Solo Is Now Dull , And Not Rewarding Enough . Get A Squad For A Far More Easy Game.

[Llyssa]

I mainly use frames I haven't maxed out the level on yet, with weapons I haven't maxed out the level on yet, and a sentinel I haven't maxed out the level on yet.

 

I haven't had any issues with soloing when I want to, and precisely *because* of the "parkour and cool stuff". If you were actually using those, you'd see how much they help you in dodging and avoiding enemies.

 

The game is meant to be "co-op", so it makes sense that soloing isn't the easiest thing in the world.

 

There's also some logical issues with your described problems--if you can't survive the "endless waves", you aren't doing very good at finding any of the secret hiding locations flooding a map, and, importantly, you're apparently trying to kill everything. You don't actually have to kill everything to succeed in most mission types, and complaining that it's impossible to kill everything all by yourself is... kinda lame.

 

In the few types where you *do* have to kill everything, there's a limited number of enemies to defeat.

 

If you just use the terrain available, and make careful strides to avoid enemies when possible, it's not hard to solo through things and still get kills. The fact it's a bit of a mental challenge instead of a "stand there and shoot things" slogfest is what makes it fun.

 

I don't think it would be particularly productive to the game for it to become a "a single person can stand in the middle of a room with a paris and kill everything" system, most people, particularly those in groups, would get bored fast.

 

If you're really having that much problems solo, go with a squad and *learn* how to use the terrain while they take care of enemies.(Make sure you contribute, you shouldn't be leeching off of their efforts!!). Once you figure out that there's millions of hiding places and shortcuts and secret passage ways, it becomes rather simple to progress, whether or not you've got a team with you.

 

Soloing should be optional, and it is, and it should be something you need to learn how to do, and it is. The game shouldn't be so easy that taking a team seems pointless, but that's exactly what you're asking for.

 

All of the various digs at "fake difficulty" and whatnot do not make you more credible.You aren't learning how to play the game well enough to solo, and it's upsetting you. So, go learn how to play the game.

 

My only possible agreement with anything you said is that I formerly used captain vor's mission to test out new weapons I'd bought without using any mods, other weapons, sentinels, or frame powers to win with. I'm not entirely certain that's a realistic goal anymore, with him being a level 40+ vauban with teleport and a summoner mode. He's actually rather difficult even with all of that, so as a vanilla "what does this weapon do?" test, it's rather useless now. Vor is, perhaps, too hard now, but the rest of the game seems fine.

[Zoike]

i only read a lil bit but yeah this is especially annoying for stealth missions........ then again stealth in general is annoyingly incomplete right now....

does DE even read the stealth suggestion thread? seems like they gave up on it after watevr they did to it last time. its funny because they r still releasing silent weapons.... what even funnier tht silent weps like kunai are better for upfront game play..........

[Saenol]

I had a long, multi-quote, post typed up but then Nightly crashed (the price for using alpha browsers) and I lost it all, so I'll just sum things up here.

 

If you think there is any frame that cannot solo any content, except perhaps, outside of very high rank mobile defense/defense, with relative ease, you are dead wrong. I still use my Excalibur to solo most content.

 

Excessive balance is bad. It leads to sameness and mediocrity. The current system, where some frames actually are better at some things than others, is more interesting and has more depth. Same goes with weapons. This remains true even if some things are better overall. As long as nothing is completely useless, it has a place.

 

You don't need to reactor/catalyze/polarize everything to be effective. It really helps, and you should at least do it with your primary frame and weapon, but it's not an absolute requirement. Everyone also starts with enough platinum to buy a reactor and catalyst, while a few forma are not exceptionally difficult to obtain.

 

Enemies should be proficient with their weapons. They should not frequently miss targets that are not taking cover, or who are not taking extreme defensive measures (you can actually dodge a great deal of fire), at the ranges typical in Warframe.

 

No (rank appropriate) enemy should be so trivial that it can always be ignored, especially if you are in a weakened state.

