Yet Another Invulnerability Topic

[Salenstormwing]

Okay DE, we need to have a talk about invulnerability. Because at first you seemed to be making progress and now it's all backsliding almost as quickly.

Invulnerability (n): The ability to not be damaged by any source.

Warframe has enemies who are invulnerable. That's not really a shock. It's just a statement. We have enemies who are impervious to any damage except in certain situations. Let's look at some of those enemies.

1. Lephantis is a giant flood infested monster who can't be killed except by shooting him in his weak spot.

2. J3 Golem is an even giant-er infested monster who can't be killed except by shooting him in his engine weak spot.

3. Lek Kril is a big, slow, scary Grineer who can only be hurt by popping the hoses off his back and then you can hurt him.

4. Sargas Ruk is a big, slow, scary Grineer who's weakpoints open up, but normally who can't be killed.

What do all of those have in common? They're all "Bosses". No one really complains about them being invulnerable because we, as players, have to go out of our way to encounter them, and we only encounter them 1 at a time, not a whole bunch. They're also predictable in some fashion. Either they're slow, or they hold still for a bit of time so Tenno can get behind them, or has special attacks that make them able to be disabled and then taken out.

There are other bosses I could mention. Vay Hek is immune to damage except his face (to start), the Jackal has legs you must attack before you can actually kill it, the Razorback which can't be hurt except by Bursas, yadda yadda let's get on with this....

Wait, I forgot, there are non-Bosses who are also invulnerable. We should talk about them. Let's do that!

1. Nullifiers are immune to powers while their shields are "up". Since their release, you, DE, have decided that they're a bit too broken and decided to give them a weak point satellite that will grow and change and can be shot by snipers. Otherwise, you either have to burn the shield down with bullets, or go inside (and lose your powers), and kill them from inside their bubble.

The main thing to note here is that the Nullifiers were seen over time to favor just being burst down by high RoF weapons, making them unfun to fight against with single-shot weapons like Snipers and the like. And DE is (eventually (soon(tm))) working to correct that issue. But wait, what about the other non-Bosses who are invulnerable?

2. Kuva Guardians are the newest in a long line of invulnerable enemies who the player base started out despising with the hate of a thousand suns. Why? Because they were big, and you couldn't damage them at all, and you had to use a system that wasn't very fun to use (at start (it's better now)). Eventually, players learned how to predict a Kuva Guardian's jump attack that would leave them open, and learning to combo the Void Dash quick change back to Warframe made fighting them less horrible to fight.

Lastly, we have the "near-invulnerable" enemy type. What do I mean by that? I'm talking about enemies who DO take damage, but take very little unless you hit a designated weak spot. Were talking the Juggernaut and the Juggernaut Behemoth.

In these regards, you have an enemy who can be burned down through a ton of ammo, or you can kill much quicker by waiting for them to rise up onto their hind legs and fill their squishy underside with bullets. Sometimes you don't have an option of taking your time with shots.

 

So, why did I go through all of that to just get around to talking about the Eximus Infested invulnerable enemy types? I did it so we could look at what made those enemies acceptable verses the current design that was previewed in the Dev Stream.

 

In all of those cases, the Invulnerable Bosses, the Invulnerable Non-Bosses, the Near-Invulnerable Enemy, they all have a disadvantage beyond having a weakpoint attached to them. Some are slow and telegraph their weak point to their enemies such as the Kuva Guardians giant slam attack or Lek Kril freezing himself so you can shoot the hoses off his back. Some get rid of the slowness but become 'near-invulnerable' such as the Juggernaut. Some of them are fast, but have a period where they stay still for you to capitalize on their stationary location before moving once more such as J3. Yet for others, their invulnerability can be overwhelmed or bypassed like Nullifiers bubble-generators or the Jackal's legs being damaged allowing the player to then attack the boss while it's 'down'. And yet again, you have enemies who are slow but are also vulnerable to their environment such as the Razorback being surrounded by Bursas who can actually damage it.

