Your Enemies Suck!

[Tempera]

Your Enemies Suck! 

 

Or, a more precise title that wouldn't fit in the title field; The common topic readdressed: You're going the wrong direction with enemies, DE.

 

The tl;dr version:

- Warframe's enemies are going in the wrong direction, the two forms of "challenge" right now are bullet sponges and enemies that take away the player's control.

- Ancient Disruptors and Grineer in general highlight this with their variety of knockdown and stagger effects.

- If DE wants to provide challenge to the players, they should improve AI and/or redesign tilesets to provide less cover, encouraging mobility.

 

This topic crops up a lot in the Warframe forums. "Oh, Ancient Disruptors are too hard!" "The Grineer have too many knockdown options!" I know; everyone who's read these forums have seen this topic at least three hundred and twenty-six times. My aim in making this topic isn't to point out something new; it's to explain why the topic keeps getting brought up and why I think the people behind the topics are right.

 

So, let's talk about player agency.

 

When you're playing Warframe, you obviously want to be playing the game. This seems obvious; if you didn't want to be playing the game, then why would you be playing it?

 

But it's not as obvious as it seems. Take the most common form of "difficulty" used in the game; knockdown effects.

 

Knockdown effects prevent you from playing the game for several seconds. "Oh no!" one may gasp. "Several entire seconds, what will you do?!" "Well," I reply (after I have bopped them in the nose for their terrible use of sarcasm), "I won't do anything, because I cannot do anything for the duration of the knockdown effect. I cannot shoot at enemies, I cannot move, I cannot use my Powers- I cannot do anything."

 

This poorly-done piece of dialogue illustrates my point extremely badly; being knocked down strips control from the player. It prevents the player from actually playing the game for the duration of the knockdown effect; in effect, they are taken out of the game and forced to watch for several seconds as their character regains their feet.

 

There are two enemies I will use as perfect examples of this; Ancient Disruptors, and the Grineer.

 

Ancient Disruptors are a giant pain in the &#!. They have one redeeming factor; they provide a form of fake challenge to the game, with their massive pools of health, their knockdown ability, and their ability to drain all your shields and energy from you with one hit.

 

Why do I call this fake challenge, though? Well, there's one simple reason; it doesn't require any skill on the part of the player to overcome. Either the player sees the enemy coming, and thus reduces them to a bullet-riddled corpse before they get close, or the player is hit, and has their shields and energy completely drained, and has to watch as their character recovers from being knocked above the ground.

 

At least according to any game designers I've ever talked to, that isn't a good example of an enemy. It's a good example of an enemy that offers up a fake challenge, yes; but not a challenge that requires player skill to overcome.

 

The Grineer are different; they generally lack the biggest pain-in-the-&#! traits of Ancient Disruptors, which is their ability to drain your shields and energy in one hit. They don't take away as much agency from the player as Disruptors do, which can only be a good thing in my book.

 

That said; they're still not an example of a well-designed enemy faction. Their abilities are random and disorganized (ex. Shield Grineer, Grineer Rollers, Heavy Grineer, Grineer Flameblades- what do these all have in common?), providing the developers with no common point for the players to work from.

 

They also have the same annoying tendency to take away the player's control over their characters. Grineer Commanders cause players to lose their positioning; not an inherently bad thing, but it does not require line of sight to activate, and the players are generally dumped into a group of other Grineer just waiting to tear them apart- while the Grineer Commanders have taken themselves out of the fight.

 

Grineer Scorpions take away the player's control over their character, and destroy their positioning. Again, not an inherently bad thing; but they could most definitely stand to allow players to fire while being dragged. It's a step in the right direction to allow players to be able to avoid the rope if they are moving fast, however.

 

Grineer Heavy Gunners take away the player's control over their characters if characters get too close to them. And not just within melee range; merely attempting to run past one will result in being knocked down and having two hundred or more Shields ripped away from you by their guns.

 

And so on, so forth. Can you begin to see the problem? Each Grineer's form of "challenge" revolves around stripping something from the player- positioning, control, even their ability to retaliate.

 

So, I've talked about why this sucks. But even though these are forms of fake challenge, removing them will remove some of the last remnants of challenge that Warframe still has. So, what to do?

 

Well, the obvious answer is to add in something that has a real challenge for players; something they can overcome with skill.

