The Second Stream Podcast: Enemy Designs, Trials, Clans, & More!

[[DE]Drew]

We're back for Episode 10, and it's extra long this week! We cover a nice range of topics, and we had a chance to dig deeper with several enemy designs and upcoming concepts. 

 

Guests:
Brozime -  https://www.youtube.com/Brozime
@theclinton - https://forums.warframe.com/profile/95982-theclinton/
TGDM - http://www.tennoclocknews.com/

Also available on iTunes & Google Music!

[(PSN)Mofojokers]

1. Wait and see.

2.  "Warg".

3.  Not the direction i want to see. I really wish you guys would just balance mods instead of this direction.

4.  Please be careful with this we intend to do it. But Warframe is very casual side with alot of reasons to need breaks from it.

Clan of 10 friends may only have 7 members and out of that 3 active and rest burnt / taking a break or just very casual players.

5. Really depends you shouldn't even consider this until you finish working on the current Tenno / skill system. Including movement and their abilities as well as the amount of bugs with it at the moment should be sorted first.

Edited February 4, 2017 by (PS4)Mofojokers

[Cyborg-Rox]

Wow, that was fast

[lukinu_u]

The new weakpoint system on eximus could be a very cool additon to nerf Simulor, Tonkor and co if they are not affected by AoE weapons.

[JudgeXion]

4.Other: my clan will join, but only if it's possible for me to do it alone because rest of my clan hasn't really played in a long time. Heck, my leader hasn't been on for like 2 months. 

And the longest is reaching 300 days. 

So I will participate alone if possible. 

[ensignvidiot]

1. I like em

2. Bobcats

3. HATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATE. I really do not like the trend of using invulnerability as difficulty. The prosecutors elemental sheilds are a better start in my opinion. Play with 90% Damage reduction, instead of 100%. Give enemies interesting mechanics to kill them like the Kuva Gaurdians. Or, for infested, give them a "projectile dampening feild". All player-based weapon projectiles more at 90% speed near the eximus, but still deal full damage. It would encourage more melee iMO

 

If you guys are just going to do it anyway and force us to deal with it, at least make sure the weak spots don't spawn on the BACK of the enemy. Not all warframes are cabable of stunning/distracting enemies to get on the other side.

 

4. I like it. When it ships, it will actually get me to attempt to revive my clan and try to recruit again.

 

5. ONLY IF Operator Mode is tweaked and is finally connected to the Focus system. It's too weak currently to warrant a gameplay mission.

Edited February 4, 2017 by ensignvidiot
Clarifying 3

[jinxeverything]

3. Other :

The thing is I play as a client most of the time and thanks to lag which is normal to me by now the weak point will be unshootable/ super hard to hit for me (like 90% of the time) so if the game spawn like 1-2 enemies with weak point it would be reasonable BUT if almost all enemies are like this then it's another faction to avoid *cough* Corpus *cough*.

Also 1 weak point on the body please otherwise Eximus would become nightmare to deal with :(

Can I ask for the ability to "turn off" an  enemy ability when we shoot a weak point? like when we hit a weak point on an Ancient it would turn off their healing ability! 

[Melos-mevim]

I bloody well hate the proposed exmus changes and the reason is you guys seem to confuse the different between a gear in the meat grinder and then the whole game becoming an intolerable annoying slugfest where we  drag ourselves through the mud.

 

Enemies like Nulifiers, ancients and these proposed new eximi would be great for the game if you guys could learn to limit their spawns the way things are they are less of speed bumps on the road and more along the liens of going off road racing with a wooden carriage it ruins the flow of the game.

 

If you guys can learn to limit the spawns of the enemies themselves (there should never be more than 2 nulifiers ever in a room, or it should take awhile before I see the next ancient healer) these things would honestly be great ideas but as things stand now they ruin way to many playstyles (as a melee player I'm screwed and will have to quit the game if the eximi changes are made) they will become more of the road bumps and meat grinder pauses you want and less of the insufferable game breaking experiences we get

[Trichouette]

 

4. From what was shown on "Kingpins", do you think your Clan will participate in them?

 

Yeah my clan will probably participate since there is NOTHING ELSE TO DO

[IsabelPluto]

3. Mesa's peacemakers can target invaluable enemies what happens when most of the place is filled with these types of eximus? Am I just going to keep hitting invaluable targets? Cause I can see that getting frustrating.

Edited February 4, 2017 by LittleBearHugs

[Sleepy_time]

15 minutes ago, Prinny13 said:

Can I ask for the ability to "turn off" an enemy ability when we shoot a weak point? 