 

So, with all of that... what's wrong with the "Invulnerable Infested Eximus" unit? It has a weakpoint? That makes it okay, right? No.

With all those previous examples, all that examination, you can see that the enemy has more than just a weak point to make fighting its invulnerableness acceptable. Adding a weak point (or 2) to an Infested Eximus is a good start, but such enemies also need something else to push them from broken to acceptable. This was pretty evident when Rebecca tried to fight one that had 2 nodes on it. The node "leaf" was small, and the beast was still as agile, and actually hitting it would be near impossible for sniper rifles and single shot weapons (that thing DE will eventually fix with Nullifiers). So, instead, perhaps we should focus on how to make this new enemy type acceptable and not "Oh my gawd I'm never playing against Infested again, thanks for the unintended Ember nerf, DE!"

Options for Fixing the Invulnerable Eximus:

Option 1. Make them predictable. This requires the enemy to have some sort of 'tell' to make hitting those weak points easier. Have them move slower, react slower, have them have a period where they rest, or something that makes them able for a player to take a second to recognize the situation, and capitalize on it. Here's an example: Make the "Invulnerable Eximus" take damage and die like normal. If it has the weak point nodes, have it reform over a short period of say... 3-5 seconds, back to full health and at a higher level. A skilled player might have been able to snipe the weak point before (making it never regenerate), but if that spot is on it's back, this leaves the Tenno able to go over to it, and double-tap the weak point to insure it doesn't regenerate/shove their Galatine Prime through the spot/yadda yadda awesomeness. If not, just make any sort of attack they do have some sort of cool-down where they need to rest for a few seconds because the giant growth on them causes them to tire more quickly.

Option 2. Make them Near-Invulnerable, not fully invulnerable. If they have the weak point on them, make them harder to kill if you don't blow up the weak point. This means if you want to brute force the baddy with a Tonkor to the face or a very pissed off Ember Prime's World on Fire, you can. It makes them a bit more bullet-sponge-y, but at least the enemy can still be killed. And snipers can still body-shot the baddy till the enemy stops long enough for them to hit the weakspot.

Option 3. Something else. I'm too tired. All I can say here is the enemy type needs some sort of disadvantage. Something beyond "we put a glowing spot on it for you to shoot". Elemental weakness, some sort of environmental weakness, a weakness to Operator hadokens (please not this though, Operators be squishy, yo, and Infested love eating Health super fast), a weakness to Warframe powers.... 

 

So yeah... this took a while. I think I'm going to go lay down now.

[Teshin_Dax]

There would be also a different thing which needs to keep in mind..

Dont allow energy leeching eximus to be invulnerable... A horde of enemies and such an eximus would blow up my fun!
Abilities are a key-aspect (for me) of this game..

Edited February 9, 2017 by Teshin_Dax

[Salenstormwing]

3 minutes ago, Teshin_Dax said:

There would be also a different thing which needs to keep in mind..

Dont allow energy leeching eximus to be invulnerable... A horde of enemies and such an eximus would blow up my fun!
Abilities are a key-aspect (for me) of this game..

Agreed. Especially with how Nidus is VERY power-focused and just recently came out. The problem is that just slapping weakpoints on the eximus without any other changes beside invulnerability is just a painfully bad idea. There needs to be thought put into this. And I'm still tired and needing of massive amounts of caffeination. So I'm going to do that.

[Aratir]

9 minutes ago, Teshin_Dax said:

There would be also a different thing which needs to keep in mind..

Dont allow energy leeching eximus to be invulnerable... A horde of enemies and such an eximus would blow up my fun!
Abilities are a key-aspect (for me) of this game..

Abilities that the devs are taking away from player with every new addition or forcing them to jump out of normal gameplay and use a barebone gimmick.

So yeah i'm certain that the invulnerability will be introduced the most awkward and painfull way. Hopefully with some grind tied to it also.

