Grineer Commanders - Why they Are Not Okay

[BlackCoMerc]

The Grineer Commander might very well be one of the cheapest, worst designed enemies in modern gaming.

Now that's a pretty heavy line, and it sounds like a lot of hyperbole. But its not. Its dead serious. 

Good challenges offer opportunities for counter play. They present obstacles a player can overcome using a combination of appropriate gear and player skill developed over time. Even Nullifiers - cheap as they are commonly considered to be - offer the drone atop their bubble, the ability to wear the bubble down and even a (bandaid) mod for a little used weapon. While the opportunities for counter play arent nearly sufficient, at least they exist.

But Commanders? They are...well, they're cheap. And its not just the teleport. Which offers zero counter play itself. That would be bad enough. But then, there's the forced stun animation AFTER the teleport. That's just plain robbing control from the player for no good reason at all. There is no legitimate reason to force this on players. Its frankly insulting. 

I get that players have become so severely overpowered that leaving us in control of a Warframe makes Warframe powers and challenge literally a mutually exclusive idea. But these sorts of control robbing gimmicks are neither a legitimate challenge nor an answer to this problem. 

The game needs to be FIXED. Sooner or later, all of these cheap counters for player powers are going to devour the fun. Heck, many people already outright avoid Corpus missions if they can - I know, I'm one of them. But its reaching a point where we either power enemies into sheerly stupid levels of irrelevance...or they knock us down, drag us around, force stun animations on us and negate our ability to do anything but hold down a fire button for half a mission. 

Something has to give here. And if both player and enemy power levels dont get a much needed overhaul soon...the give is going to be players. Moving on to a game where they can have fun while engaging the enemies, as opposed to cheat-coding them into absenteeism. 

Please consider taking a look at this issue. It really is harming this game, and the enjoyment level of missions. 

[DrBorris]

I would like to think DE knows they are butts given that I feel like I have not seen one in months, but yeah, they need to change. Just give them an empowerment aura for nearby Grineer and maybe make them a bit bigger. 

 

If DE wants to add special units with abilities, just make Rathuum enemies common spawn.

[Arrectius]

I think the teleporting should have a 1 sec lock-on timer before applying and give a warning to the player that is being locked, like warning for missiles in archwing mode. That should give time to evade.

[Tizodd]

I didn't read your entire post but agree that Grineer Commanders are among the most annoying non-boss enemies in the game.  They're up there with the Corpus rollerbladers who cancel your abilities with no warning.

Honestly, the teleportation isn't even what bothers me...it's the three seconds where my frame is standing around looking dumb in the middle of 15 Grineer, taking shots to the head, Powerfist punches, and Scorch insane DoT Ignis damage, while I can't do anything but watch it happen.

If they take away that three seconds where you lose control of your frame, Commanders wouldn't be too bad.  They'd still be able to instantly put you I  a sticky situation, but at least you'd be able to react.

[TaylorsContraction]

Well op brings up two separate points in this thread which should probably be two separate threads.

One is the cheap cc ability commanders have, that offers zero counter play and only punishes players experiencing difficult content without a cheese set up.

The other point is how our cc abilities are equally cheap and create the exact same effect only on the enemies, that is inability to counter play.

I'll list some cc abilities which I consider to be of good design.

Nyx mind control

Harrow's chains

Mags pull, magnetize

Banshee silence, sonic boom

Ember accelerant, fire blast

Frost's 1 ability

Nidus's 4

Rhino charge

The point I'm getting at is cc limited directionally, or if it is aoe, covering a wide area around the player, it's short lived.

But we have a ton of aoe abilities that cover huge areas and last a long time while also being extremely debilitating. This kind of stuff is just plain op imo and any attempted changes will be met with a huge outcry from the community. I don't know how we move forward from here.

 

Edited September 26, 2017 by TaylorsContraction
typos

[TaylorsContraction]

yikes double posted somehow.

 

Edited September 27, 2017 by TaylorsContraction

[BlackCoMerc]

30 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

I would like to think DE knows they are butts given that I feel like I have not seen one in months, but yeah, they need to change. Just give them an empowerment aura for nearby Grineer and maybe make them a bit bigger. 

 

If DE wants to add special units with abilities, just make Rathuum enemies common spawn.

Agreed.

I think DE does know Commanders are a real problem. I think they were removed from normal spawns.

But they were left on syndicate missions,, the which i saw again today. De needs to remove them there, too.

[BlackCoMerc]

14 minutes ago, TaylorsContraction said:

Well oo brings up two separate points in this thread which should probably be two separate threads.

One is the cheap cc ability commanders have, that offers zero counter play and only punishes players experiencing difficult content without a cheese set up.

The other point is how our cc abilities a are equally cheap and create the exact same effect only on the enemies, that is inability to counter play.

I'll list some cc abilities which I consider to be of good design.

