Feedback: Stunlock, Staggering, Action Disruption, Loss of Control - Not Cool. Please turn it down.

[Mak_Gohae]

The "hard path" wasn't supposed to be this hard! That's the point people are trying to make. Not only is it hard, it's the annoying fake-difficulty kind of hard.

Who says it wasn't supposed to be this hard? Until i see some Dev comment mentioning this, this comment is not valid.

Tell me again why a game about being a space ninja ultimate badass should force me to run around kiting Infested plinking at them like some kind of coward?

Read up on Ninjas, they are the ultimate master of unorthodox combat. Their way is way of killing you in ways where you dont know they are there until is too late and they use ANYTHING to achieve that. And these ways were so effective that people ended passing laws to try to stop their tactics that affected everyone.

In your view of things they are the ULTIMATE cowards.

(and kiting in and of itself is exploiting an AI flaw: Smart AI would refuse to follow you and hide in an area where you couldn't avoid them by running around)

You are fighting mindless zombie-like things..... they arent very smart. Their method of atttack is to just run forward at you. Other enemies in game that are a bit smarter do advance by running from cover to cover.

Is the game's name Warframe or is it Cowardframe?

I dont know what war means to you but using the battlefield to your advantage or using tactics that give you the advantage is not known as being a coward. The whole history of war consist of people of thinking on new ways to defeat the enemy. You are essentially saying that ...... well i dont know what you are saying because even animals use tactics. The concept of war you are using just doesnt exist. And none of this has anything to do with the discussion, by the way.

Is this game a fast-paced third person action game or is it a survival horror game about running away from zombies? Because the current Infested mechanics seem to believe it's the second, while literally everything else about the game, including the developers, are saying it's the first.

Well.... this game might be MORE than one thing! GASP!

By the way, I play Loki so the idea that literay everything is about being extremely fast gets thrown with this frame alone.

So you look for a chokepoint or something or put your back to a wall. That's "tactics". And "adjusting tactics"? Like I said before, DMC2 had enemies which forced you to 'adjust tactics' by exclusively using ranged weapons. This was a hilarious and massive failure.

I never said that the tactics were that involved or difficult to pull off.

We already have enemies which are basically impossible to kill via melee in the Ospreys, but at least they don't really have any direct attacks and spawn in the ones and twos.

You can get under Ospreys and swing up to hit them. And they do have direct attacks, they shoot little blue laser balls at you and some shot those little fish thingies that eat away at your shields.

If I want to be able to clear a level with melee it should be possible to do without exploiting AI bugs. Maybe I need to use powers to do it. Sure. That's fine, that's how I run Lech Kril with Ash.

That's entirely different from 'do you want to fight in melee y/n if you choose y you die'.

You can clear a level with melee but is going to be a little more difficult if you decide to forgo your other two weapons.

Loki has some of the best damage mitigation skills in the game. Invisibility and Decoy, plus his ultimate, Radial Disarm, is also an excellent damage mitigator. The damage dealing powers in general are extremely underpowered against Chargers because of their huge HP piles. I've used Ember against them and... never again.

We are talking about the Infested here, are we not? What is disarm going to do to an enemy that doesnt use ranged weapons?

For Decoy to work perfectly you would need to drop him BEFORE there are enemies in the room or you are detected because once they start running they are not going to stop and turn around unless im a room away or something. I would basically need to drop a decoy in a room and wait for them to come, then shoot and drop another one further down and wait..... jebus how annoying is that going to be? Invis is great but your still need to do the work and once you are out it's all back on you.

I havent played with direct damaging frames so i cant tell how the do, well, i have with volt but he only has two abilites and the casting of overload can lead to death. So i cant really speak how hard it is for others but i thought it would be less difficult than a Loki that needs to get his hands dirty to do anything. But i am also talking from a different point of view where i do try to give myself an advange as many times as i can.

[Sealgaire]

I don't have the time or patience to really get into this debate, so I'll just give a cliffsnotes of my position and address a few misconceptions.