[Kalvorax]

11 minutes ago, Teshin_Dax said:

Dont allow energy leeching eximus to be invulnerable... A horde of enemies and such an eximus would blow up my fun!
Abilities are a key-aspect (for me) of this game..

THIS...they are already tough as hek to take down depending on the type of parasitic.....(imo they need to be nerfed so that LOS and/or getting attacked by them loses energy...not this aura that goes through everything) :|

[Wolfiusz]

 

8 minutes ago, xcynderx said:

THIS...they are already tough as hek to take down depending on the type of parasitic.....(imo they need to be nerfed so that LOS and/or getting attacked by them loses energy...not this aura that goes through everything) :|

Exactly!! Since they have that crappy drain aura.. imagine them getting stuck somewhere on the map in a way that their weakspots are completely blocked/obstructed from getting hit by normal weapons) draining your energy and your fun. Is this really DE's vision of a fun game? A game where every team member has to bring a flamethrower or a frickin' bazooka to feel remotely safe?

[kyori]

Many players complained that the game is easy... so DE responded...

[(PSN)LeBlingKing]

Two reasons Eximus weakpoints are a bad idea:

• Eximus Stronghold Sorties
• Melee Only Sorties

Need I say more? Of course not. It's already been said by many other Tenno.

[Tali]

31 minutes ago, xcynderx said:

THIS...they are already tough as hek to take down depending on the type of parasitic.....(imo they need to be nerfed so that LOS and/or getting attacked by them loses energy...not this aura that goes through everything) :|

Another thing that could be done about the parasitic eximus, is limit how it drains energy from the player. So let it drain x% of the total energy capacity of the player, but not all of it and make it reduce the players energy regeneration rate by y% (max 50% reduction or so). This way its still a priority target but still lets you use abilities instead of all of it just disappears.

[John89brensen]

1 hour ago, Teshin_Dax said:

Dont allow energy leeching eximus to be invulnerable... A horde of enemies and such an eximus would blow up my fun!
Abilities are a key-aspect (for me) of this game..

Agreed, but I would also add Toxic aura enemies. 

Edited February 9, 2017 by John89brensen

[Salenstormwing]

2 hours ago, kyori said:

Many players complained that the game is easy... so DE responded...

Making invulnerable enemies is not the solution to the game being "easy". That's just adding a level of frustration to an otherwise fine game. Just throwing invulnerability on an enemy type isn't going to make the game better because the enemy won't be easy.

Kills should be rewarding.

Yes, most enemies die quite easily in the game, outside of sorties. But if you want to make those enemies more fun to fight, slapping invulnerability on them isn't going to do it. That's why I pointed out that all the enemies that currently have invulnerability have things going on with them outside of just having a single weak point.

Think of it like the game Dark Souls. The enemies might not be invulnerable but they are hard but also fair. And that makes killing a difficult enemy in the game rewarding. Not because they can take lots of damage, but because you took advantage of windows of opportunity to turn a rather one-sided fight into one where you could win.

You can see that DE learned these lessons with Nullifiers and eventually we'll get the 'satellite' that will make snipers and other 1-shot weapons viable than just making folks go towards a high RoF weapon to burn down the shield of to take a frame that isn't badly effected by being inside a nullifier bubble to melee them. Seeing a Valkyr Rip-Line a Nullifier satellite would be more satisfying than just seeing the Valkyr swap over to dual pistols because she can't Hysteria inside the bubble.

Just watching the last Dev Stream proved that Rebecca was having problems with the 'leaf' weak points with shotguns. Frustration is not good game design for an enemy. Something as simple as making the weak point larger might have helped, giving the infested eximus unit a slight pause after a series of attacks would allow her to shoot the point, or something else.

 

In the end, this is about making the game better. And right now, they may take 2 steps forward with Nullifiers, but they're taking 2 steps back with Infested Eximus as they stand right now.

