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Grineer: 2.0


DangerDaddy
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So I recently wrote a short story set in Warframe, but I decided to "spice it up" by reworking the entire line up for the enemy factions. Yeah, all 3 factions from the ground up.

Basically the issue I have with the factions as they stand is that they don't hold the strongest identity beyond their visual aesthetics, and their slight stat change. Beyond that, you also have their Lore differences, the militaristic Grineer, the capitalist Corpus and the  mindless Infested, but those aren't portrayed in mission.

So, what's the difference in stats?

Between the Corpus and Grineer. overlooking the small differences like lancer VS crewman, and looks, etc:
-Projectile weapons VS hit scan.
-Shields VS armor. 
-Nullifiers VS Bombards/Napalms
 and I guess Osprey VS Drahk + Rollers + Kavats.

The Infested are different, but really, they're just more or less melee variants, large health pool, higher damage to compensate for the lack of range, and slow movement in general.

What makes the factions stand out at the moment isn't really anything except they look different and you can create different personalities for any character. But for trying to describe the action within the story, and the game play within the game: they're far to similar. And to me, that just didn't cut it. 

 

So I guess I'll start with the Grineer. They were the first faction the players are introduced to, and so I figured it'd be a good place to start.

The Grineer soldiers are tools for the Queens, they're weapons first and foremost. These clones are aware of what they are, and as they've been DNA-spliced to fit the need, and their rank and designation show it.
On top of their rank showing what their focus is, they also have been trained in military tactics, meaning that if enough soldiers are in an area, they will start to form groups that are stronger than each individual unit.

Figuring simple names is the best, and leaving open any "special" roles while also trying to maintain the current Grineer lineup, here's what I came up with for the Grineer:

     Dagger: Melee range enemies, such as butchers and flame tongues fall under this category.
-Twin Daggers: (Sheev, light melee, runs around instead of directly at the Tenno when they can, they'll react to Tenno fire by diving towards the closest cover and waiting there for a few moments before continuing to run, with twin daggers)
-Heavy Dagger: (Machete, heavy melee, run towards the Tenno but will turn towards cover when the Tenno)
-Long Dagger: (medium melee, run and teleport around, they will try to avoid line of sight from the Tenno until they're within range)

     Sword: A step behind the Dagger, these units use the sub machine guns like the Grakata, and the shotguns such as the Sobek.
-Short Sword: (Brakk, very short ranged Grineer, they don't have much strategy beyond the current Grineer attack plan of straight up attacking)
-Twin Swords: (Twin Grakata, light ranged unit, try to fight from the closest form of cover and will move into the open when the Tenno move to close)
-Sword: (Hek, melee ranged unit, they'll try to move between cover, but will not stay behind cover for any duration, and will be actively aggressive)

     Shield: These are the typical shield bearing Grineer. They form a protective barrier around the rest of the Grineer.
-Tower Shield: (massive shield, very heavy and slow, they'll drop their shields only to move up or down in an area that requires them to)
-Shield:(shield and Furis, they more or less exist in the game as such, this is a simple renaming)
-Kite Shield: (medium sized shield with a Khomak, medium-heavy, they've got regular movement speed and will try to pair up with other units)

     Spear: These are the meat of the Grineer forces, supplying the main danger and firepower of the Grineer.
-Spear: (Grinlok, light long range unit, will attempt to fight and attack from a distance, and will move away from the Tenno to maintain that distance)
-Lance: (Karak, medium ranged unit, these are very close to the current Lancer units)
-Javelin: (Hind, medium heavy ranged unit, act very similar to swords, playing very safe behind cover, but keeping a fair distance)
-Trident: (Vulkar, extremely light ranged unit, the snipers of the Grineer, they will place a stealth pad nearby that glows on its own, but will hide the Trident)

     Hammer: Very heavy units with explosive weapons.
-Hammer: (Stuggrator [picture a primary version of the stug firing much heavier blobs], heavy ranged unit, slow and steady, they'll try to move around the player and aim at either them, or nearby doors to narrow the Tenno's options)
-War Hammer: (Ogris, very heavy ranged unit, slow, HAS A FINITE AMMO COUNT, and when they run out of ammo, they will pull out a Hek and move in closer)
-Battle Hammer: (Napalm, extremely heavy ranged unit, the Battle Hammer has a massive shield on their back, they may place the shield down as a static wall, fighting a non-static turret)

     Whip and Scythe: Special units, aimed to compliment the rest of the combat team
-Whip: (Scorpion 2.0, light melee unit, their body is augmented to be a lot more agile, carrying around a single Machete and their dragging whip)
-Scythe: (Gorgon, very heavy ranged unit, fairly slow, will lay covering fire down while the rest of the Grineer set up in units or move closer, has an extreme version of the Gorgon that goes to a far higher fire rate with a much slower spool)
-War Scythe: (Gorgon Wraith, extremely heavy ranged unit, the War Scythe compensate for their slower movement speed by being augmented with far larger quadrupedal legs that give them a far higher movement speed, allowing them to carry shield plates covering their lower body and parts of their upper body)

     Mechanical forces: These are all support units designed to compliment the Grineer forces in the tasks they need.
-Caltrop: (Typical roller, sized about 1/3rd the height of a Warframe)
-Firing Caltrop: (Roller that can turn into a turret at will, firing at the Tenno, supporting the rest of the Grineer fighters)
-Arrow: (Flying drones that fire down on the Tenno from above, these have 2 flight modes, hover and fly, which take a moment to switch between that allow them to fire or get into better positioning)
-Quiver: (large flying drone that does not carry weapons, but rather acts as a hanger for a large amount of Arrows)
Catapult: (massive tank unit that can be found only on the most open of tiles, such as the Plains of Eidolon, these carry a large amount of weapons with their 6 legs able to act like a wall protecting other Grineer forces from fire. They will also manufacture Arrows, and release a large amount upon finding an enemy and regularly producing more as the battle continues)

Beyond the updated combatant list, the Grineer are also militaristic and therefor have researched and created better ways to fight wars, meaning they've trained their troops to act in a unit, beyond the simple run-and-gun each Grineer unit has now.

