Difficulty Increase

[Void.Soul]

I'm gonna put my 2 cents in. The difficulty change was implemented poorly. I did want a more difficult game but the devs seemed to have taken the lazy way out for increasing difficulty. They simply made the enemies tougher and more numerous. They should have made them smarter and more numerous...

 

That would have been more difficult though, you see. Writing code for AI takes time, skill and effort. The AI in this game, lets be honest, is not that great. Its very predictable once you pick up the patterns.

 

We wanted a more difficult game but we weren't very clear about how we wanted it to be more difficult, so this is what we got.

 

I really don't like the fact that the enemies are tougher, it makes me feel as if the weapons I worked to upgrade got heavily nerfed. This is annoying as hell. Also my maxed out AoE abilities, which used to kill everything around me, no longer do---in fact they leave me open to receiving damage for an extended period (using overload on volt). This is also very annoying. It just makes me feel like I suddenly got a lot weaker, not that the enemies became more 'difficult'.

 

They should have made it possible to choose difficulties for different missions, with scalable rewards. And reworked the AI to use squad tactics more effectively--say to fall back and regroup with reinforcements if you kill to many of them, or to lay traps and ambushes, or something other than just hiding behind a box and occasionally leaning out to fire a few shots. Or make them faster--just something besides increasing their damage resistance. I don't like suddenly feeling weak.

[Tr1ples1xer]

i don't want more enemies it was perfect, I dont mind an xp boost but I could breath before and have fun and enjoy every game with my mates now its stressfull and swarms of infested is just not fun anymore, I barely have time to go pick up the loot between defense waves, I use to prefer defence but now I avoid it :(  I don't want swarms i want to have fun and relax, up the XP but the not the monster count I say. Or put a slidder on everything.

Edited July 14, 2013 by Tr1ples1xer

[Kinsaeda]

I can still only talk about the first few missions, but I do like the enemy count and AI I see for this early in the game.  But at least give us some kind of weapon upgrade before the first boss if it's going to be kept the same.

[Keltik0ne]

I can still only talk about the first few missions, but I do like the enemy count and AI I see for this early in the game.  But at least give us some kind of weapon upgrade before the first boss if it's going to be kept the same.

Heh, having just ran a pluto mission vs lvl 70 grineer, that could see through invisibility and 1 shot you (not to mention the fact that they were getting wedged in doorways by the sheer number of cloned idiots shoving forwards), I can safely dispute any claims the AI was improved.

 

They just made them bullet sponges with nukes :P

[Phaenur]

You know, it seems like the high-end players complaining about the new difficulty level really just haven't adapted to all of the other changes U9 introduced.  I've seen post after post about not being able to farm bosses, especially Vor.  Yes, it's true - Vor in particular is a nasty piece of work if even one member of your team has even one maxed piece of equipment, and Raptor is painful as it is.  But I really have to ask - unless you absolutely must get a specific Warframe now, why do you feel compelled to grind any specific mission?  The resource rebalances just made it so that literally every stage has a solid chance of dropping Rare resources (admittedly that'll get fixed shortly, but the rates clearly aren't going back down to <1%).  You no longer need to repeatedly kill Hyena and pray that he gives you Control Modules instead of Nano Spores this time; just save Hyena for when you want a Loki (or, of course, actually want to kill Hyena) and hit up the rest of Neptune - or Europa - instead.  Ditto for high-wave Endless Defense, since you just get the resources in the starting containers plus a few drops.

 

Yes, I know it's a paradigm shift and those are always hard.  But for accomplished players, DE was clearly saying "Let the bosses breathe for a minute and go kill something else" between the resource changes, Nightmare Mode, extra Tower and Galleon mission types, and the general difficulty spike.  U9'll get a lot less painful when you accept that, believe me.

 

As for the threat to new players, though, you're preaching to the choir on this one.  Nightmare Mode Terminus?  Really?

[Winterbraid]

But I really have to ask - unless you absolutely must get a specific Warframe now, why do you feel compelled to grind any specific mission?[...]

 

Yes, I know it's a paradigm shift and those are always hard.  But for accomplished players, DE was clearly saying "Let the bosses breathe for a minute and go kill something else" between the resource changes, Nightmare Mode, extra Tower and Galleon mission types, and the general difficulty spike.  U9'll get a lot less painful when you accept that, believe me.

 

I want Frost. The regular one, not Prime. There is nothing else I really need or want in the game at the moment. Even if I go do something else, I will have to go back to farming Frost eventually.

 

There is no other way to farm the regular Frost than farming Lech Kril. I was slowly working towards Frost before U9 (got one part). Kril with his mechanics was already tricky to take down then, but at least I was able to take him down reasonably quickly with my near-maxed gear.

 

Now he still has his mechanics AND he's also a RIDICULOUS bullet sponge at the same time. I can still solo him without problems, it just takes forever. Because that's how "difficulty" works in this game: Things don't get more challenging, they just start taking forever.

 

Long story short, I am now several times farther from having Frost than I was a week ago. Is it hard to understand why I'm upset about this update?

[MiX3R]

Lots of ppl say try lvling ur mods, but are you supposed to have maxed ur mods b4 getting to last few planets? That to me doesnt make sense, rly you should be close to having maxed ur mods by the end not way b4 u get to the end S:

[Numot]

Heh, having just ran a pluto mission vs lvl 70 grineer, that could see through invisibility and 1 shot you (not to mention the fact that they were getting wedged in doorways by the sheer number of cloned idiots shoving forwards), I can safely dispute any claims the AI was improved.

 

They just made them bullet sponges with nukes :P

This^

 

DE, we don't want bullet sponges. We want tactical foes that actively challenge the player. Rise to the challenge and improve the AI.

[TheHeraldXII]

This^

 

DE, we don't want bullet sponges. We want tactical foes that actively challenge the player. Rise to the challenge and improve the AI.

Very true, upping the damage and health for enemies is how nearly every shooter game deals with difficulty, and it is the best way to do things, but currently the increase in enemy level has just made it more obvious that the health scaling on enemies is over the top. I like the new difficulty, I tend not to play with maxed out mods, I use individual loadouts for every 'frame and weapon and never had troubles soloing my way to Pluto, but now, it's not necessarily too difficult, but it sure does take too long.

[GrilledSalmonWithLemon]

The only people complaining about the game being too easy were the people who own maxed out frames with maxed out mods and maxed weapons... how convenient. This recent update is a good attempt but went 2 steps backwards instead of forwards. Lots of these ideas which were implemented are in and of themselves good ideas but simply implemented the wrong way.

[GrilledSalmonWithLemon]

Very true, upping the damage and health for enemies is how nearly every shooter game deals with difficulty, and it is the best way to do things, but currently the increase in enemy level has just made it more obvious that the health scaling on enemies is over the top. I like the new difficulty, I tend not to play with maxed out mods, I use individual loadouts for every 'frame and weapon and never had troubles soloing my way to Pluto, but now, it's not necessarily too difficult, but it sure does take too long.

I've been preaching stuff like this since I've been posting here. Good games are all about good mechanics, simply inflating the game with more of stuff is a S#&amp;&#036;ty design and will kill the game fast. Programming better AI and game mechanics is more difficult for the developers to do but a better investment than trying to create a quick fix which will just ruin the game. Because mods define the guns you use adding a dozen more guns is nonsense. Good games are all about good mechanics which is a heavy component of level design and what the player can do with the frames etc.