Stun as a mechanic is overused by infested. It would be nice if they had a bigger variety of tools to use against the player.

Stun as used by the infested isn't difficult to avoid. I think if more people tried adapting their tactics to counter it (hint: dodge more), there would be fewer complaints. Yes Ced I know this isn't your complaint, I'm addressing others here.

The way I view stun is this; if I become stunned by an infested unit, it's the same as if I exposed myself to more Grineer out in the open than I could deal with. Both lead to death, both are preventable with proper tactics and caused by my own mistakes.

Melee used as a primary weapon is very viable against any enemy, even the infested. I can melee the appropriate level of infested with any of my frames, low to high level, crap to godly mods. It doesn't require an unreasonable amount of skill, just new tactics and paying close attention.

Edited February 3, 2013 by Sealgaire

[UkyoSonoda]

Honestly the biggest issue I see for DE in regards to the overuse of stun mechanics is repetitive stunlocking is one of the fastest ways to have new players trying the game out scream BS and quit.

Like Ced had hinted at in earlier posts on this thread rather than overusing a stun mechanic and making the infested's limited range threat bubble even less attractive to enter. Give the infested tools that make entering that bubble and killing them where they can fight back more appealing than sitting far away shooting them or climbing on boxes to exploit their AI limitations. Or make it more difficult to stay out of that threat bubble. You can do this without giving every single one of their units a stun or knockdown.

Examples being

Bullet resistance

A sticky "vomit" or some other type of lobbed projectile that doesn't damage but slows movement making it easier to close distance.

Have units that can freely run across vertical surfaces and even the ceiling. (no more climbing boxes and shooting from safety)

Units that can pull (Though I'd simply have them pull you to them minus the stagger caused when the golem boss does this otherwise we end up back to square 1 with the stun overuse issue)

Units like chargers could be toned down a bit damage wise but given a boost to run speed so they live up to the name Charger. IMO we're talking about running faster than a Loki at full sprint.

Units that can lob spore clouds. Could be more than 1 type also. I know Golem can do this and it creates the same toxic poison cloud that surrounds toxic ancients and plague crawlers. I could see another one causing a sort of short term aim disruption also causing a constant sway or shake in the crosshair making aiming a gun at anything further away than point blank extremely problematic.

[CheeseHasLeafs]

It's not about Infested being OP. It's about stunlock sucking. And atm it sucks like an aeroplane toilet.

First time I got stunlocked it was 4 Shockwave Moas. Four stuns in a row. When I got out of that, one was lifting its foot. Luckily, I was playing Excalibur.

Recently, it was 4 Grinders. Which are many times worse than Shockwave Moas. And of course, with the game being evil and adding a heavy, even Excalibur couldn't get out of this one.

I've recently started playing Volt. I can only imagine how much worse it will be.

[ZephyrFlow]

I've recently started playing Volt. I can only imagine how much worse it will be.

It will be worse bro, prepare for rage-inducing sessions with the infested. As you know, lightning damage is ineffective against them, so goodluck out there.

[Indaliceo]

I actually just died 3 times doing a lvl 18ish alert on my lvl 30 volt due to chain stagger. Got hit by a disruptor then completely surrounded by chargers, not a thing I could do but watch as they slowly killed me. =/ Not really fun in the least bit dying while having literally nothing you can do to prevent it once it starts.

[V0LK]

Just wanted to say I agree completely.

[Zythi]

There seems to be a small bit of contention here, but I mostly agree with the OP. It's entirely possible that I'm wrong, but it seems like (especially considering the other factions) that the infested are a little too binary.

Example: At any given point in say, a Grineer mission, you are not certain what to expect. Perhaps you'll wander in to a napalm and a handful of lancers, so you'll have to dodge floor fires while trying to stay in cover and whittle things down. Maybe you'll run in to a handful of grinders and a heavy gunner and you'll have to blitz either the gunner or grinders so you can counter the other effectively. It requires real choice in how you want to handle each enemy spawn based on composition.