 

You should not always get exactly everything you want. A large portion of Warframe's depth comes from knowing when to empty your mag as fast as possible and when to conserve ammunition for the challenges ahead; from knowing when it's best to backtrack and when it's best to move on before reinforcement show up; from knowing when melee is the better option; and so on and so forth. If you don't like the fact that it's not easy to kill 15 waves of rank 90 infested with nothing but a Skana, tough.

 

I actually use Marathon, Rush, and Quick Rest on my Excalibur (I ditch Marathon on my Rhino, but I will not part with Rush or Quick Rest outside of defense missions). They are all useful, especially for light/dual melee weapons, which you can attack with while sprinting (at a heavy cost in stamina). I can kill heavies by orbiting them faster than they can turn while slashing away with my cleavers, or sprint through a hallway packed wall to wall with infested...leaving nothing but corpses in my wake.

 

Health restores are useful. Not in combat, of course, but between combats. Inevitably, I will eventually take health damage (toxic ancients usually), and being able to top off my health, or at least not be caught with so little health that one poison fart kills me, is very frequently the difference between having to burn a revive/outright failure, and victory.

 

Ammo boxes. Not expensive, and often way better than than using precious capacity on Ammo Drum or the like.

 

You don't actually need a Boltor.

 

You almost never actually need a Frost.

 

Contrary to popular belief, mobility is often better, for both defense and offense, than almost anything else. I'll take rush over Steel Fiber on my Rhino any day.

[Gigatron-Prime]

The way they approached difficulty was rushed and lazy. We need smarter enemy A.I. 

 

NOT bullet sponges...

[Saenol]

The way they approached difficulty was rushed and lazy. We need smarter enemy A.I. 

 

NOT bullet sponges...

 

I wholehearted agree with this. However, I also recognize that their are practical limitations to AI.

 

Even the best game AI is really dumb, and there is sure to be drastically diminishing returns with the effort required to implement strong AI and the actual effectiveness of it.

 

If 90% of human players aren't competent enough to be a challenge to other players, what chance does some script have?

Edited July 22, 2013 by Saenol

[LazyKnight]

I wholehearted agree with this. However, I also recognize that their are practical limitations to AI.

 

Even the best game AI is really dumb, and there is sure to be drastically diminishing returns with the effort required to implement strong AI and the actual effectiveness of it.

 

If 90% of human players aren't competent enough to be a challenge to other players, what chance does some script have?

The AI on corpus and infested are basically suicide bombers only the grineer try not to die. It doesn't have to be smart just needs things like a MOA to stop running up right in front of me so I can easily point my HEK at them and end them. If they used their range and kept moving they would be so much more dangerous than they are now.

Edited July 22, 2013 by LazyKnight

[TheHeraldXII]

The way they approached difficulty was rushed and lazy. We need smarter enemy A.I. 

 

NOT bullet sponges...

The enemy flanks, surrounds, pins you down and uses specialist units to force you out of cover or drag you out into killzones. The "enemy AI needs to be smarter" line just doesn't ring true for me. Most of the time you don't see it happen because they die too fast to pull this off. Also, the only way to reward having high end damage mods it to make enemies take more damage.

 

As for the overall difficulty curve, I had a realization just a few minutes ago, there seem to be 4 tiers of planet. Tier 1 goes from 1-20, tier 2 goes from 20-35, tier 3 goes from 35-45 and tier 4 is 45 onwards. In the tier 2 and 3 planet clusters, they all seem to have the same level enemies, what if instead, they level progression was more spread out, so each of the 13 planets had a range of about 6 levels.

Mercury:1-6, Venus:5-11, Earth 10-16, Jupiter: 15-21, Mars: 21-27, Saturn 23-30, Europa 30-36, Uranus 35-45, Neptune 40-50, Sedna 49-55, Eris 50-57, Ceres 58-64, Pluto 64-72.

That means the high level planets are the same as they are now, but the low-mid range is much easier on new players. There is a clear progression there that isn't unfair to new players, let's people get the components they need for weapons without fighting enemies higher than level 20, and not have to fight enemies higher than level 35 to get control modules for suits. The difficulty sort of accelerates near the end because some people, myself included, like the challenge these new enemies bring.