[_Vortus_]

By the op's definition, not a single enemy listed is invulnerable.   They have temporary invulnerability.    There is a HUGE difference, and stating otherwise is twisting the facts.    Due to the mewling on the forums, Nullifiers are likely going from interesting enemies that created a challenge to *yawn* creating easy mode.    I expect these new weak spot enemies will be the same.   Starting as something interesting, fun, and a challenge to deal with until the easy mode button is hit often enough and the devs cave again.    Currently it takes around 40 minutes to an hour of an endless mission for the game to get interesting.  Depending on how much the players have nerfed themselves to account for the enemies.  How much longer does the nerf herd want it to take?    Or maybe endless easy mode is what they are after, i am not sure.

 

[Salenstormwing]

13 minutes ago, _Vortus_ said:

By the op's definition, not a single enemy listed is invulnerable.   They have temporary invulnerability.    There is a HUGE difference, and stating otherwise is twisting the facts.    Due to the mewling on the forums, Nullifiers are likely going from interesting enemies that created a challenge to *yawn* creating easy mode.    I expect these new weak spot enemies will be the same.   Starting as something interesting, fun, and a challenge to deal with until the easy mode button is hit often enough and the devs cave again.    Currently it takes around 40 minutes to an hour of an endless mission for the game to get interesting.  Depending on how much the players have nerfed themselves to account for the enemies.  How much longer does the nerf herd want it to take?    Or maybe endless easy mode is what they are after, i am not sure.

 

Uh, no, Lephantis is invulnerable. The only reason he will take damage is to use one of his attacks. If he kept his mouth closed, he'd never die.

Again, this is about looking at the balance of how invulnerability is being used throughout the game verses just stapling it to an Infested Eximus unit and going "Tada!"

All the enemies I listed have Weak Spots, but that doesn't mean they aren't invulnerable otherwise. That's what the "leaf" was on the Infested Eximus units were. The difference is how do they react WHEN they have said abilities.

 

Fighting should be satisfying. It can be difficult, but it shouldn't punish you just because you decided to use a sniper rifle over the Soma Prime/Synoid Simulor/Mirage/Galatine Prime.

 

If the only way you can have fun is to play 1+ hours of Survival, you have a day. This isn't about you. This is about making sure the game is actually fun and/or playable by folks who aren't MR23 and/or enjoy using non-optimal builds (like Melee-Only).

Edited February 9, 2017 by Salenstormwing

[kyori]

Ah yes.. giving the nullifiers those weak point is making the game easy yet DE make the game harder(not better or worse) by giving eximus invulnerability. 

DE is really inconsistent lol

oh btw enemies in sorties are consider easy to many too. Cut them like cut grass. 

[_Vortus_]

39 minutes ago, Salenstormwing said:

Uh, no, Lephantis is invulnerable. The only reason he will take damage is to use one of his attacks. If he kept his mouth closed, he'd never die.

Again, this is about looking at the balance of how invulnerability is being used throughout the game verses just stapling it to an Infested Eximus unit and going "Tada!"

All the enemies I listed have Weak Spots, but that doesn't mean they aren't invulnerable otherwise. That's what the "leaf" was on the Infested Eximus units were. The difference is how do they react WHEN they have said abilities.

 

Fighting should be satisfying. It can be difficult, but it shouldn't punish you just because you decided to use a sniper rifle over the Soma Prime/Synoid Simulor/Mirage/Galatine Prime.

 

If the only way you can have fun is to play 1+ hours of Survival, you have a day. This isn't about you. This is about making sure the game is actually fun and/or playable by folks who aren't MR23 and/or enjoy using non-optimal builds (like Melee-Only).

Again, something that can be destroyed is not invulnerable.    He doesn't keep his mouth closed (barring he doesn't glitch out), therefor can be killed.  

How common the units will be is not known beyond what we all saw during the devstream.   Sounded to me like they will be limited.   How limited remains to be seen.    Personally hoping for a few every 5 wave for endless or up to 5 on non endless.    More won't be a big deal either though.

