instead of the same cavernous stadium we always find Phorid in, how about letting the speed freaks find him behind Door Number One (or 2 or 3)?

The former aspect would require forethought and possibly disabling (all) means of escape for the assassination target whereas the latter would maybe force a team to stay together. I know they sound opposite but they both stress teamwork and communication.

[Pyus]

 

1 hour ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Please put your AI & Enemy Design focused questions in this thread!

When I equip Heavy Caliber on Javlok and Ogris they gain a special AI and shoot sideways because of a 98% accuracy reduction. Is this a long standing bug or a super awesome feature? 

Edited February 1, 2017 by Pyus

[Ditto132]

Are there going to be any AI optimizations (especially for infested) and tricks such as making them not "thinking" every frames (batching and stagging the AI updates).

[rafacasper]

2017 Wall of Questions

 

- There have been reports of players who got 60 or more rerolls and no "GODLY" stats. 60 rerrolls = more than 175.000 kuva = 145 flood kuva missions = 290 normal kuva missions. Is that intented? Is this player fated to never get a 300%+ "different damage sum" riven mod?

- What are examples for reasonable damage stats for a mod in the Dev´s opinion?- What is a reasonable average quantity of rolls to get them?

- Why the uncolorable back of deafult helmet of Nyx and Excalibur is still unchanged? If you make all frame colors white or light colors, those black parts will be always black, It has been like that for 3 years.

- Why operator jump needs 2 buttons instead of a single button?

- Can you take a look at the Hulta Armor from Loki Knave bundle? Right now it needs 2 color channels to color the "plate" parts the same color, and the colors have a very distinct effect than the normal colors, I mean, if you use a shade of blue on it and on any frame, they won´t look like the same colors, at least on my " all settings on low" pc potato.

- Why we can´t start the missions with the syndicates passives turned on?

- Can Trinity get augment that makes energy drain autocast able like Nekros dessecrate?

- Why can´t we get syndicate per account instead of per frame, like focus?

- Can turrets/ship air charges have a much lower timer to be more useful and more used? Maybe half the current time?

- Can the frame summoned companions like atlas golems, equinox´s augment, nekro´s shadows have health+shields+armor instead of life decaying/timer mechanics?

- Can beam weapons range become longer, maybe x2/x5 by default?

- Can Kubrows and Kavats get vaccuum, exacly the same way as sentinels too? Many people like me have no interest in ever trying them without the vaccuum.

- Can the sentinels get a review, so they get as much effective health as carrier?

- Any new news about shield efficacy improvments, like shield gate damage (if the shield is fully depleted, extra damage does not go to health) / or a shield armor/proto shield for frames and companions?

- Why there are no female corpus technicians? So far, female corpus are only the Comba units. Grineer have heavy gunners, Balistas, etc.

- Can Vauban´s Tesla be buffed? Vauban´s 1st ability is very weak compared to his others abilities or other frames 1st abilities and requires lots of clicks/casting to become barelly useable

- Can we be able to fight kuva guardians without using the operator? Right now using the operator´s powers is the only way, maybe if Kuva guardians have a damage reduction like prossecutors/sentients instead of invencible for example

- Can magnum force pistol mod get a change/buff? It is very weak whem compared to equivalent +damage corrupted mods

- Any news the new syndicate mods for weapons showed tons of devstreams ago released, like the +ammo for kunai?

- Can UI get a numeric meter for how much of operator energy we have while on that stage instead of color changing on the aim?

- Can we get glaxion/iginis/sonicor/torid/grenade launcher/crossbows for sentinels? More explosions please!

- Can red veil, perrin and steel meridian have new specters? It was said quite time ago those were kinda of temporary choices, and they never were changed.

- Why can´t syndicates sell forma bps and lenses?

- Why isn't there a token system for sorties?

- Why no female cephalon version of Ordis, or another liset cephalon?

- Any planned change riven mods to make them more afordable and have less rng? Like to be able to fix a certain stat, making kuva rerrols more expensive in compensation? Or rerroll what kind of weapon it is for?

- Can old tenno rails tileset be recycled and re-released as a full tileset? Maybe tenno orokin bases/junctions that are filled with turrets and specters?

- Can tenno specters be more widely avaliable as enemies?

- Can we have alternative colors/skyboxes for the tilesets we have - neptune, home of corpus, using jupiter tileset with arcology cities skyboxes for example?

- Can we have an option to leave bodies at the floor with blood/robot fluids? maybe set a timer and than only blood spots stay? Something as DOOM or Alien Shooter 2?

- Any news about new prisma weapons? There was no new prisma weapon on 2016.

- Any new news about baby´s first sentinel?

- What you think of an option to join only missions that have not started?

- What you think of transmogrifation for weapons sounds and looks (make my soma prme prime look like an opticor and sound like a boltor prime)?

- Can Nekros shadows of dead does not have health degradation anymore? Maybe with an augment?

- What you think about preimum skin of chroma without pelt, that appears only on effigy mode?

- Can excavators health get a raise in all nodes and scale with area level?

- Can we get a button to choose sub-skills instead of fast/slow clicking on ivara´s first and vauban´s 2nd? It will lower the mistakes of choosing the alternate fire instead of fireing it.

- What you think about change how the ability works to make equinox/atlas summoned creatures have life/armor/shields instead of duration?

- What you think archwing item pickup range and xp range buffs?

- Can we get neural sentries from Orokin towers as a boss? Maybe also derelict and infested version?

- Any news about archwing for having the old controls back yet (without 6 axis moviment)? People (as me) are suffering with motion sickness on new archwing controls

- Any news about a new tileset?

- Any news about the prime time teased moa-like sentinel from one of the game shows? Last time we heard that was at the time of aadvark companion.

- What you think of perrin sentinels be hyennas, red veil be balistas, loka be kubrows, steel meridian be shield lancers and arbiters of hexis be random specters of tennos?

- What about let us invert/mix the day/night/middle forms for equinox? For example, day form with skirt, night form with middle helmet! Also, option of the middle form to any form!

- What you think of take out duration from equinox agument clone/sepcter, let it have shields/life/armor/power based on the frame?

- What you guys think of all weapons should have at least one agumentation/syndicate mod? Maybe a task force like it was for PVP?

 

[ND259]

Just one question:

update on the new tenno shotgun? Thr pump-action one.

I have a mighty need, thanks!

[Kamoenix]

This question is kinda of half enemy design and combat question.

I know you've done alot with nullifiers at the moment, which I think alot of us can agree helps address the majority of the concerns we had with them. Although one thing still bothers me about them.

While on my Ivara / Loki and I do a stealth finisher on a nullifier using my Galatine Prime the first shot hits it for 99% of its life, at which point the nullifier which is basically impaled on my sword manages to activate his bubble, reveiling me before my next swing kills him.

Now, if I just go whack him without doing a finisher then I don't have this problem.

If there anything that can be done to fix this? 

[MartinVole]

New prisma weapons and/or other usable prisma gear when?