 

One area the devs could go in is improving the enemy's AI; have the Grineer to push the offense, as staying on the defense only exposes their critical weak points; have the Infested to stick together and swarm players; and having the Corpus work together to provide a more defensive form of play on their part.

 

Another example may be to redesign the tilesets, removing most of the cover Tenno may hide behind to recover their shields, encouraging Tenno to remain mobile so as to avoid return fire and regenerate their shields.

 

Alternately, if even that seems like too much work, then the devs could simply add in options to recover from the various knockdown options (beyond the Handspring mod). Being able to aim and fire, but reducing accuracy, while staggered, would be a start; the ability to roll out of a knockdown would be another very welcome addition. Things like that would help greatly in making the game more fun than bullS#&$.

 

Little things like that may require a lot of work, but they will make the game's challenge feel real, rather than a cheap attempt at being challenging that really only strips control from the players.

Edited July 10, 2013 by Tempera

[Tempera]

Haha sorry. I have no idea what happened to the initial formatting of the post here, sorry.

[Firetempest]

*Puts the screen sideways and uses a scanner to see what the barcode says.*

[Tempera]

*Puts the screen sideways and uses a scanner to see what the barcode says.*

I really have no idea what happened there, sorry. (And this is why I should use the 'preview post' button.)

 

I fixed the formatting in the meantime, but I can't get this quote to work for some reason.

[Voidpunker]

I like the game's enemies, but to some extent I would have to agree with you. Being able to destroy everything with a flick of your wrist isn't fun, but neither are bullet sponges. I think that an AI upgrade would be a phenomenal way to increase the difficulty. In addition though, I think DE really needs to nerf redirection and vitality. Weakening yourself can be just as effective as buffing the enemies.

[fatpig84]

I like the game's enemies, but to some extent I would have to agree with you. Being able to destroy everything with a flick of your wrist isn't fun, but neither are bullet sponges. I think that an AI upgrade would be a phenomenal way to increase the difficulty. In addition though, I think DE really needs to nerf redirection and vitality. Weakening yourself can be just as effective as buffing the enemies.

 

It happened before. They took away hp and shield gains per level and doubled or even tripled enemy damage.

The outroar was the largest ever seen because at high levels it became Call of Warframe / Gears of Warframe.

Edited July 10, 2013 by fatpig84

[Yanga]

Well, they have a nightmare mode coming up to increase difficulty (probably smarter AI system than now)... Might improve or just be more annoying gameplay. Right now, the only problem I have with the game is the Shield Lance's constant shield bashing the second you get up without a Stealth support (go invisible near enemies) and the Commander spawn count and teleport abuse (in a room with 3 of them and they'll chain Teleport you all over the room).

Got no problem with any other enemy besides those two.

[Tempera]

It happened before. They took away hp and shield gains per level and doubled or even tripled enemy damage.

The outroar was the largest ever seen because at high levels it became Call of Warframe / Gears of Warframe.

There's a simple reason for that.

 

Health/shield values provide a simple service; they provide a buffer between the player and death. Lessening that buffer means it's much easier for enemies to kill you- and while that's good in some respects (makes the game more challenging), it's bad in others (it encourages players to avoid direct confrontations that will allow them to get hit rather than attempting to fluidly kill enemies, and it allows the player's character to die much easier, resulting in frustration on the player's part and having immersion ripped away from them).

 

I don't think that screwing around with the player's HP and shield values is a good idea at this point. Enemy HP values might need to be looked at, to reduce the "damage sponge" types of bosses, though.

 

 

Right now, the only problem I have with the game is the Shield Lance's constant shield bashing the second you get up without a Stealth support (go invisible near enemies) and the Commander spawn count and teleport abuse (in a room with 3 of them and they'll chain Teleport you all over the room).

Got no problem with any other enemy besides those two.

I have seen a lot of players who don't seem to have a problem with these enemies. And that's fine; I'm not going to shoot people for not having a problem with them.

 

I don't think that that means that they're well-designed enemies, though. It simply means that they're not so badly designed that they cause the entire playerbase to erupt like a supervolcano of frustrated rage.

[Carcharias]

There has got to be some other way to challenge the players without taking control of their toon from them. This is a poor and unimaginative design concept.

[notlamprey]

Your general ideas are all good; I really hope to see DE introduce "themed" behaviors and abilities for the different factions.