     The following are some examples of formations the Grineer have decided to train their troops.

Guardian: When a Shield finds a Weapon (Sword, Spear, Hammer, or other Grineer unit capable of firing while using them for protection) they will attempt to safely meet and move together. 

Double Guard: When a lone Shield finds a Guardian formation, they will attempt to move into position to provide better cover for the Weapon, moving along as a single unit.

Phalanx: When multiple Weapons have gathered in a room, they will attempt to group up into smaller pairings of 3 units per, with each range covered equally as much as possible (Dagger+Sword+Spear trio instead of Dagger+Dagger+Sword, etc)

Shield Wall: When multiple Shields have gathered and found an enemy, they will attempt to create a blockade, protecting the Weapons behind them.

Shotgun: When there are to many Weapons for the Shields to protect, the Weapons will leave a small amount of troops behind the Shields, and move forward in an arc spreading out while the Weapons staying behind provide covering fire.

 

 

 

That's my suggestion for the New Grineer, any opinions?

(I'd also love to know if anyone could help remind me how to "read more" "color=red" etc to make this a LOT easier to read! Thanks for your time!

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18 hours ago, Silentium1011 said:

Renaming the current enemy units would be both too time consuming for the developers, and too confusing for the players.

However, the behaviors you listed are certainly excellent ideas. especially the strategies.

I'd imagine it'd be by far the easiest thing to rename the enemies, it's probably possible for them to Alt F to find all references to "Lancer" and rename them "Lance". 

The strategies would seriously set them apart from the corpus, it'd make their military theme far more believable than it currently is, and give far more intense game play. You could even have the strategies just start at a certain level, with higher levels having more complicated strategies that are more difficult so that it's literally not just a larger health bar you're fighting against.

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9 hours ago, MagiTwister said:

I'd imagine it'd be by far the easiest thing to rename the enemies, it's probably possible for them to Alt F to find all references to "Lancer" and rename them "Lance". 

The strategies would seriously set them apart from the corpus, it'd make their military theme far more believable than it currently is, and give far more intense game play. You could even have the strategies just start at a certain level, with higher levels having more complicated strategies that are more difficult so that it's literally not just a larger health bar you're fighting against.

Eh, i'd keep the names we have. But otherwise, yes.

The Corpus should rely more on their robots, the support proxies and crewmen would hang back and provide fire support while the attack proxies swarmed the targets. Maybe add a commanding unit that directs the attack proxies and provides buffs to them, killing the command unit results in the proxies simply doing their normal swarming behaviors. 

Compas would probably hang back with the crewmen while Scrambi could be fast attack debuff skirmishers. (Hit and run glass cannons?) We could do away with Nullifiers altogether. No one likes them.

Infested can stay as they are but could use some more visual diversity and touch ups. And less Eximi with the fire nuke power.

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13 hours ago, Silentium1011 said:

Eh, i'd keep the names we have. But otherwise, yes.

Well, I guess we can agree to disagree on the naming, I gave a solid reason for why I picked the names, the current ones just... exist.

13 hours ago, Silentium1011 said:

 

The Corpus should rely more on their robots, the support proxies and crewmen would hang back and provide fire support while the attack proxies swarmed the targets. Maybe add a commanding unit that directs the attack proxies and provides buffs to them, killing the command unit results in the proxies simply doing their normal swarming behaviors. 

I actually had an entire different idea for the Corpus, it's a mix of robots for supporting units, elite soldiers being trained to lead the troops but instead of putting living corpus Engineers or crewmen, why not hire others to fight for you?

So if I had the time and anyone was actually interested, I could go into how I rebuilt the Corpus, basically it's a core of mercenary soldiers, support from all the robots they use, and then lead by elite trained corpus themselves.

13 hours ago, Silentium1011 said:

Compas would probably hang back with the crewmen while Scrambi could be fast attack debuff skirmishers. (Hit and run glass cannons?) We could do away with Nullifiers altogether. No one likes them.

WELL I kind of figured that the current line up could be really modified, the current Skirmishers would fit in as rare-support units, like they currently do, but with far more hit-and-run like you suggested. But I would hate to see Nullifiers go. They force the player to change tactics and change their play style and as much as I hate playing against them, I love the concept and I would never want them gone.

13 hours ago, Silentium1011 said:

Infested can stay as they are but could use some more visual diversity and touch ups. And less Eximi with the fire nuke power.

Like the Corpus and the Grineer, I actually totally swapped up the Infested too, basically they're currently really large, and really slow, and they've got NOTHING except a small number bonus to compensate for that, well honestly I feel like they should be a lot smaller, a lot more numerous, and a lot faster. The infested should feel frantic, and like you're on the run from them, not that you can literally walk backwards shooting infinitely until an Ancient hooks you in.

 

Basically I figure you can break down what a Tenno is:
Health and Armor, Shields, Energy, and Movement.
Grineer are equal to the Health and Armor
Corpus are equal to the Shields, and the Energy
and the Infested equal the movement. 

This shoves them into opposite corners and makes them vastly different when you're playing them.

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