Nyx mind control

Harrow's chains

Mags pull, magnetize

Banshee silence, sonic boom

Ember accelerant, fire blast

Frost's 1 ability

Nidus's 4

Rhino charge

The point I'm getting at is cc limited directionally, or if it is aoe covers a wide area around the poster, it's short lived.

But we have a ton of aoe abilities that cover huge areas and last a long time while also being extremely debilitating. This kind of stuff is just plain op imo and any attempted changes will be met with a huge outcry from the coming. I don't know how we move forward from here.

 

Agreed.

Many ults are meta level cheat codes, not powers. I mean, 75% speed reduction. Literally removing enemy weapons? Blinding whole groups? Thats not a power, its turning off the game play.

De needs to determine the max level of enemies we are meant to ACTUALLY ENGAGE and balance from there. 

Disarm becomes jam. For 5 to 10 seconds, enemy weapoms are jammed. 

Molecular Prime keeps the slow or the damage bonus, but not both. And either the duration needs capped, reduced or it needs to be changed to a cone, not a radius.

Chaos loses the stun, increases enemy damage resistance by 500% max and affects a much smaller area. Enemies affected will not prioritize players. Now its a crowd control ability.

Stomp does not deal damage. Instead, it increases vulnerability to damage. It also ripples out in a cone, mot a radius.

Banshe loses that ridiculous augment.

Reckoning becomes a channel. When released, it slams enemies, briefly stunning or knocking them down.

Fleeting Expertise is changed to grant, at most, 25% efficiency and efficiency is capped at 50%.

Energy orbs are removed. Instead, kills grant 2 energy per, or 5 for a headshot.

Enemies lose grappling hooks, energy drain auras and knockdown abilities.

Nullifiers are removed.

Corpus roller skaters receive a colored aura.

This is how we move forward. Balancing around engaging enemies, not turning them off.

Edited September 26, 2017 by BlackCoMerc

[LSG501]

I just don't like the fact there's no 'warning' they're near by, there's no audio or visual cue to say they're near by unlike that other annoyance that has the big blue globe...

[Volkeris]

They only need to remove the animation after the teleport. Honestly, are the Tenno just secretly "wetaded" or something?

Edited September 26, 2017 by Volkeris

[kyori]

I'm more on why they only appear in low level  only when they are called 'commander'... but didn't play the role of a commander.

[Dhrekr]

 

Yeah, I agree. They are cheap and take out much more fun than what they add.

They might need a rework so that their ability can be countered or introduces some challenge for the player.

[TARINunit9]

Grineer Commanders were a completely terrible "this looked good on paper but we didn't think it through" idea that DE refuses to own up to

When they were first released, their Switch Teleport had no stun. You weren't stuck doing that stupid animation. As a result, Commanders were a huge liability to their own men, because players would just follow up a Commander's Teleport with their own Ult, killing all the enemies that were now at ground zero for a deadly Radial Javelin or Miasma. Rather than go back to the drawing board like they did with the Broken Lights Trap, DE just slapped the two second stun animation on players and called it a day, refusing to acknowledge that Commanders are just a bad idea

[1tsyB1tsyN1nj4]

2 hours ago, BlackCoMerc said:

I think DE does know Commanders are a real problem. I think they were removed from normal spawns.

 

The real problem is that DE knows of all these problems, they just don't do anything about it but slap on some sort of band-aid change and call it a day

18 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

Grineer Commanders were a completely terrible "this looked good on paper but we didn't think it through" idea that DE refuses to own up to

When they were first released, their Switch Teleport had no stun. You weren't stuck doing that stupid animation. As a result, Commanders were a huge liability to their own men, because players would just follow up a Commander's Teleport with their own Ult, killing all the enemies that were now at ground zero for a deadly Radial Javelin or Miasma. Rather than go back to the drawing board like they did with the Broken Lights Trap, DE just slapped the two second stun animation on players and called it a day, refusing to acknowledge that Commanders are just a bad idea

I agree with the OP and am glad more and more people are getting up in arms over these things, I've been saying this stuff for a while now. DE just doesn't want to own up to the things they break and then won't fix them for whatever reason either. Just look at the MITER, it was busted since release, now the charged shot only works at range. Nullifiers, no matter how much DE changes them, will always suck, but they don't remove them just cause. Combas and Scrambus could be amazing if they didn't also nullify your active powers and only blocked re-casting them, like I could have sworn they used to up until recently, and if the various Eximus enemies and them got a visible aura. And it's not just enemies, frames that started this whole knee jerk reaction nerfing and buffing from DE are getting reworks, but then combine that with enemies that are still unfair and players start noticing.

[ShogunNoir]

2 hours ago, BlackCoMerc said:

Agreed.

I think DE does know Commanders are a real problem. I think they were removed from normal spawns.