It's obvious they're spending a lot of man-hours on this game to do different things, and we see hints here and there of what the current areas of emphasis are. It would be nice to see some progress in the way of enemy development, but maybe they have good ideas that just aren't ready or workable yet.

As far as your thoughts about fake difficulty and mechanics that irritate players without enriching the game, I think you're right on the money. I expect DE to know better, considering this studio's body of work and the experience of its personnel. On the positive side, it's obvious that DE understands the value of differences in kind versus simple differences in scale. However, the game is full of differences in kind that don't make sense and aren't fun. I say again: They Aren't Fun.

I'd also like to see what you've suggested on themed factions.

The Grineer already do some of what I'd hope for, but it looks as if they're doing it by accident and only occasionally. I'll be honest; I don't know how to expect much improvement here, so I'll only say that the fake difficulty abilities need to be dealt with. With that out of the way, it would be much easier to have the different Grineer units organize some systematic aggression. When I think Grineer, I think "harass, disrupt, rout the enemy." They are a race of clones, and I'd like to see a system of tactics that hinges on their steady supply of cannon fodder.

To me, the Corpus should play a more deliberate "surround, contain, crush the enemy" - a theocratic corporate beast that desires to acquire and assimilate Other into Self should focus on defensive formations and abilities. Here, as with the Grineer, I think they already do a good bit of that. I hope that future tweaking and polish will turn them into the Mighty Glacier they were born to be.

Finally, the Infested: they should be scary with body horror bonus points, and they are. They should rush the enemy in waves, tying them up for the artillery to finish the job. Mostly, they do that. I don't really have any intelligent complaints about the Infested, other than to say that I don't really like the constant knockback of multiple Runners. In the real world, any shockwave strong enough to move you is strong enough to kill you. Sometimes, even a game needs to respect actual real-world science. Let's have their explosion deal a small percentage of health damage that bypasses shields. There, just like a real shockwave will blend your insides through a bulletproof vest. Problem solved (for me).

I need to cut this post off before it goes forever. The end, until I think of other things to contribute :P

[Cpl_Facehugger]

v v

That said; they're still not an example of a well-designed enemy faction. Their abilities are random and disorganized (ex. Shield Grineer, Grineer Rollers, Heavy Grineer, Grineer Flameblades- what do these all have in common?), providing the developers with no common point for the players to work from.

This is the only point that I really disagree with. All of those things seem to me to be designed to force players out of cover in one way or another.

Shield grineer have their charge. Trollers roll right up to you. Heavies generally have weapons designed to render cover useless (Napalms have their persistant napalm. Bombards have the homing rockets that you have to dodge. Only gunners aren't effective vs dudes in cover). Flameblades teleport right up in your face, forcing you to dodge out of cover so you can get shot at.

Then there's scorpions, which do the same thing.

Conceptually, the Grineer have a lot of synergy with each other. It's just that their spawn patterns and AI doesn't let it shine through much. You'll never find heavy gunners and napalm gunners in the same mission. Shield grineer theoretically allow grineer to advance very aggressively, but instead when a grineer is taking cover behind a shield lancer, they almost never advance, and never at any decent rate.

I think you've got a good point on the aggression angle. Making the grineer more aggressive would go a long way towards making them more difficult and not fake difficult, IMO.

Edit:

I don't really have any intelligent complaints about the Infested

I do. They need a ranged attacker, and more enemy variety in general. I think DE could look to Dark Sector for ideas. From what I understand, the T-cyte victims in that game were nice and varied.

Edited July 10, 2013 by Cpl_Facehugger

[fatpig84]

Corpus imo are quite varied in tactics, other than their silly mine Osprey that does nothing.

 

They have support shield osprey, Fusion Moas and Shockwave Moas WILL charge at you to flush you out. While melee Corpus do so but in a lesser extent since they are slower and much easier to kill and ranged Corpus tend to strafe and take between cover. And railers do hang back and shoot you from places that you usually won't notice quickly. 

 

In the sense they are the best of both infested AND Grineer.

Except they are by far the most squishy faction ever.

 

Grineer tend to move too slowly and they are terribly cowardly for all their armored selfs, you will almost always never see a Heavy Grineer try to charge at you and do Radial Blast. Then they cluster together in crouched positions, twiddling their thumbs while i snipe their heads or shoot a rocket.

 

Their only fast melee units are even squisher than most infested and that doesn't help them at all !

But they have a massive arsenal of stunts and knock backs.