Unfortunately, the infested don't seem to follow this path. Inevitably I end up wandering just far enough in to a room to aggress basically everything in it, and then kite backwards. There's no particular challenge, and there's no real room for additional style changes. If you don't kite, you get stun locked. If that doesn't kill you, you immediately start kiting. There's no opportunity to focus a unit type to try to get in to a melee battle. There's no opportunity to try any real strat change-ups, or to even make the individual infested units feel distinct. Honestly, I can't remember any infested maps that I've done recently that haven't degraded in to "kite backwards in a spiral until everything dies". Is the room full of runners? Same tactic. Chargers? Same thing. The ancients you might have to kite in a small circle around an obstacle so they are forced to break their charge.

The problem is the infested kit is so focused on stunning and heavy melee damage that there's no real options when facing them. It doesn't make them dangerous, it doesn't make them interesting. It makes them very "binary". Do you kite them? If yes, success is yours no matter what the infested do (so long as you aren't careless). If no, you might /maybe/ live. I don't know that an enemy that has such an easy counter with no other real strategy can really be called well designed.

I would suggest, perhaps, tone down the stuns and replace with other forms of melee. Gap closers are cool (teleporting infested, kind of like the flameblades from Grineer?). Maybe have a unit with a slow? As it is now, slap a freeze mod on any weapon (or have a decent grasp of kiting) and any infested level that doesn't involve defense or rescue is trivial. The infested, I feel, need less stun and a more rounded kit that helps them engage better without trivializing player escape mechanisms.

My noob 2cents.

Edit: Oh, just thought of it, but you already have pull on the golem. While it would risk making the boss "less special" it's the exact kind of engages that don't rely on the lucky infested catching you in a stunlock, but still presents a decent threat to players. Maybe something along those lines? Would definitely need to tone down stuns so they don't just pull you and then stun you in to oblivion. A system that features the infested punishing you being out of position by allowing them to engage on you rapidly still allows for the player to use skill and escape, but allows for the kind of "punishment" that the stun seems to be trying to inflict.

Edited February 6, 2013 by Zythi

[demontrace]

I absolutely HATE HATE HATE the stuns and knockdowns in this game. That patch that brought us new enemies, and a new area to fight in, was first something I was excited about.

After playing it for some time, and now getting used to seeing it, I really don't like it.

Grinders are extremely annoying.

Chargers are even more annoying.

The new asteroid base area is just too big, and windy, and with areas where you have to run around to find your destination.

They added stuff, and somehow made it less enjoyable. How is that possible? I liked the more structured bases. I enjoyed infected that were a bit easier to deal with. Grineer were MUCH more enjoyable WITHOUT grinders.

Please take the game back to being more about fun. Don't nerf the hell out of movement speeds for warframes.

But above all else, one of the best things you guys can do is seriously tune down the knockdowns, and damn near perma-stuns. Terrible terrible idea! You don't want to take control away from the player! Let us feel like we outsmarted the enemy, or are more adept, better skilled, whatever. Don't make it so we spend a lot of time not being able to do anything. It's not fun.

[Zythi]

Well, as an addendum to your comment and to turn the thread constructive, what would *you* make the focus of the infected kit be? Be specific and think of anything! I'm personally in favor of gap closers. I think it'd be more fun to fight an army you see coming and can hurt, and then suddenly they're on top of you and the battle is in using your skill and the environment to create distance. (ie. jumping off bridges to force them to come around, or forcing them in to chokes where only a few can get at you at once)

[Sherbniz]

I would appreciate the ability to recover yourself from being knocked over with rolls and such.

It would make the gameplay much more dynamic.

[Zythi]

I would appreciate the ability to recover yourself from being knocked over with rolls and such.

It would make the gameplay much more dynamic.

You would prefer that over a shift away from using stuns as a mechanic? How would you implement the "recovery"? Would it have a cooldown? Would there be temporary stun immunity after so you aren't relocked in to a stun?