Maybe this could make the difficulty more agreeable to both greenhorns and veterans alike.

[Chazman80]

Why to long winded of a post. 

[Saenol]

Wow I call BS on that. I was the person who took my friend around Terminus and M Prime. I had a nova and some other nice stuff and am now mastery 2 (we did actually buy some platinum when it was 75% off and holy gods bought frames and weapons are like night and day compared to newb items!!!!!!!!!!)

 

There was way too many enemies for a single player or new person to fight. Seriously, even being scaled for 2 people if we'd both been new (as I was only a week ago) we'd have used all 4 lives. My friend is an experienced gamer (FAR more so than me tbh) and was saying how little instruction was given. He didn't know the Online button could be changed to Private (there's no instruction on that) so his first mission was swamped as he joined someone else who were higher rank (they all had sentinels for one thing - they are not newb items) who rushed away to the goal and then exit while he was left behind to respawning enemies ready for a group. He died a few times and would have quit if I hadn't told him. 

 

There needs better instructions as he did't even know how to run/crouch (jump and wasd he figured :p )

 

It's already been stated they are now levelling even the easy missions to your level. Perhaps if he'd been solo (impossible if you don't know the Online/Private etc) he'd have had a chance. But the engine must be averaging. Have a high and a low level? Let's put the enemies in the middle. Hey let's add a newbie to lower the difficulty! It's not hard to follow the logic. 

 

Either you and your friend are incompetent in the extreme or you are no where near as experienced as you claim to be.

 

Shift for run/sprint, and Control for crouch, have been standard FPS fare for nearly 20 years. There are quite literally hundreds, if not thousands, of games that use these keys for these functions.

 

Five minutes of experimenting with the interface should have revealed how the basics work. There is also a quick start guide one click from the Warframe.com front page.

 

I have never spent platinum on a frame or weapon and jumped right into warframe without knowing much of anything about the specifics of the game (I didn't even bother with the quick start guide initially) either. I was still able to complete all of mercury with the starting gear, in a mix of solo and team play, before I even knew how to fuse mods, within hours, without a single mission failure, and only needing to use one revive. Admittedly, this was before the updated Vor, but Mercury is still not hard, even for most new players.

[LazyKnight]

The enemy flanks, surrounds, pins you down and uses specialist units to force you out of cover or drag you out into killzones. The "enemy AI needs to be smarter" line just doesn't ring true for me. Most of the time you don't see it happen because they die too fast to pull this off. Also, the only way to reward having high end damage mods it to make enemies take more damage.

 

As for the overall difficulty curve, I had a realization just a few minutes ago, there seem to be 4 tiers of planet. Tier 1 goes from 1-20, tier 2 goes from 20-35, tier 3 goes from 35-45 and tier 4 is 45 onwards. In the tier 2 and 3 planet clusters, they all seem to have the same level enemies, what if instead, they level progression was more spread out, so each of the 13 planets had a range of about 6 levels.

Mercury:1-6, Venus:5-11, Earth 10-16, Jupiter: 15-21, Mars: 21-27, Saturn 23-30, Europa 30-36, Uranus 35-45, Neptune 40-50, Sedna 49-55, Eris 50-57, Ceres 58-64, Pluto 64-72.

That means the high level planets are the same as they are now, but the low-mid range is much easier on new players. There is a clear progression there that isn't unfair to new players, let's people get the components they need for weapons without fighting enemies higher than level 20, and not have to fight enemies higher than level 35 to get control modules for suits. The difficulty sort of accelerates near the end because some people, myself included, like the challenge these new enemies bring.

Maybe this could make the difficulty more agreeable to both greenhorns and veterans alike.

It would likely work to have 4 tiers.

 

As long as they moved all the defense maps off the main path(just put them on a dead end path) so people didn't get blocked on Earth, Senda,  or any of he other planets so they would be 100% optional so people didn't feel compelled to do them. Would likely be an easier fix for DE so they wouldn't have to balance them either.