But they were left on syndicate missions,, the which i saw again today. De needs to remove them there, too.

Nope, sorry not true. Me and a clanmate usually run Telesto on Saturn as a warmup prior to a long session, and they are all over the damn place.

I've since stopped taking my Lenz on Grineer missions, since if I fire one at a group of enemies, Commander switch-teleports me into my own Lenz shot and kills me instantly. There's no fighting this, you literally can't use the Lenz unless you're certain there are no Commanders in the vicinity. 

[BlackCoMerc]

3 minutes ago, ShogunNoir said:

Nope, sorry not true. Me and a clanmate usually run Telesto on Saturn as a warmup prior to a long session, and they are all over the damn place.

I've since stopped taking my Lenz on Grineer missions, since if I fire one at a group of enemies, Commander switch-teleports me into my own Lenz shot and kills me instantly. There's no fighting this, you literally can't use the Lenz unless you're certain there are no Commanders in the vicinity. 

You cant use your analog sticks or your WASD buttons unless you know there's not a Commander. Not because of the teleport - although, thats an unforgivably bad mechanic to give an AI enemy to begin with - but because of the auto stun animation that comes AFTER it. 

These enemies are so poorly designed that honestly, a hotfix to remove them from spawn lists needs to happen. Just admit the mistake, remove them until they can be reworked and move on for now. Surely taking them off spawn lists wouldnt break anything.

[BlackCoMerc]

41 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

Grineer Commanders were a completely terrible "this looked good on paper but we didn't think it through" idea that DE refuses to own up to

When they were first released, their Switch Teleport had no stun. You weren't stuck doing that stupid animation. As a result, Commanders were a huge liability to their own men, because players would just follow up a Commander's Teleport with their own Ult, killing all the enemies that were now at ground zero for a deadly Radial Javelin or Miasma. Rather than go back to the drawing board like they did with the Broken Lights Trap, DE just slapped the two second stun animation on players and called it a day, refusing to acknowledge that Commanders are just a bad idea

Most of the enemies added in the last two years are bad implementations that probably looked good on paper:

Nullifiers: Lets turn off the thing that makes Warframe most unique. And lets do it on EVERY SINGLE FISSURE, SORTIE AND LATE GAME MISSION IN EXISTENCE. Lets make late game content into a bog standard, third person shooter with decent movement. What could go wrong?

Comba/Scramba: Lets nullify HALF the powers, with no indication of which half, no audible or visual warning that is readily detectable during mass combat situations and no indication of whether a player is in range of the debuff.

Commander: See above posts.

Manic: Were you TRYING to annoy people? Literally no one likes invulnerable phases on bosses. So you thought that adding them to a common, alarm related enemy would be IMPROVE your game? How? Why?

Nox: Great in theory. But in practice...shoot its face and kill it. Shoot it anywhere else and accomplish almost nothing. Bonus: As it dies, it gets a free attack that can kill you. Because that hasnt long been heralded as one of the cheapest things in gaming.

Butcher (Stagger attack and teleport): This is the lowliest of the low, grunt level enemies...and now they can teleport around like Warframes, and stagger even the heaviest frames with a single, small jump. What justification exists for this ability? Seriously, its ok to have lowly, grunt tier enemies in an ARPG, which Warframe demonstrably is. Walk this back.

 

Honestly, I think a problem exists within DE, where Warframe and Enemy design is concerned. I think two teams exist - one that designs frames and another that designs enemies. And I think a mentality has developed on the part of both teams that they have to "beat each other" in terms of power level. Hence, the gradually increasing power level of enemies. To the point where late game consists mostly of either turning off facets of game play with grossly OP energy flow plus constant, cheesing Ults...or dying from a single shot to power nullifying, over armored death dealing damage sponges.

This needs to be reconciled. It is not the job of those designing enemy units to Beat the Frame designers. Its the goal of BOTH of those teams to work in tandem, as one cohesive unit, to ensure a fair and reasonable level of challenge arises from players ACTUALLY ENGAGING WITH the enemies (as opposed to shutting them down) and accurately reporting at what level or tier shutting them down becomes the preferred method - because that's the cutoff point. And I can tell you from experience, its well before Sortie/Raid level enemies.

Something needs to give. The game's been robbed of its fun. Either you borderline AFK CC the AI into useless obliviousness or you are knocked down, drug around, nullified, slowed, blinded by fuzz and otherwise annoyed into finding a game that actually cares whether the game play is fun.

[DarkFlameZealot]

I'm not sure how they need a massive nerf when you never see them....? I haven't encountered a commander in about...a year? (excluding synth targets)

 

They only seem to spawn on a pathetically small number of nodes, though PoE might change that? No clue

[DarkFlameZealot]

4 hours ago, BlackCoMerc said:

Butcher (Stagger attack and teleport): This is the lowliest of the low, grunt level enemies...and now they can teleport around like Warframes, and stagger even the heaviest frames with a single, small jump. What justification exists for this ability? Seriously, its ok to have lowly, grunt tier enemies in an ARPG, which Warframe demonstrably is. Walk this back.

