Cap Enemy Values In Defense Missions And Increase Difficulty For Enjoyable Combat

[Ferriwind]

Please cap enemy damage and health for defense missions and add more event enemies like weaker versions of planet bosses.

 

For example. a defense mission in Sedna will result in Kela spawning at mission wave 51.

Or you could also spawn a Stalker squad of 4 at wave 76 with lower or zero stalker gear drop rate.

 

You can even program certain enemy combos to appear at certain waves like 4 Grineer Gunners in each direction with 10 shield ospreys accompanying each one.

Yea, it doesn't make sense but if you won't, I guess replace the Gunners with max value moas. In grineer maps, you could send in groups of shielded Grineer and Rollers/Bombarders. Or groups of Bombarders and whip soldiers :p.

 

You can even add Grineer bombstrike events and Corpus laser strike events. That would be speeeecctacular.

 

Anyhoo, I think a cap on enemy health and damage values in defense missions would result in more players taking on the higher waves for both achievement and fun as long as it is compensated in an interesting way. Also, lowering energy drops would be beneficial. Right now, you get the most OP combination of abilities that work against the faction you are playing and try to cheese it as far as you can. It's actually a grind and boring to watch, sadly even with the extraordinary efforts some teams put into the defense missions. There really isn't chaos or clutch plays and that is a problem to me.

[Captain_Krunch]

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[Sumnus]

Why would you cap that? It adds challenge. You can add the event units without taking away the scaling difficulty. Instead of removing the scaling, they should make abilities scale better than what they do now, so they don't become obsolete in late waves. 

 

Getting to the higher waves shouldn't be doable by everyone. It should require a suitable mix of high level Warframes, with good coordination, and teamwork. It shouldn't be there for everyone, otherwise it's no longer an 'achievement' as you called it. If it's something only a small percentage of the player base can get up to, it remains something that's impressive. 

And they have talked about adding units like what you described already, give it time. Rushing things is how you break the game.

[escape123]

This idea is just win. Have a boss appear at certain waves

Not sure if its easy to implement, but a great idea nonetheless - thinking outside the box

[Ferriwind]

Why would you cap that? It adds challenge. You can add the event units without taking away the scaling difficulty. Instead of removing the scaling, they should make abilities scale better than what they do now, so they don't become obsolete in late waves. 

 

Getting to the higher waves shouldn't be doable by everyone. It should require a suitable mix of high level Warframes, with good coordination, and teamwork. It shouldn't be there for everyone, otherwise it's no longer an 'achievement' as you called it. If it's something only a small percentage of the player base can get up to, it remains something that's impressive. 

And they have talked about adding units like what you described already, give it time. Rushing things is how you break the game.

Once you get to higher waves like 80, and I've only watched this take place in infested maps, you have to constantly have bastille up while you slowly dps the mobs to death. Adding new units and events would make dealing with enemies with almost a million health nearly impossible, no?

 

These missions need to be doable by anyone who keeps trying to play them. They shouldn't be deterred because they don't have or main/play the required frame to reach a certain wave against a certain faction. They also shouldn't be deterred by having to spend 5 hours just to guarantee the cryopod won't be one shot by a late wave monster or just to pump out the damage to finish the wave. Really, the streamers need to focus on the defense mission so what is exciting or interesting about anything that happens with the process of cheesing defense missions except for that extremely hard earned wave xxx accomplishment? I like how players gather to watch the livestreams and the streamers can showcase their frames etc. but honestly, it's a dull, tedious process to go to wave xx+. Maybe I'm missing something.

 

Really, I don't think adding a cap to damage and health will break the game. :p

Idk, maybe in the new update, defense missions will take over the planets and alerts.

 

It shouldn't be there for everyone, otherwise it's no longer an 'achievement' as you called it. If it's something only a small percentage of the player base can get up to, it remains something that's impressive.

I do see your point, but I also think the current health and damage scaling is ridiculous. Only frames with reliable infinite cc can clear infested missions up to 80+ etc. and I'm not even sure if you can fare well against Corpus and Grineer without having the single warframe called Frost. The only strategy is hoping you have the warframe power that can neutralize this ridiculously high damage threat and that it won't get nerfed.

[Numot]

I like this, the thought of a boss wave every 10 or so to shake things up would be really nifty.

 

Once you get to higher waves like 80, and I've only watched this take place in infested maps, you have to constantly have bastille up while you slowly dps the mobs to death.

This is true. I've had it happen in Corpus maps, the techs become sponges for damage and the game then becomes; drop bastille+globe, all damage you can muster. Bullet sponges aren't fun.

[Sumnus]

Once you get to higher waves like 80, and I've only watched this take place in infested maps, you have to constantly have bastille up while you slowly dps the mobs to death. Adding new units and events would make dealing with enemies with almost a million health nearly impossible, no?

 

 

 

There's no arguing that Vauban is a Defense map all-star. Bastille being the primary reason why. But removing difficulty won't change that. What it leads to is higher expectations for future Warframes among the player base and (hopefully) DE. DE's take on Vauban went something along the lines of 'practice makes perfect' as they said on stream, where while he may seem nearly too good at what he does, it's a reflection on things to come, as the design team for warframes gets better at doing their job. I don't view it as a fault. You have lower damaging abilities in favor of crowd control.

 

 

 

 

These missions need to be doable by anyone who keeps trying to play them. 