[Vaskadar]

Okay, so I've lurked this thread a few times to see where it's gone. It's gone nowhere. Yeah, there was a slight bump in difficulty, but all the missions are possible to solo even now (not counting nightmare difficulty). Just certain bosses aren't (without having to use a revive or all of them, that is). If you actually hit (solo) where it can either say (private) or (online), the enemy counts are reduced, and you can pause the game at your leisure. This was a feature implemented recently, and... well, I can't say I agree with the original post. Yes, I've been playing this game for a long long time, but have I bothered to max out my redirection or other things? No, no I have not.

Yes, Frost is indeed my favorite frame, but do I play him all the time? No. Do I use the most powerful weapons in my arsenal every mission? No. I'm one of those weird players that loves to use the less popular, not-super-powerful weapons in my arsenal. I didn't use forma to min-max my warframes because I didn't see it as a necessity. Now, have I supercharged every warframe and weapon I have? Yes, I'll admit to that.

You can solo T2 missions without fear of getting roflstomped (even if you're not using the greatest weapons). You can solo Xini defense to wave 10 without fear of getting roflstomped without Frost, or Vauban. It's possible. The only bosses I would always recommend squadding up for are: Raptor, Tyl Regor (That @(*()$ bullet attractor spells doom on solo play if you're not meleeing), and Lech Kril (only because he's the biggest, dumbest bullet sponge in the game). Those three are a pain to solo (if just not worth the effort and revives). If you absolutely have to, you can cheese the S#&$ out of Phorid with a Dark Sword or anything that does triple damage to infested with a good charge attack (we're looking at you, Scindo).

But yeah... definitely not impossible to solo on high level content. What gets me though, is that you can't tell what level of enemies you're going to be fighting when you're going into an alert, plus nightmare isn't optional. You just gotta play smart about it. Don't ever face-tank (yes, that's a dumb term, but someone used it before me) and retreat when necessary to avoid damage. Hide if you have to. Save up for a Shade to help shroud you.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Vaskadar

[Saenol]

The only bosses I would always recommend squadding up for are: Raptor, Tyl Regor (That @(*()$ bullet attractor spells doom on solo play if you're not meleeing), and Lech Kril (only because he's the biggest, dumbest bullet sponge in the game). Those three are a pain to solo (if just not worth the effort and revives).

 

Regor and Raptor are fairly quick and easy to solo. Kril is not hard, he just takes forever. I actually ran out of ammo boxes on him once (using less than ideal weapons), and had to kite him around the whole map as I shattered crates, opened lockers, and killed random crap to scrounge up enough ammo to finish him off...

[TheHeraldXII]

It would likely work to have 4 tiers.

 

As long as they moved all the defense maps off the main path(just put them on a dead end path) so people didn't get blocked on Earth, Senda,  or any of he other planets so they would be 100% optional so people didn't feel compelled to do them. Would likely be an easier fix for DE so they wouldn't have to balance them either.

Yeah, I suggested that earlier, although Xylia made a good point about certain resources being too hard to obtain. New players might have trouble getting through Mars or Jupiter to get salvage, and you have to fight the equivalent of Pluto level enemies to get control modules now. I think that both the levels of early planets and the location of mobile/defense missions need to be adjusted to make the game more newbie friendly.

[Palamudin]

 

Dude, you have a fully decked out Rhino.  Come back with a Rank 0 Excalibur, a unranked Mk-1 Braton and Lato, and don't forget your Skana.  And maybe, and only maybe then, will we take your posts serious.  Now, along with Mr. Pava, you're nothing but a waste of time.

 

 

Nightmare is just the level for you then!  DE really needs to make it a toggle you can choose.

 

 

I started as Loki, please, i had braton, i had lato, nothing was given to me. That part of the game was awsome cause it provided some form of chalenge with newly discovered attributes and mods and putting them to best use possible. 