[Sealgaire]

But above all else, one of the best things you guys can do is seriously tune down the knockdowns, and damn near perma-stuns. Terrible terrible idea! You don't want to take control away from the player! Let us feel like we outsmarted the enemy, or are more adept, better skilled, whatever. Don't make it so we spend a lot of time not being able to do anything. It's not fun.

Just a suggestion, but you might feel like you were outsmarting the enemy and applying your skills if you just learned how to avoid the stuns and knockdowns. It's really not hard, you just have to dodge away and not stand in front of them. That's it. I promise.

[UkyoSonoda]

Just a suggestion, but you might feel like you were outsmarting the enemy and applying your skills if you just learned how to avoid the stuns and knockdowns. It's really not hard, you just have to dodge away and not stand in front of them. That's it. I promise.

Yeah for the most part this topic isn't about the stun/knockdown adding any real difficulty. Prevention is a very effective form of dodging or avoidance. It's more along the lines of it being an overused in the game most noticably with the infested which in their case results in playing the game in a manner that ends up being less fun for players or by playing the game the same as with other factions results in un-fun and often fatal situations the player really has no control over at that point. Most people don't really enjoy running away at full speed shooting a gun behind them in search of a tall box or platform to climb up on so you can safely shoot everything when it's AI cant get them to you. Especially when they have a nice shiny melee weapon perfect for cleaving, smashing, eviserating, etc said enemies in a glorious spray of blood and body parts.

[Mak_Gohae]

Yeah for the most part this topic isn't about the stun/knockdown adding any real difficulty. Prevention is a very effective form of dodging or avoidance. It's more along the lines of it being an overused in the game most noticably with the infested which in their case results in playing the game in a manner that ends up being less fun for players or by playing the game the same as with other factions results in un-fun and often fatal situations the player really has no control over at that point. Most people don't really enjoy running away at full speed shooting a gun behind them in search of a tall box or platform to climb up on so you can safely shoot everything when it's AI cant get them to you. Especially when they have a nice shiny melee weapon perfect for cleaving, smashing, eviserating, etc said enemies in a glorious spray of blood and body parts.

Equip a fire mod on your melee, run towards then and jump attack to set the whole group on fire then run through them swinging swords like Shinobi. You might get hit once or twice but that's about it.

[Zythi]

Equip a fire mod on your melee, run towards then and jump attack to set the whole group on fire then run through them swinging swords like Shinobi. You might get hit once or twice but that's about it.

Against a faction that's all about melee, that doesn't say anything positive. If they can't be a threat unless they stun lock you, then infested is not doing well at all. Leaning infested up on a stun lock crutch (which admittedly rarely works) only opens them up to receiving more stun happy units (I'm imagining infested grinders?) and doesn't lead to good gameplay. It leads to a faction that either fails to stun due to kiting or being insta-gibbed, or stun locks until dead. Binary outcomes like that are not good.

[Azure98]

Against a faction that's all about melee, that doesn't say anything positive. If they can't be a threat unless they stun lock you, then infested is not doing well at all. Leaning infested up on a stun lock crutch (which admittedly rarely works) only opens them up to receiving more stun happy units (I'm imagining infested grinders?) and doesn't lead to good gameplay. It leads to a faction that either fails to stun due to kiting or being insta-gibbed, or stun locks until dead. Binary outcomes like that are not good.

Thats cause even with ALL THAT STAGGER the Infested arent a threat at all since they can be knocked down as well... Hell grab one of the new heavy melee weapons and jump attack and watch the ENTIRE room just get knocked down over and over... Suddenly all the control is in your hands I have even constantly knocked down bosses before they got up with it leaving them and the enemy squad helpless to my team mates. as for the "Stun Lock" enemies cause by piling up... I have never had this issue even when swarmed by 8 Grinders and so on or hordes of Runners for one fact... DODGE ROLL. It negates the last frames of stagger if you are stagged and also makes you COMPLETELY IMMUNE to any Stagger animations for the entire duration of the Roll animation. Only exceptions to this invincability are the Heavy MOA and Heavy Grineer AoE attacks. using dodge roll i have found myself NEVER to be perma staggered.