 

I really like this idea, it goes along the lines of the nullifier bubble change.

[-.A.-Grabbelmann]

Remove energy leecher pls then you can do the weakpoints....

[NecromancerX69]

1.- Can we get a Mini Hyena pet please <3

 

3.- I don't want to depend on aoe weapons to do sorties now. Yes, I am aware they wont spawn often, but I don't want to know how it will look like on a Eximus Stronghold with at least 5 annoying you on a def mission or something.

Maybe if the eximus with weakpoints only spawned ONCE, it's immune to warframe powers, they drop a very rare wanted mod and its weakpoints are hard to kill (cause its a really rare unit and it spawns only once). I will like it this way.

 

4.- Most likely only part of my clan will participate while the rest are afk doing other things. What worries me it's the penalties the Kingpin will send our way...

For example:

                      Lets say my clan only has 4 active members on a storm clan, we try to do the mission and get the kingpin angry.

                     (I am still not sure how it works the kingpin sabotage on our clan structure or clan members so I am making a supposition).

                     The angry kingpin sabotages our foundry and can only be repaired by finishing the kingpin.

                     Since we are only 4 active members will have to deal with the foundry disabled... And do a lot of missions just to find the kingpin...

                     It reminds me of the Hema problem.... This is what worries me, sure maybe you won't sabotage our foundry, but not knowing how it will affect us worries me since

                     it will take time for my clan to deal with the problem. I hope I am just wrong and the Kingpin sabotage wont be as scary as what I am supposing.

[duhadventure]

3. 
I made a thread on my opinion.

 

[Raniu]

1. Impression on mini Hyena:

• I don't like it (post an explanation below)

I really like the Hyena that appeared on Proxy Rebellion and Proxy Retribution. It appears that I wasn't alone. People wanted these to appear regulary on endless missions.

I think they could be spawned instead of mini robots by some crewmen. The Corpus would have a proper pet summoner rather than some easy-to-kill-distraction summoner.

2. Name for mini Hyena:

• Other (post your idea blow)

As I said, I'd like the Neptune boss Hyenas to appear on missions ^^ Their names would remain unchanged.

3. First impression on Eximus weak points.

• I like it - as long as they reduce damage taken by 75%, or, sure, 90% even. But not 100%. Pls.

4. Clan participation in Kingpins.

• Yes, we'll participate for sure!

5. Operator only missions and/or objective

• Yes! Let me use my Operator more.

[DragonsRain]

1. Looks interesting, but since the spawner is infinite I see myself getting overrun very fast

2. Terrors

3.I love the eximus weakpoint, but the spawnrates they talked about on stream seem very high, 50% spawn chance over lvl 50 0_o what? I think I would struggle with a 1/10 spawnrate..

4. I run a shadowclan on my own, my friends play from time to time, but I do almost everything myself, got ALL research solo (including hema), did the events solo, build the event statues solo.. You get the point.. So, this seems like something my clan would rarely do because I am not one to maintain those things.. I rarely raid/sortie, so this seems something I won't do often either.. And then there is another problem.. If I where to go my usual tornado of death mode and blast my way trough the ranks.. Do my other clanmates get to do anything after I cleared it.. When they where to want it..

5. Operator only missions... I'm not sure..first the operators need to be worked out a LOT more

Right now the operators feel like a gimmick they just slapped on..

I play warframe because there is this HUGE costumization to it.. But the operator doesn't have that. Its just an operator.. You can color it.. But every operator can do the exact same thing.. And not that often..

In the quests and lore the operators are depicted as beings with near unlimited power.. Yet you run out of power in a couple sec.. It feels just a bit too limiting for me to have fun.. The operators feel like a dead end.. You can turn human and shoot a laser.. Then what? You can't increase damage, you can't increase your surviveability .. They have HUGE potential to add to the gameplay, but right now, its just really basic..

Then the tought of them having their own gamemode.. It sounds great.. But so did archwing..and now its there.. I grind a fomorian event once or twice a year to get a ton of resources for fusion.. I can honestly not remember I went into archwing for something other then mastery.

So, think of the amount of time, effort, rage and bugfixes it would take to make compared to what it would add to the overal game.. It sounds cool but be realistic

Sorry for the somewhat negative tone. I love the idears but excecution is key

Edited February 4, 2017 by DragonsRain

[Krion112]

Mini Hyena for Sniper Crewman

I'm assuming this enemy is designed to help keep distance between the Sniper Crewman and oncoming enemies. While I can appreciate that, maybe instead of just being a distraction, it could also cloak the Crewman it was summoned from, to make an escape much easier. This cloak would last until the Mini Hyena or Fabricator is destroyed.