Now i have all mods, to specs defense or single play. i mow either single or multiplay due to good usage of aquired mods and skills, its nothing strange. Im looking and waiting the new developments and first signs are dual mod, opening cap for further increasing survivability, dmg output and giving harder mobs to coexist, If i wasn't op i would be with new mods. Im aware that players are damaged by nightmare and i think it should be optional on random maps not imposed, but they are working on it. But saying that whole game is unplayable in single player mod is untrue, im mostly soloing (i was cooping only when leveling new weapons if i had no backup i.e. dry start) acquired more than 4 frames using nothing but Loki without potato, buying additional weapon slot and warframe slot with starting platinum i have played first 300-400 hours without a single potato, paris, heat blades were enough to take me long way.

Questioning my statement is requiring to elaborate my statement. 

Im not hard donator, i payed 15$ in total, and even if i didnt i would have enough potatoes from events to serve the purpose of full spec Rhino. And mnd you, warframe doesnt play the game, player does, me having full spec rhino has nothing to do with what im saying, Dmg output of weapons we are all using are all the same. Every 200charge dmg weap is a monster capable of dealing up to 6000K dmg to a target on a game that has 100lvl enemy pool. If it was any stronger you would be onehitting everyone in the game, and then there would be no joy.

 

What are insults for, now you are passing a judgement on my worth and time spent on my thoughts and words. Chill and stay neutral, facts, just facts man... but i feel you with low level and nightmare mode out of nowhere not being able to choose, thats no reason to insult people that you never met or had a chance to exchange words -.-

Edited July 22, 2013 by Palamudin

[Psychotoxin]

wow, this has gone through a total BS storm, but i see why some people might like the S#&$-&#! ridiculously strong enemies. it gives you a sense of acheivement, when you survive a room full of level 75+ incredi-lazer-supah-&#!-kicking dudes. it`s not my style, and i don`t like running around like a helpless bunny, but that`s what most high level alert missions are for me.

And of course there are people who can get 912456432 orokin catalysts/reactors/formas a week, but there are also people like me, who`ve got social obligations (working in a hospital leaves little free time, of which i use a small portion to play warframe, and rarely get forma/potato alerts), so all my stuff is only max-leveled and maybe 50% of my guns are potatoed, with bought potatoes. and if someone even mentions that in a sentence with "then you shouldn`t play WF", they can go straight to hell.

rant over.

on a side note. while i do admit that getting through a tough mission gives that awesome adrenaline rush, i was more positively psyched, when i succesifully got to  the void treasure room. that is a rush i, and probably a sizeable amount of people, like to feel, over brute conquest. when you can out-think/out-skill something, it`s more of an achievement, than out-lasting or out-gunning something. and that`s why i`d like to see better/smarter/more skillful AI. something that even in small numbers poses a great threat.

anyways, don`t go flame-branding me, because you think my opinions suck. this is a game, and we mainly should enjoy that. take a chill-pill, drink a cup of tea, and go kill some grineer, to vent yourself.

[Dussack]

soloed with a new nova with new weapons (sobek, a new despair, and a recently forma'd orthos) and now with a low level loki with new latron prime and reaper prime and both those frames are made of tissue paper.

[tehgreg]

I don't care about high enemy number, their levels being to high... JUST DON'T MAKE THEM SPAWN BEHIND MY BACK WHEN I CLEARLY CLEARED THE PREVIOUS ROOM This is the most annoying thing that is keeping me from playing Warframe. I just login to get my daily glaive blueprint reward and log off.

[Dussack]

spawning behind you or even on you is very annoying there shouldn't be new spawns in the room you are in or the room you just occupied (or only after a delay for the room behind you) I had a toxic ancient spawn on me in my nova at one point.

[HammerHead90]

Change the topic name to:

Get a squad or get good.

How have the game become more difficult? I haven't noticed a difference, really - been soloing Hyena, doing lvl 20-25 defences solo till wave 15, and other missions of levels 30-40. All in my Loki/Rhino with mid/low level mods and Dera/HEK. Playing with a friend is making everything a breeze, and even level 118 enemies aren't much of a problem in a three man squad.