 

Infested, well we could do will flying mobs i guess o.0

Edited July 10, 2013 by fatpig84

[NeoCrimson]

I agree that many enemies designed to challenge players only serve to annoy, frustrate, and break the flow of the game. However your solutions are very nebulous. What exactly does "improving A.I" mean? What does "Grineer should change tactics" mean, and to what? How should the Corpus play more defensively? How is "Infested sticking close to players and swarming them" different than what they already do?

 

However you did hit the crux of the issue, players want to be challenged but do not want control taken away from them. So give them a challenge without taking away control. Better yet give them more control, give them options, give them ways to counter enemies, make them feel powerful for succeeding, but punish them for being careless or unprepared.

 

An example would be, one of the better designed enemies in this game (IMO): the Shockwave MOA. It has a knockdown effect like other enemies in the game. How it differs is that its shockwaves come after a large, and very visible, wind up allowing players to quickly target and bring it down before it can finish. Furthermore the shockwave is also avoidable by jumping. It gives attentive players two ways out, and punishes inattentive ones with a knockdown.

 

This can be applied to existing enemies, such as the Scorpion. Like you said, allow players to shoot while grappled, or allow players to cut the rope with a charged melee attack.

 

Or create new enemies, such as those that alter enemies tactics like you wanted. Say a Grineer Scout that fires tracer rounds, causing nearby enemies to focus on you. But the effect can be ended by killing the scout, encouraging good marksmanship and target prioritization.

[Cpl_Facehugger]

What does "Grineer should change tactics" mean, and to what?

I think Grineer should switch tactics in that they should charge aggressively. Currently, they prefer to hold their position behind cover and take potshots at you, only advancing rarely or when flanked. In my mind, they should leverage their heavy armor and always be advancing. By all means they should try to stay behind cover instead of in the open, but, IMO, they should always be trying to advance to the next set of cover, the one closer to the target Tenno, on account of just about all their weapons being more effective at close range.

Preferably while their squadmates are spraying at the Tenno to suppress them.

The Collectors in Mass Effect 3 operated in much the same way, and they are widely considered the most difficult enemies to fight because of how aggressive they are compared to the other factions.

Edited July 10, 2013 by Cpl_Facehugger

[Tempera]

v v

This is the only point that I really disagree with. All of those things seem to me to be designed to force players out of cover in one way or another.

That's a fair point. My examples weren't the greatest; they were just the names I could recall off the top of my head. (I typed this out before I even had my morning coffee, while I could still remember my point, so I wasn't functioning properly.)

 

 

I think you've got a good point on the aggression angle. Making the grineer more aggressive would go a long way towards making them more difficult and not fake difficult, IMO.

 

I think the thing about the Grineer is that they're meant to be really offence-oriented, getting up in your face, forcing you out of your cover, and shooting you until you die. The devs seem to want you to rely on your mobility to avoid taking damage from them- which is a problem, as the Grineer can't seem to actually miss you, so mobility is rendered much less useful than one would hope.

 

So, if the devs are looking at making them more aggressive, I think they might want to lose that auto-accuracy in favour of making the Grineer actually aim. (They should be good at aiming, but not have perfect aim automatically.)

 

Corpus imo are quite varied in tactics, other than their silly mine Osprey that does nothing.

The Corpus are the most well-designed faction so far, at least in my opinion.

 

Each of the Corpus works well in synergy with the others, and within their own roles. Corpus MOA's will get up in your face, shooting you and distracting you from the other Corpus, for example; while mook-level Corpus will hide behind cover, with their helmets rendering you unable to get headshots in on them, forcing you to get up to them and shoot them,or aim well to hit their bodies.

 

That's why I didn't use the Corpus in my examples.

 

I agree that many enemies designed to challenge players only serve to annoy, frustrate, and break the flow of the game. However your solutions are very nebulous. What exactly does "improving A.I" mean? What does "Grineer should change tactics" mean, and to what? How should the Corpus play more defensively? How is "Infested sticking close to players and swarming them" different than what they already do?

Improving AI can mean a lot of things. It's the dev's prerogative to decide what it means and how to implement it.

 

In my mind, it means encouraging the individual units to work to make their abilities work for them, encouraging enemy units to work well with each other to cover each other's weak spots, and doing things like not making the Grineer hitscan. But, again, that's just my ideas on how I would like it done; the realm of improved AI can encompass so many things that actually suggesting something may well be useless.