And then, the behavior for the Crewman would be to get at range, and fully charge their Lanka, in order to properly enact an ambush by the time their cloak is dealt with.

I voted to call it a 'Coyote', but I'd also suggest calling it a 'Tracker' because, one, it could suggest that the Sniper uses them for something outside of combat (ie, pathfinding and recon), and two, it was the name of my Dog, and because this is a companion unit for the Sniper Crewman, it would make sense to provide it a name or title related to Dogs.

 

Eximus Weakpoints

The issue here is not the Weakpoints themselves, but that Eximus even exist in the first place. They only serve to overlap with potential unit role slots; I'd suggest eliminating them entirely, replacing them with global powers for each of the factions.

For example, Infestation could get Technocyte Augmentations, in which auras and abilities would be applied to individual units by a greater power (ie, we see a swarm of Technocyte surround a unit, and then that unit has an effect around them that demonstrates an aura, such as Venom or Leech). Or, for Corpus, make an advisor that utilizes the security cameras as eyes and ears, and each time we get detected by one, the advisor starts preparing defenses down the line, such as preparing blockades of Moas and Ospreys, preemptively enabling turrets, or activating lockdowns on their own.

In other words, replace Eximus with the ability for each faction to essentially be benefited by unseen forces in ways that support their game-play.

 

Syndicate / Kingpin Assassination

I don't foresee this system being very satisfactory, and it seems like it will require big clan interaction, which already means I have something new to not do because I'm a one-man-clan. And the reason I am running a solo clan is because I wanted clan tech, without the drama and hassle of dealing with other players on a management level. And if I recall, DE already gave us the information that the majority of Clans in Warframe are maintained by loners, so trying to make clans interact with themselves seems kind of counterproductive.

Also, as I pointed out last Second Stream topic, I fear that building a whole other system is irresponsible when there's plenty of other things that need completion and repair. I get, you must implement new implementations often to maintain cash flow, but I'd argue not when adding new things is what's sinking your ship.

 

Operator Requirements

Here's the thing: Archwing was made as a separate element, and it failed. Conclave was made a separate element, and it failed. See, the problem with these things is we have to be forced to play them at all, and the problem to begin with was that these systems were taken too far away from the base game.

I was hoping the Operators represented another set of options for base game-play, not the only option. That's kind of the problem with Kuva missions, there's only one way to deal with the Guardians and Siphons. For sure, I want the Operator to be able to do more things; perhaps Lua, Towers, and Derelicts could have unique puzzles that need to be solved by Operators. Perhaps some unique Orokin Enemies, like the Golden Maw, are vulnerable to Transference, and can be hijacked. Heck, I want to be able to use my Operators beam attack to recharge my Warframe's energy, or any number of different effects that can be thought up based upon Focus. But making the Operator the only way to accomplish something also seems problematic, in the same way as forcing us to play Archwing and Conclave is a problem.

Don't force my hand; just make it satisfying to use, and inevitably people will absolutely use it. Don't segregate game-play, make it intertwine.

Edited February 5, 2017 by Krion112

[NightmareT12]

Will only comment on Eximus Weak Points, as the rest is pretty much fine and dandy. I'll vote of course :P

I'm not against Eximus Weak Points, in fact it's something that will spice up the gameplay, but there's two things to watch out for: Enemy Spawn (how many of each does spawn) and Eximus Stronghold.

Now, on Enemy Spawn: The issue is sometimes you will have a couple or three Eximus, which could be any grunt unit, accompanied of already annoying units by themselves.

Imagine this scenario: 3 Ancients, 4 Chargers, a Mutalist Moa or two, a Brood Mother and a couple of Eximus, one with weakpoints. If you want, maybe you can say a Juggernaut was nearby.

That would be hell. To simply put it, what you'd want is an enemy that behaves like a Juggernaut, which is exactly what a "mini boss" would be, but that wasn't so obscenely annoying to destroy if things get wrong. What you'd also want, is balance which kind of enemies are being thrown at our faces. I made the Infested comparision because it's what was shown in Stream, but let's put the Grineer as an example: Imagine 3 Bombards, 3 Heavy Gunners, a Hyekka and a few normal units. That's hell to deal with as soon as you make a single mistake. Sometimes the Bombards will simply know you down without knowing why.

So again, what you want is for the armies to make sense. Lowest units are more common, higher ranking units are more rare. And you want to detach them from Eximus, you need to properly make the units like Bursas, Juggernauts and Manics but with refined mechanics.