 

Unranked frames/weapons are even less of a problem - you just start at Venus or Mercury, grind some XP there and go forth.

Edited July 22, 2013 by HammerHead90

[SirNerdsAlot5]

-MORE ENEMIES DOES NOT MEAN MORE CHALLENGE.

 

Oh really now? Last I checked, more enemies made level progression slower, which means it's easier to get surrounded. Sounds like a challenge to me.

[Psychotoxin]

Oh really now? Last I checked, more enemies made level progression slower, which means it's easier to get surrounded. Sounds like a challenge to me.

 

 Fake challenge. a real challenge would be that you have your standard mooks coming in, and then a team of tacticaly thinking enemies show up, and surround and  thoroughly butt-rape you, with just 3-4 guys in the team. that`s challenge. there is no challenge that you`d have to think about in having seventy-bagillion dudes swarm-raping your &#! from every direction and angle. that, dear friend is just a bipolar option - die, or run back. rinse and repeat till you kill them all.

if any of you remember a level from the age-old classic "Half-life" where the female ninja assassins attacked you for the first time. that`s challenge. and there were only 3 of them...

[HammerHead90]

 Fake challenge. a real challenge would be that you have your standard mooks coming in, and then a team of tacticaly thinking enemies show up, and surround and  thoroughly butt-rape you, with just 3-4 guys in the team. that`s challenge. there is no challenge that you`d have to think about in having seventy-bagillion dudes swarm-raping your &#! from every direction and angle. that, dear friend is just a bipolar option - die, or run back. rinse and repeat till you kill them all.

if any of you remember a level from the age-old classic "Half-life" where the female ninja assassins attacked you for the first time. that`s challenge. and there were only 3 of them...

 

And how can you imagine 4 enemies surrounding a highly mobile warframe? The enemies in HL had an elemenet of surprise. Every next playthrough you just shot them in the face with shotgun alt-fire or killed them with underslung grenade launcher. It was one time, cheap trick. You can't expect DE to make such one timers all the time. But they could force AI to make an ambush in this bigger, multi level room with boxes and things, where enemies would stay hidden and shot you all at the same time.

The challenge here is limited by the power of the character you're controlling. You can corner a one man army only with a wave of grunts.

[NexionSE]

i still havent had a problem solo any non def map with my loki without reactor just go for stealth kills and silent weapons and if u do start the alarm run like never before and if you get surrounded just invis and rip them apart with melee or run some more. no alert no masses of alerted enemies. and on infested just take a good heavy melee weapon like scindo, on the light charge or spam melee on the big ones jump attack and then finish.

 

on corpus load freze dmg and electric grineer load armor pen

 

and a lvl 0 ember can solo to wave 15 on pluto.palus(65-65) no problem.

 

main problem i think is in this game for new ppl is to get serration/pointblank/hornet strike(now also pressure point is highly usefull) so they can progress.

 

in the end if you want to solo pick a warframe fitting for the task and boost on shield forget health unless the frame has a lot of armor and health already.

 

and yes i do remmber when i still was new to the game i worked alot to get stuff i needed to progress and most of the map progression i did solo and still do, but rember this game is focused at co-op witch is clearly seen on def maps where you can not be everywhere at once.

 

on my first hours of play i was on the maybe 3rd or 4th mission and i heard a large security force approaching and i was like wow now something hapening but then i saw 2-3 grineer comeing i was like meh... wonder what a patrol is like if that is a large force

[arch111]

I see many claiming i could solo saturn pluto with my

way 30l Loki and braton, skana.

I find this very hard. Have you any sound tips for my next go?

The only way i see now iS to stay invisible and run like hell

but whenever a toxic anc or heavy greneer are involved, they kill without seeing.

I feel this is a game of weapons. Got the gear and its easy.

still on my Braton in saturn, earth, pluto? Hard.

[HammerHead90]

Braton is a viable weapon, especially with the catalyst. I only dropped it when I got the Dera. Skana may be your problem - get a Plasma Sword or Dual Ethers or even just Cronus.