 

I think Cpl_Facehugger stated quite well what I mean by the Grineer changing tactics. I think the same would apply to the Corpus and Infested; although not in the exact same manner, they should work in synergy, and constantly push and test and challenge the player.

[notlamprey]

However you did hit the crux of the issue, players want to be challenged but do not want control taken away from them. So give them a challenge without taking away control. Better yet give them more control, give them options, give them ways to counter enemies, make them feel powerful for succeeding, but punish them for being careless or unprepared.

 

This can be applied to existing enemies, such as the Scorpion. Like you said, allow players to shoot while grappled, or allow players to cut the rope with a charged melee attack.

 

Or create new enemies, such as those that alter enemies tactics like you wanted. Say a Grineer Scout that fires tracer rounds, causing nearby enemies to focus on you. But the effect can be ended by killing the scout, encouraging good marksmanship and target prioritization.

 

DE would probably respond by saying that all the "cheap" and "irritating" enemy abilities serve a "reward observant and prepared players, punish lazy and inattentive ones" mechanic. They would say that, and I would disagree. I myself rarely have issues with this "fake difficulty," but being prepared to handle it means I sacrifice a lot of game flow to minimize my exposure to "cheapness." Even then, it occasionally slaps me anyway, and I'll have a close call even though my head is on a swivel and I'm jumping on crates and I'm advancing in serpentine and... you get the point. It's not an acceptable tradeoff. Right now, it feels like the game is struggling to troll me. Maybe I'm not making the point well, but others can add what I've left out.

 

I like everything about your Scorpion ideas, and the theoretical Scout could go in a cool direction too.

 

Conceptually, the Grineer have a lot of synergy with each other. It's just that their spawn patterns and AI doesn't let it shine through much. You'll never find heavy gunners and napalm gunners in the same mission. Shield grineer theoretically allow grineer to advance very aggressively, but instead when a grineer is taking cover behind a shield lancer, they almost never advance, and never at any decent rate.

I think you've got a good point on the aggression angle. Making the grineer more aggressive would go a long way towards making them more difficult and not fake difficult, IMO.

Edit:

I do. They need a ranged attacker, and more enemy variety in general. I think DE could look to Dark Sector for ideas. From what I understand, the T-cyte victims in that game were nice and varied.

 

The fact that "heavy" type grineer don't seem to spawn in conjunction is ok with me; I find it flavors a mission and lets me adjust my tactics. Right now, I think the Napalm/Gunner/Bombard enemies are functioning more or less as they should. The Captains, on the other hand...

 

You're so right about giving the infested a little ranged threat to work with; Leapers sort of serve this function currently, and Ancients have the stretchy gross hand of doom, but maybe a dedicated ranged enemy is in order.

[Cpl_Facehugger]

The fact that "heavy" type grineer don't seem to spawn in conjunction is ok with me; I find it flavors a mission and lets me adjust my tactics. Right now, I think the Napalm/Gunner/Bombard enemies are functioning more or less as they should. The Captains, on the other hand...

I'm just thinking that the napalm + gunner or bombard + gunner combo is incredibly brutal. One kicks you out of cover while the other fills you full of bullets. A good way to make the game harder in an interesting manner is to encourage synergies like this instead of more bulletsponge tendencies.

As for Captains... MJ had a good idea. Take away their switch teleport ability, but instead have him give all nearby grineer a buff - in the original idea it was piercing ammo to punch through cover and a damage buff, thereby making him a priority target as well as not removing player control like what happens now.

 

You're so right about giving the infested a little ranged threat to work with; Leapers sort of serve this function currently, and Ancients have the stretchy gross hand of doom, but maybe a dedicated ranged enemy is in order.

Right. I'm thinking some kind of spine infested who launches bone spikes at you or something. Because currently, infested are easily the easiest faction, particularly in defense. One guy with an orthos or scindo can pretty much lock down an entire infested advance unless there's toxics mixed in.

[Mhak]

 

Your Enemies Suck! 

 

*tl;dr*

I agree.