Basically what the AI folks described for the new Sentient carrier unit: If you see one he needs to be high priority target.

I think the biggest issue though is that you introduced Eximus 3 years ago when things were different but you have been introducing lately more interesting ideas, and the Eximus have aged badly. They're either ignorable or simply annoying. They don't make you change so much your gameplay, unless it's an Energy Leech.

So it's not the idea of enemies with weak points per se (I love the idea itself), it's what comes associated with enemies themselves: Numbers, distribution, diversity, scaling. Which at the end of the day is what's on the Bourbon list :P

Anyways, whatever you make with the weak points idea, I need to say the hitbox should be a bit bigger -- I don't care if Rebecca says she can't aim, it was obviously too small :P

[Dancli]

Q: What is your first impression of the mini Hyena enemy?

A: I really like the concept! It would be a pleasure smashing more Corpus proxies. I also see it as a start to have our own Hyena pet.

Q: Fun question: What would you call it instead of "mini Hyena"?

A: Coyote. I think it suits their appearance well.

Q: What is your first impression of the Eximus weak points?

A: Being honest, I wouldn't dislike the idea if it wasn't for Eximus units being invincible while having these weak points active. They could use some sort of damage reduction or, if all weak points are destroyed, their effects over de battlefield will be nullified. Invulnerability will just make them frustrating to defeat at high levels, where you have to act fast or die trying. Also, I'm looking forward to Grineer and Corpus new Eximus ideas, I hope they are interesting.

Something I forgot to mention are the spawn rates and Eximus strongholds. Basically, is what makes this invulnerability not a good idea, with all due respect. I think @NightmareT12 defined the situation clearly.

Q: From what was shown on "Kingpins", do you think your Clan will participate in them?

A: Sure! My clan shows a lot of activity, and so my alliance. If there's a way clans can colaborate each other, this can be an incentive to join or create your own alliance, and an interesting feature too.

Q: Would you like more "Operator only" missions or objectives?

A: Yes, but I would like to see first some improvements on the operator mode first. Give'em some love!

[Cleesus]

Oh its lit

[Umbra_Asterism]

Weak points on eximus would only hard to deal with when using skill based weaponry (Latron, Javlok, bows, ect.), granted they would be immune to AOE spammers, but they're just as easy as nulls to deal with when it comes to the spray and pray weapons (Soma, Akstomati, Boar, ect.).

 

And the LAST thing energy drain eximus need is INVULNERABILITY.

[Bibliothekar]

36 minutes ago, NightmareT12 said:

Imagine this scenario: 3 Ancients, 4 Chargers, a Mutalist Moa or two, a Brood Mother and a couple of Eximus, one with weakpoints.

Oh crap, I just realized something. Ancient Healer's damage reduction scales with level (and is already incredibly high at level 40). They can become Eximus. Higher level also means they are more likely to spawn with weakpoints. Meaning unless you've managed to shoot the weakpoints off that Healer Eximus, there is no way you'll kill any of the other units that come with it.

[Sasquatchias]

1. I do not care about the Mini-Hyenas, and sort of think its pretty lazy to reuse the models of some boss characters as opposed to putting in effort to make an actual new unit.

2. Coyote.

3. I do not like nor think the current Weakpoint System being proposed is a good idea, as adding in total invincibility on commonly spawned units to make them appear tougher than they actually are is poor and short-sighted design.

Complete and total invincibility on fairly common enemy types is just poor design in my opinion, especially when said enemy types tend to spawn in surrounded by leagues of other enemies along with having long range auras that can drain your energy, drain your health, or make other units around them much tougher.

I think if the Weakpoint System were to be forced in the game there should be other mechanics tied to it as opposed to the unit invincibility - instead maybe Eximus Units have some sort of damage reduction, or perhaps have enhanced powers that go away or deteriorate if we shoot these Weakpoints, giving players a way to temporarily stop them from using their powers outside of outright killing them.

4. I think most Clans will participate in these Kingpin Missions, mine included.

5. More Operator stuff would be nice, but before the introduction of Operator Only Missions I think the system as a whole could use some heavy changes, such as giving us scaling health or something so Operators can survive in content outside of Mercury without resorting to using the Warframe to CC everything in the room lest you immediately die from a stray shot.

[Cleesus]

Oh man the noise cancellation on my mic was really messing up my sound, Ill have to fix that

[(PSN)Aephema]

Can we please get a Hyena pup (could have different breeds!) as a Corpus companion? I have been spamming devstreams about it for a bit now xD