Shouldn't punish you for your choice.   Now, this is a big difference between us.   Regardless of weapon choice, I see it as a challenge, you see it as being punished.   I play all sorts of weapons as well, including snipers and melee only and still do not see an issue.  

Pretty sure I am a player of the game, therefor it is about me as well.     Another difference of opinion is that these harder new opponents are exactly for more veteran players.

[Salenstormwing]

1 hour ago, _Vortus_ said:

Again, something that can be destroyed is not invulnerable.    He doesn't keep his mouth closed (barring he doesn't glitch out), therefor can be killed.  

How common the units will be is not known beyond what we all saw during the devstream.   Sounded to me like they will be limited.   How limited remains to be seen.    Personally hoping for a few every 5 wave for endless or up to 5 on non endless.    More won't be a big deal either though.

Shouldn't punish you for your choice.   Now, this is a big difference between us.   Regardless of weapon choice, I see it as a challenge, you see it as being punished.   I play all sorts of weapons as well, including snipers and melee only and still do not see an issue.  

Pretty sure I am a player of the game, therefor it is about me as well.     Another difference of opinion is that these harder new opponents are exactly for more veteran players.

If you can't see how hitting a small weakpoint on a fast moving Eximus infested unit might be hard with a sniper and/or melee weapon with no changes to the basic AI attack pattern...

Well I just can't help you.

[_Vortus_]

15 minutes ago, Salenstormwing said:

If you can't see how hitting a small weakpoint on a fast moving Eximus infested unit might be hard with a sniper and/or melee weapon with no changes to the basic AI attack pattern...

Well I just can't help you.

 

I can see it being difficult, which is kinda the point to making them harder to kill.   Embrace the challenge or fear it, up to you.

[Salenstormwing]

Just now, _Vortus_ said:

I can see it being difficult, which is kinda the point to making them harder to kill.   Embrace the challenge or fear it, up to you.

That would be all fine and dandy if melee was able to hit stuff that small accurately.

Again, just handing this sort of upgrade to enemies with no other negative or even semblance of additional thought into their performance is not a wise decision though. Again, I go through this whole thing in my main post. And don't cry for Nullifiers shields getting a 'nerf' because they get a satellite that can be targeted. There's more to the game than just making it more difficult. DE needs to really, really look hard at just stapling things to old enemies without major thought. That's how we got Seasicknesswing because of 3D movement on Archwings inside ships.

[_Vortus_]

1 minute ago, Salenstormwing said:

That would be all fine and dandy if melee was able to hit stuff that small accurately.

Again, just handing this sort of upgrade to enemies with no other negative or even semblance of additional thought into their performance is not a wise decision though. Again, I go through this whole thing in my main post. And don't cry for Nullifiers shields getting a 'nerf' because they get a satellite that can be targeted. There's more to the game than just making it more difficult. DE needs to really, really look hard at just stapling things to old enemies without major thought. That's how we got Seasicknesswing because of 3D movement on Archwings inside ships.

 

Heh AW being a little real only affects some, not all.  I look forward to the upgraded enemies and seeing how they are implemented.   You do not and are complaining even before seeing them implemented.  But, good luck with that.   Maybe they will only have them drop once missions get over level 50+ and we will both be happy.

[Salenstormwing]

10 minutes ago, _Vortus_ said:

Heh AW being a little real only affects some, not all.  I look forward to the upgraded enemies and seeing how they are implemented.   You do not and are complaining even before seeing them implemented.  But, good luck with that.   Maybe they will only have them drop once missions get over level 50+ and we will both be happy.

Maybe, but they did show off the WIP in the Dev Stream. And frankly, it was good enough to see some of the cracks that were in what they presented. Plus, the dev's 1/3rd of all Eximus would be one all the way up to 50%? Uggh.

This is why I'm giving feedback. So they look this problem over fully.