*Flameblade is the unit, not butchers. If you're whining about being staggered, go complain about shielders :/

 

They are simple to dodge anyway, should you have any semblance of skill. Go to rathuum arenas and play with the executioner flameblade.

Edited September 26, 2017 by DarkFlameZealot

[TARINunit9]

5 hours ago, BlackCoMerc said:

Most of the enemies added in the last two years are bad implementations that probably looked good on paper:

Nullifiers: Lets turn off the thing that makes Warframe most unique. And lets do it on EVERY SINGLE FISSURE, SORTIE AND LATE GAME MISSION IN EXISTENCE. Lets make late game content into a bog standard, third person shooter with decent movement. What could go wrong?

Nox: Great in theory. But in practice...shoot its face and kill it. Shoot it anywhere else and accomplish almost nothing. Bonus: As it dies, it gets a free attack that can kill you. Because that hasnt long been heralded as one of the cheapest things in gaming.

Nullies weren't fundamentally flawed, DE just can't balance them properly. "A big shield that protects enemies, projected by a small crewman who is weak to melee. And just to make that weakness not too obvious, you have to sacrifice your buffs to melee him." Not great by a long shot, but not terrible. The issue was, they were spawning on top of you with massive bubbles that went through walls and instantly vaporized your buffs, and made sniper rifles even more worthless than they already were. (I feel they're actually too weak now, with tiny bubbles that are a non-issue and no ability to defend their fellow Corpus. And before you jump on me about "what, you want nullies BUFFED?!" maybe they shouldn't insta-purge all buffs instantly either, maybe put the purging on a delay like with Nidus)

As for a Nox's martyrdom attack, DE at least had the courtesy to give it a three second delay preceded by a very loud, very distinctive howl. It's not some cheap "gotcha" trick, it actually follows the rules of basic software heuristics

Edited September 26, 2017 by TARINunit9

[Danjal777]

I wouldn't mind them is there was a way to bypass all of these stuns.  For example:

Grineer commander teleports you, you are stunned except for a crouch which interrupts the stun sequence.

Infested ancient harpoons you, quick melee is still possible while you are being dragged to cut the line.

Sapper osprey bomb only affects you on the ground, making it a floor is lava situation.

For all of these anti Tenno weapons they use, there should be some skill based way ofncountering them...because lets face it, they were designed to combat people who exploit the game rather than use pure skill to play.  

[TARINunit9]

2 hours ago, DarkFlameZealot said:

*Flameblade is the unit, not butchers. If you're whining about being staggered, go complain about shielders :/

 

They are simple to dodge anyway, should you have any semblance of skill. Go to rathuum arenas and play with the executioner flameblade.

Flameblades would be fine if they didn't have the ability to staggerlock you. Stagger proc is fine on a melee unit -- if they actually hit you, you deserve it -- but a full-blown staggerlock is not. Granted, a staggerlock is statistically unlikely from a Flameblade, but it's possible so that needs to be tweaked somehow. (Maybe grant the player 2 seconds of stagger immunity if they're on their third chained stagger?)

Edited September 26, 2017 by TARINunit9

[o.0-]

Grineer Commanders need a new ability/capability. Be that a buffing Aura or whatever.

As for the Teleporting ability, it better fits the Manic, if it remains an ability used by enemies. Just shave down the stagger afterwards and/or Rapid Resilience shortens it.

The rest of the mentioned enemies do need tweaks to how often such abilities are used, but I believe that they got in the game because the devs didn't have better ideas to make content harder in those times.

As I've mentioned in other threads I hope the devs consider a floating scaling system that can allow them (the devs) to really get into improving enemies and how enemies are engaged.

[HollowWitch]

8 hours ago, BlackCoMerc said:

Most of the enemies added in the last two years are bad implementations that probably looked good on paper:

Nullifiers: Lets turn off the thing that makes Warframe most unique. And lets do it on EVERY SINGLE FISSURE, SORTIE AND LATE GAME MISSION IN EXISTENCE. Lets make late game content into a bog standard, third person shooter with decent movement. What could go wrong?

I like nulifiers and then game needs them because otherwise too many frames have OP CC skills. They don't reduce the game to just being a 3rd person shooter, they are just a priority target you need to deal with. I'm still using my abilites just as much with them around.

Edited September 27, 2017 by SeriouslySinister

[Diarmut]

The thing that makes me LOL the hardest with Grineer Commanders, is when Loki, the warframe from which their teleportation technology is probably, most definitely derived gets switch teleported, he still gets the animation of confusion. C'mon dude, you do it all the time, are you THAT SURPRISED?