[Deadmice]

While everyone is focused on the infected, lets not forget about the grinders with the grenieer faction. now one or two of those isn't the end of the world, 4 or more becomes troublesome to deal with. Their damage isn't something you can ignore for forever but its the fact that a couple of those will have you either stunned a whole lot over and over again, or stunned just enough so that the other greenier troopers can remove your health. I dunno maybe i havent played enough against them, but i find i can't melee grinders to kill because they're too low to the ground, and were fairly difficult to hit with bolto weapons (That one is my fault since i know thats a downside of that weapon, moving targets) Instead of how grinders are now i would prefer if they were bigger and a tad slower until they were charging at you, and when they hit you doing that you got knocked down, so there'd be less of them with a bigger penalty for being hit.

Now with the infected ive had less troubles when i jumped on boxes or stood back and gunned the chargers down, so if i get stunlocked its more of an unlucky moment, ie. got hit by an ancient then charger swarm with a leaper hitting me as i stand back up.

[Sealgaire]

Thats cause even with ALL THAT STAGGER the Infested arent a threat at all since they can be knocked down as well... Hell grab one of the new heavy melee weapons and jump attack and watch the ENTIRE room just get knocked down over and over... Suddenly all the control is in your hands I have even constantly knocked down bosses before they got up with it leaving them and the enemy squad helpless to my team mates. as for the "Stun Lock" enemies cause by piling up... I have never had this issue even when swarmed by 8 Grinders and so on or hordes of Runners for one fact... DODGE ROLL. It negates the last frames of stagger if you are stagged and also makes you COMPLETELY IMMUNE to any Stagger animations for the entire duration of the Roll animation. Only exceptions to this invincability are the Heavy MOA and Heavy Grineer AoE attacks. using dodge roll i have found myself NEVER to be perma staggered.

I never see anyone dodging when fighting the infested, and it really is the key to fighting them effectively. I don't kite hardly at all when going up against infected and use melee primarily against them, even with frames that aren't anywhere near optimized for it. If you maintain situational awareness so you don't get cornered and roll out the way of exloding runners, leapers and chargers before they can stun you, infested become much more manageable.

As has been stated multiple times though, this isn't the focus of this thread. Coming up with new, interesting ways to keep the infested challenging without relying on stunning alone is.

[cypherhalo]

Eh, I am able to take on the infested so . . . I agree with OP that stunlock is annoying but Infested are also usually pretty weak. My Ember, a Shotgun, and a Flaming Cronus sword usually serve me more then well enough in taking them down. So, I guess here's what I would say. It would be appreciate to have some way to break stunlock, at least from the lighter enemies like Runners and Chargers. Any future new Infested, it would be nice if not all of have them some kind of stagger/stun/knockdown because if too many infested get on you, it can get a little hairy. Still, usually your powers can get you out of the bind. So, it kind of makes you use your powers otherwise you wouldn't bother using them. So, I'm a little split on this one.

[gell]

I wanted to start my own thread, but this is basically the master thread for stun and stun-lock discussion, so I'll just post here and try to keep it short.

- Stuns, staggers, and interrupts are fine mechanics, especially in a PvE game, however

- Players should not be able to be stun locked without recourse. This just means that if the player has no control, the enemy should not be able to increase the duration of said control loss without the player having a say in it.

It's as simple as that. Not sure why this old mechanic hasn't been figured out yet by the designer at DE. I hate to sound pedantic, but I think we figured this out in the 90s. Even hard games like Dark Souls, Ninja Gaiden (on hard), or Devil May Cry 3 don't allow you to be staggered repeatedly. You'll still take damage by repeated attacks, but you won't be staggered over and over because IT FEELS TERRIBLE. Even games built on combos, like Street Fighter, don't let you get repeatedly staggered after the combo is broken or you fall to the ground. It's quite a feat to use the correct sequence of attacks that disallow the opponent to attack back. Yet in Warframe, one disruptor can just stand there and should his randomized AI decide to whack my little guy over and over while he's slowly getting up like a drunk frat boy (really, shouldn't ninjas just pull a Jackie Chan and get up on their legs super fast?), you can't do anything about it.