 

There isn't a single mission in the game that isn't able to be completed. You can complete every mission with relative ease even with a random group from the Online queues, or in a duo with a friend, or with clan mates. I can join a random group Online for a defense map, and easily get us to wave 10 or 15, regardless of what Warframes are present. And you only need to get to wave 5 to complete the mission. So your first sentence here seems entirely irrelevant. The missions are doable by anyone, and with any Warframe. 

 

 

 

They shouldn't be deterred because they don't have or main/play the required frame to reach a certain wave against a certain faction. They also shouldn't be deterred by having to spend 5 hours just to guarantee the cryopod won't be one shot by a late wave monster or just to pump out the damage to finish the wave. 

 

It's impossible for me to disagree with this any stronger than I do. We are no longer talking about completion of the mission, but instead reaching the higher waves in endless defense. There is zero requirement to reach wave 10, or 15, or 20, or 50, or 100, or 500 in this game. It's all about fun, and doing it for personal enjoyment (usually with friends). While there may be a new loot table coming in for the higher waves in the future, at the current time this post is being written, there is literally no reason to go beyond wave 5. You can use the planets to tier your reward table, as every faction has at least one planet with a defense map that starts on tier 3, ergo you can simply end at wave 5 on the appropriate planets to acquire the loot table rewards from Tier 3.

 

The significantly higher waves are by no means required for gameplay; and as long as that remains the case, there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't need specialized strategies to get to them. The strategies will change as new Warframes and weapons are introduced, and more and more strategies will become viable. One year from now, two years from now, when we have twice as many warframes, and alternative strategies to snowglobe and bastille, people won't complain as much about having to run Vauban or Frost, and will instead stick with the "Why do I have to buy slots with real money?" threads. The more appropriate way to address your concern, rather than hindering the defense mission scaling, is asking for more variance in the Warframes, and that will come inevitably with time. That's why you have a reason to want to play more than just the frame you started with.

 

Customization in mods, weapon choices, choices in the frame selection, all of the choices we have as players in this game, are what make it so open ended. It is the customization that leads to such an open-ended option for the game to progress. Certain things being obtainable with cooperation and teamwork are what people have been complaining about the game lacking, when it's actually here right now, it's just not properly rewarded just yet. You won't join an online queue, and be able to reach wave 100. You'll lack the cohesion, you'll lack the proper mix of utility in the warframe kits (statistically, at least). Requiring you to specialize to accomplish something isn't a fault of the game, it's a feature.

I'm not touching the Streaming comments, because at that point, we're exiting the "Gameplay Feedback" category, and into an entirely different set of opinions unrelated to gameplay.

[Ferriwind]

I'm not touching the Streaming comments, because at that point, we're exiting the "Gameplay Feedback" category, and into an entirely different set of opinions unrelated to gameplay.

I disagree. I think streaming is also an important part of warframe. It is a co-op game and streaming allows you to break the 4 man restriction to a degree. Defense missions allow you to have longer games.

 

 

It's impossible for me to disagree with this any stronger than I do. We are no longer talking about completion of the mission, but instead reaching the higher waves in endless defense. There is zero requirement to reach wave 10, or 15, or 20, or 50, or 100, or 500 in this game. It's all about fun, and doing it for personal enjoyment (usually with friends). While there may be a new loot table coming in for the higher waves in the future, at the current time this post is being written, there is literally no reason to go beyond wave 5. You can use the planets to tier your reward table, as every faction has at least one planet with a defense map that starts on tier 3, ergo you can simply end at wave 5 on the appropriate planets to acquire the loot table rewards from Tier 3.

 

The significantly higher waves are by no means required for gameplay; and as long as that remains the case, there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't need specialized strategies to get to them. The strategies will change as new Warframes and weapons are introduced, and more and more strategies will become viable. One year from now, two years from now, when we have twice as many warframes, and alternative strategies to snowglobe and bastille, people won't complain as much about having to run Vauban or Frost, and will instead stick with the "Why do I have to buy slots with real money?" threads. The more appropriate way to address your concern, rather than hindering the defense mission scaling, is asking for more variance in the Warframes, and that will come inevitably with time. That's why you have a reason to want to play more than just the frame you started with.

True, there is no need to go any further than wave 5(or 15 but w/e) if all you want is the loot. But you can think of each node as a separate queue. Players go to defense for different reasons so, yes, creating a private 4 man is the best way to make your way up to higher waves. Eventually, I believe a queue dedicated to endless defense will get introduced since there really aren't rewards for high wave completion. My opinion for the current defense, however, is that the style of defense requires you to go higher to get the maximum gameplay value. But that is difference in opinions.

 

It's not a guarantee that alternatives to Bastille or Snow Globe will be introduced. These are only two abilities in the total movepool of 13 frames. Rhino Stomp is a weaker version of Bastille. But then, I do run into the problem of catering to specific players here in my suggestion. Not all players play for defense; still they are currently forced to choose Vauban or Frost to experience and complete much higher level waves.

 

Anyway I am not sure what direction defense missions and warframe powers will go in the future, but with a cap on enemies, Bastille and Snow Globe will not be any weaker. It is that other frames can also prevent the cryopod from getting obliterated by super tanky, high damage dealing enemies by making them manageable without infinite cc. It also opens a path to introduce different enemies to each faction, since the health and damage scaling is so ridiculous going into high level waves; a single new enemy can break the game for current defense teams. It is definitely challenging and welcomed but it's also scary and restrictive that some strange new enemy can get this ridiculous scaling on health and damage. The scaling with no cap just encourages weak a.i. and restrictive designs, imo.

Edited July 11, 2013 by Stygi