[Necromonger2100]

I agree with all of the ideas above. Although said rather bluntly all of the above is true. I use the exact same tactic to defeat all 3 factions. THAT SHOULD NOT WORK. I can simple spray and kill all of those enemies no matter the faction or type. The only things that have every been remotely fun to kill were the Jackal and Lech Kril. You know why that is? Because they're unique! Not just another reskin of a enemy that can disable you. I mean sure a group of disruptors can kill me on a high level, but that's just because I'm spending half the time on the ground. Yes a gang of grineer heavies can take me down, but not for the right reasons! There need to be TACTICS and DEFERENCES between enemies not just colors and weapons.

 

Now, I'm done ranting. This man made an excellent point in this topic and it makes a lot more sense than most other suggestions I've seen. I give him a +1.

[DoomsdayXX]

I don't know if people would want some of the things people describe on a whole community basis. I hear people complain about the Jackal for instance and how annoying it is to take down. I understand that other players might like this though so I think we could do this. 

 

For those that want enemies to be relatively straightforward and easy-to-kill, there should be a mode that one can select when they select an area. This just keeps everything as is today.

 

Another mode option will be avaliable to select as well. This one ups the difficulty of the enemy (maybe 50% more shields, 25% more damage, that kind of stuff) and also, each enemy has a unique combo w/ another enemy it generally spawns w/. for example, the charger and the runner could have a disruption combo where the runner leaps onto the back of the charger right before it jumps onto the player, slowing him and dealing dot for 5 seconds while the charger mauls the slowed player. This could test the reflexes of the player. A well prepared and reactive player will be able to react to the split second jump and duck under the runner for example. Something to that effect for most of the enemies in a SEPARATE MODE would be cool I think. Maybe add a drop table for each mission depending on the tier and scaling w/ lvl for extra credits and maybe special blueprints or mod drops. Basically a little extra something for players who choose this option for their mission.

 

I think a lot of players though just want to come home after a hard day's work and be able to kill everything without too much thought which is perfectly fine and I encourage DE to continue to have a mode for people like this. However, I also understand those more hardcore players who want a challenge on every run.

 

Thanks for reading and please reply if you want me to expand on something or just wanna guy to run Xini with. :P

[Kyte]

The people that complain about Jackal prolly do it because they're not straightforward "run, gun with 4xForma Murderhek/Doomlex/Ogris/etc, gather mats, repeat" farmfests.that you often need to do to get all the mats you need.

The solution, of course, is it crank down the farming. The U9 dojo rebalance is a step in the right direction.

 

...

Actually, a "farm" mode with simple straightforward AI (with some tradeoff, maybe less valuable drops or whatever. Dunno) along with standard "I want to have fun playing the game" mode with more interesting AI and Nightmare "bring on the hardcore, *@##$es" mode for those that crave a challenge would cover all three basic player populations pretty well.

 

That said, the most important thing to make this work and make the Tenno run and around kill the Baddass Space Ninja Way would be to remove perfect target tracking.

Not only from Grineer, all factions do it, the only things that save you are projectile/animation speeds. Corpus always track you perfectly, it's just that their shots are slow, and if you dodge a split second before the Ancient extends its arm (ie when he's still winding back) he'll still hit you even if you managed to roll straight behind him.

Edited July 10, 2013 by Kyte

[MJ12]

What I want is Grineer to act like elite special forces, since they're cyborg combat super-clones. It should be like fighting Navy SEALs who are also giant space marines. Aggression, squad tactics, and so on. I think the problem here is that units have individual AI-i.e. they are incapable of coordination. Each unit acts in a way that is reasonably intelligent on its lonesome but does not take into account the other people. Which is how you get eight Grineer taking cover behind the same thing while you have an Ogris. (I.e. eight kills lined up for easy consumption).

 

AI needs to scale 'up' to more than one unit. Ideally you'd have an RTS-style enemy 'AI' which managed the units, making sure to do basic stuff like keep them spaced out so a single rocket or ult can't kill more than a few of them, fall back to lead the player into ambushes, or push forward while the player is hiding behind a box while suppressing him with grenades. Furthermore, enemies need to be able to at least attempt to evade threat.

 

This can be compounded by making enemies follow more rules. So Lancers can't fire full-auto forever, but actually need to reload (and do it slower than Tenno). This means not every Lancer will be firing at you at once, because they want to keep units in reserve to cover guys who reload.

 

So for example, in this hypothetical Grineer scenario, you have say, six Lancers, four Troopers, three Shield Lancers, and two Heavy Gunners. You have an Ogris, Twin Vipers with Puncture mods, and a Cronus.