This just makes the game look bad. If the designer is dead set on the stun the way it is, then there needs to be elements of breaking said locks. In games with heavy hits that put you down for a count if you hit the ground, you often have an option of using some move to air recover, well-timed ground recover, or stunlock burst (this latter move is usually given some form of cooldown or large energy usage). It's a get out of jail free card, but designed in a way that doing it repeatedly is not possible, or completely useless to do so. Another example is Super Smash Bros (I think it's SSB, it's been a while). Save me the remarks about SSB not being Warframe. They share the mechanic of being hit, falling to the floor, and staying down for a couple seconds. In Smash Bros, if you hit A just as you hit the ground, you do a ground roll, or for some characters, a ground bounce to recover. It requires timing but at least that was one chance to avoid the penalty.

If you're going to argue for stun lock, then I'll argue for more ways to get out of it, or prevent it with skill. Add to your game if you don't want to remove things from your game. I'm a designer and I know hearing a mouthful from some internet stranger makes you want to rip their head off because how could they know better, but this had to be said. It's the one combat element I feel is extremely poor. The rest is quite good.

Side note: I don't have trouble with WF's difficulty. It's a pretty easy game and I can often just melee everything. But 1 in 100 runs, I'll get stun locked and require a revive. One tiny mistake, or missed enemy, and if the dice are against me, it means death, not by skill, not by great design, but by a weak enemy repeated hitting me till I'm dead.

To borrow an internet phrase, designed absolute stun lock is bad, and you should feel bad.

Edited February 11, 2013 by gell

[Mak_Gohae]

- Players should not be able to be stun locked without recourse. This just means that if the player has no control, the enemy should not be able to increase the duration of said control loss without the player having a say in it.

You can use one of your powers, roll, or jump attack.

[gell]

You can use one of your powers, roll, or jump attack.

Depending on the frame, some frames have no power that can help them. Not every frame is excalibur. Pretty sure Loki can't do anything that will stop from falling, even invisibility takes a second to work.

Enemies can randomly and magically hit me mid roll, starting that fall and slow shamble all over again.

I've tried jumping out of that slow "getting up" animation plenty, but I'll try again when I have time. It's not like I just wait it out. Of course I'm trying to do something to get out of it, but it's just a slow "ninja" standing back up. I do know during a regular jump attack, you can be swatted out of the air by quite a lot, such as the repeated ancient disruptor arm.

In those moments when I do miss that one runner, it might just be revive time, even though I have full shield and health. Can't stop the endless runner stagger sometimes.

Edited February 11, 2013 by gell

[Mak_Gohae]

Depending on the frame, some frames have no power that can help them. Not every frame is excalibur. Pretty sure Loki can't do anything that will stop from falling, even invisibility takes a second to work.

Enemies can randomly and magically hit me mid roll, starting that fall and slow shamble all over again.

I've tried jumping out of that slow "getting up" animation plenty, but I'll try again when I have time. It's not like I just wait it out. Of course I'm trying to do something to get out of it, but it's just a slow "ninja" standing back up. I do know during a regular jump attack, you can be swatted out of the air by quite a lot, such as the repeated ancient disruptor arm.

In those moments when I do miss that one runner, it might just be revive time, even though I have full shield and health. Can't stop the endless runner stagger sometimes.

I play Loki and you can invis your way out.

Dont roll into an area where there are more enemies.

And when you do any of this, including jumping, spam the button to make sure it gets in.

And dont wait until you are halfway into the pile-up do it at the start.

[Tsoe]

got an idea...

you should run away before they hit you? or use a skill or run on a wall

w/e