Knockdowns! Oh The Humanity!

[RustyNaps]

This Stagger, Knockdown situation seriously needs to be address since almost EVERYBODY is noticing that this game isn't hard because of clever AI, enemy powers or situations the players can get themselves in. No, It's hard because it's cheap difficulty. Enemies eat bullets and the game slaps the controller outta your hand for a few seconds or more so you can watch yourself die. I mean knockdowns and staggers have their place but not on every god dang enemy (I know theres some enemies without knockdown, this is just for emphasis).

 

I know DE can't reform the AI this far into beta and this close to a deadline but they can do this. If anyone has played Tribes 2 or Ascend they have probably made use of the Shocklance; the giant cattle prod weapon. Now the Shocklance was about the only melee weapon in the game and was very unique because it did certain amounts of damage depending which face of the body you struck. If it was the front it did very little, if you shot someone in the side it did medium damage, if you shot someone in the back it'd instant kill.

 

The same logic should should be applied to staggers and knockdowns. Like lets say if a runner exploded in front of you, you'd slightly stager with some control of your character, if it exploded to the side of you you would get the normal short stagger it does now and last but not least if the runner exploded to the back of you you'd be knocked down flat on your stomach like jackals shockwave attack.

 

Now this is a quick fix if they are not able to improve the AI (Which i'm hoping is what this nightmare mode does the most ) within their short time.

 

Comments are appreciated. 

Edited July 11, 2013 by RustyNaps

[stacey69]

Mate if you see 3 super Moas and knew you couldn't kill them fast enough you do what I do... Run and take cover and wait for the tanks to spawn and kill them asap along with the Moas. Pluto is not a faceroll anymore. You need to add some caution. The problem with this game is...People say its to easy. So they tweak it for us to make it more challenging. Then people come and say its either to hard or this ^^ happened to them. Its 1 revive and 100% your own fault.

 

Use Enemy Radar.

Use Handspring.

Use retribution.

Use S to back off sometimes and see what is coming.

 

The list goes on. This game feels good at the moment at high level. The problem is Pluto alerts are as rare as rocking horse poo and we have to pay 75 platinum for 1 tier 3 Void run.

 

Sort it the F*** out DE. I'll post a vid in a bit for that same alert you did mate and how I play on the high level stuff. Maybe a tip or 2 for you and others?

[notlamprey]

Mate if you see 3 super Moas and knew you couldn't kill them fast enough you do what I do... Run and take cover and wait for the tanks to spawn and kill them asap along with the Moas. Pluto is not a faceroll anymore. You need to add some caution. The problem with this game is...People say its to easy. So they tweak it for us to make it more challenging. Then people come and say its either to hard or this ^^ happened to them. Its 1 revive and 100% your own fault.

 

Use Enemy Radar.

Use Handspring.

Use retribution.

Use S to back off sometimes and see what is coming.

 

The list goes on. This game feels good at the moment at high level. The problem is Pluto alerts are as rare as rocking horse poo and we have to pay 75 platinum for 1 tier 3 Void run.

 

Sort it the F*** out DE. I'll post a vid in a bit for that same alert you did mate and how I play on the high level stuff. Maybe a tip or 2 for you and others?

Somehow I don't get the feeling this post is helping anyone. There are better ways to plug your channel. You need to understand that a lot of players have no problems mitigating the cheap stuff these enemies do, and that defeating fake difficulty doesn't make it good game design.

We're talking about the difference between a rewarding challenge and a chore. I don't find the enemies too hard, but I'm still rolling my eyes and groaning at the silly things we're expected to do in order to get through them.

I said this in another thread: it feels like the game is struggling to troll me. My jimmies seldom so much as quiver, but that doesn't excuse the troll's blatant tryharding.

[Taranis49]

The issue being that to a pretty big extent, even with knockdown/stagger, the game still isn't really challenging - in a lot of cases it's simply annoying, it doesn't even test the player's skill, it tests luck with enemy spawn patterns and to a bigger extent, your patience.

 

I haven't been downed as a result of stun/knockdown enemies in weeks, if not longer. Hell, since U8 I've probably been downed by laser traps in the void more often than I do by enemies and I don't gripe about those; why? Because for the most part I know damn well that it's my own fault in that case, due to the fact that I was either careless and that I'm still not particularly good at parkour.

 

And saying "oh, just get a rare mod like Handspring or Retribution" is completely useless advice due to the fact that even obtaining them through gameplay is entirely luck based. I'd lay good odds that the overwhelming majority of people don't have either: Well over a couple hundred hours in, I have multiple copies of pretty much every other mod in the game and have never seen either of those two drop, either naturally or as a defense reward (in the case of Handspring).

 

Regardless, I've said it before, slapping the controls away from a player's hand is the kind of tactic I expect from a five-year old.

[RustyNaps]

Love how no ones reading the suggestions to fix this, I'll edit this again.

[RustyNaps]

Mate if you see 3 super Moas and knew you couldn't kill them fast enough you do what I do... Run and take cover and wait for the tanks to spawn and kill them asap along with the Moas. Pluto is not a faceroll anymore. You need to add some caution. The problem with this game is...People say its to easy. So they tweak it for us to make it more challenging. Then people come and say its either to hard or this ^^ happened to them. Its 1 revive and 100% your own fault.

 

I was being shot through a wall so I had no clue 3 of them were there and when I turned the corner to do excals slash dash another one shot at me and they proceeded to chain stun and kill me.

 

This is not acceptable as difficulty in a game. Acceptable difficulty is better AI that thinks before it acts, take Half-Lifes HECU Grunts. One of the AI was a squad member which commanded other grunts to take cover, rush the enemy, take tactical positions, single out or throw a nade to flush you out.

 

This seemed like a tough battle but if you took out the squad leader AI the rest of the enemies in that squad would be dysfunctional thus making it easier (I could see this implemented for grineer to make them more aggressive). And this is a 1998 game i'm talking about. That is acceptable difficulty; smarter AI. Chain stunning/knockdowns is something I expect in street fighter; Ryu's Hydoken spam.

[TheHeraldXII]

The main issue is that the game doesn't give us the tools to play well and counter these things, unless by "play well" you mean avoid them entirely and just ignore that enemy type completely. Adding quick nip-ups by pressing crouch or making the block function stop staggers would go a long way. That way you can counter them if you play well.

[RustyNaps]

The main issue is that the game doesn't give us the tools to play well and counter these things, unless by "play well" you mean avoid them entirely and just ignore that enemy type completely. Adding quick nip-ups by pressing crouch or making the block function stop staggers would go a long way. That way you can counter them if you play well.

But you're not getting it. The games difficulty relies solely on bullet sponges and staggering/stunning/knockdowns. Those are the ONLY FORMS OF DIFFICULTY and that is very bad. With the technology that we have today we can do much better, DE can do much better and they should know well that chainstunning is a bad design, very very bad.

 

Im hoping nightmare mode makes or tests out smarter AI. I'm tired of enemies just mindlessly roaming about, hiding behind stuff and taking pot shots at me. ESPECIALLY GRINEER because their armor is WAY TOO BULKY for cover.