 

On 'normal' difficulty the Grineer will attempt to space out so that the entire encounter can't be 100% wiped out by a single Ult (unless you have high Reach) and fire in waves. While some guys are reloading, others will be concentrating heavy fire on you. If you are not attacking them or moving to attack, they'll bombard you with the occasional grenade while others seek to flank your cover and hit you from close range. The two heavies will stomp around while firing constantly at you to pin you, rather than seriously attempting to kill you. No, they're there to keep you in place while the other Grineer get an advantageous position on you.

 

If they see an incoming projectile, they'll try to dodge. (Due to this it means stuff like 'fireball' and 'shock' would need to be either instant-hit or homing). However their reaction speeds aren't instantaneous and their dodging is somewhat predictable, allowing a skilled shooter to hit them while evading. If you're aiming or firing at them, they may, instead of actually aiming at you, 'blindfire', shooting with incredibly bad accuracy but keeping their heads and most of their bodies hidden behind cover. You can trick this out by shooting wildly in their general direction, making rapid-fire weapons like the Furis/Afuris useful even with their poor ammo efficiency and middling DPS for that poor ammo efficiency-spraying it over the heads of several Grineer can keep them suppressed so you can charge into melee without being shot. You don't need to hit them to drop their ranged damage output significantly.

 

If they aren't doing anything ('idle') and you move towards them for melee, they'll attempt to escape by sprinting, rolling, and otherwise dodging away. Critically wounded Grineer in close range would activate a plasma grenade and suicide bomb you instead. However, if they're doing anything else, they can't instantly cancel their action and run away. Not on normal difficulty. So if someone's reloading, you have a 3ish second window to charge them and murder them. If someone's shooting at you and you can take the hits, you can charge them and slice them in half. Due to the fact that Grineer seek to actively escape, all Warframes should have movement speeds increased slightly. Rhino would ideally be just slightly faster while sprinting than a sprinting Grineer, which would show how agile even the heaviest of Warframes is.

 

On 'We Are Total Jerkholes' AI difficulty (the AI adapts to you) the Grineer AI will realize you have weapons that ignore their cover and decide "man, f**k this". They will proceed to assault you in the open and rush you. Since your melee weapon is weak, they will attempt to charge you and beat you to death with rifle butts. If this is not possible (i.e. they realize your guns will kill them all if they charge you) they will stay at range and designate limited numbers of shooters to actually shoot at you normally. Because they need to keep firepower in reserve.

 

However, once they see you charging an Ogris shot they will immediately all focus fire on you. Because they're total jerkholes who want to shoot down your missile the moment it's launched. Move from cover to cover attempting to close the distance and use the Vipers? Too bad! They'll bomb your cover with grenades. The two Heavies will attempt to draw fire, because they're way tougher and people tend to 'lock on' to high-value threats and ignore lower value individual threats who have a much lower health:damage per second ratio. If you get into melee range with single Grineer (who will lose in a melee contest) they will grab a plasma grenade and suicide bomb you at point-blank range if you aren't quick enough, because they're playing totally unfair and know that they'll die if you attack them at close range.

 

Etc etc. Basically, they know what you have and they will exploit the weaknesses of your weapons.

 

Notice: Not a single 'loss of agency mechanic' stated in this. Yet it seems a lot more challenging and tactically interesting than right now, no?

[I00thlurker]

So you want Crysis AI?

[MJ12]

So you want Crysis AI?

 

FEAR for normal.

 

"Total Jerkface Troll Godlike AI Bot" AI for hard.

[Tempera]

What I want is Grineer to act like elite special forces, since they're cyborg combat super-clones. It should be like fighting Navy SEALs who are also giant space marines. Aggression, squad tactics, and so on. 

The thing I would worry about would be that that may soon swing in the opposite direction; it may become too hard for regular players.

 

Particularly for players new to the game.

 

If I might offer up some suggestions:

 

- Tailor enemy AI to the difficulty and level of the current enemies. The higher the level of the enemies, the smarter they are; and the more difficult the mission, the better they work together.

- Tailor enemy spawns to the number of people playing in a given instance. What would be an average challenge to a squad of four players in your system would be a nightmare to a solo player, but a difficult challenge to a solo player would be nothing to a squad of four players.

- Remove hitscanning from weapons. This allows for mobile frames without good defence to play, running around to avoid damage rather than allowing themselves to be pinned down.