Possible source of the current Infected drama.

[Renan.Ruivo]

First of all, i'll acknowlodge that there are a lot of.. erm.. passionate testers out there who have a strong opinion on the current state of the Infected faction, so i'll begin by asking.. pretty please.. to count to 10/drink raspberry juice/eat a big steak/whatever makes you relax before reading further. And also to prevent unecessary abuse of your input device of choice. (so what, some people type using the mouse and virtual keyboard. I have no prejudices.)

Now - and this is very much my own observations based on limited playtime with the infected faction since Update 6 - when the update first went live i found myself with a Rank 30 frame getting absolutely abused by Rank 1-3 infected. I was applying previoulsy standard techniques against a totally revamped foe. So that was (and i beg for some agreement on this point) understandable.

So, after playing with them for one week (Has it been one week? I don't know, i'm currently on psychiatric treatment and one of the drugs makes me lose track of time) and adapting my tactics accordingly, i have managed to tone down the panic and raise my odds of finishing an infected mission, rank by rank, until the current point where i can tackle rank 18-20 infected missions without having to resort to a single revive. And i'm still using the same loadout i was when i was previoulsy mistreated by the Infected on my first mission with them way back.

I say rank 18-20 because my equipment falls into that rank level. While my frame is rank 30, my long gun is rank 21, my sidearm is rank 20 and my melee weapon is rank 18.. so i believe it's ill-advised to try my luck in places like Pluto, for instance.

Now, for the aforementioned possible source of the current infected drama: Being able to adapt my tactics and become increasingly effective against foes that match my current rank, it suddenly dawned on me that the way the Infected stats are getting buffed past level 30 makes it quite hard - and unbalanced dare i say - for the average player to fight them. Tactics and smart play are now a must against infected, but just insofar where they meet the player's own Rank with his frame and his weapons. It is possible to fight rank 33 to 35 infected. Sure, it's quite the challange, but it's possible.

However, fighting against rank >40 infected with the current Rank 30 cap on all things Tenno is, (again in my opinion), what is causing more drama than what was probably desired by the DE developers. I don't know if DE wants everything to be reasonably soloable by players that are skilled enough (i hope so), but if not then i belive that the AI needs tweaking, and not the infected themselves.

One could use the argument that such high-ranked enemies are supposed to be fought in co-op groups, but with the current state of the AI, that seem to prioritize targets (and have a high pool of sheer HP), it makes quite hard for co-op groups that aren't pre-made squads (the so called PUGs) to finish the mission. All the infected will "zerg rush" a player, kill him, and as soon as another player tries to revive the fallen friend the Infected will stun lock the healer and kill him as well. From that point onwards, it's just carnage.

Okay.. sorry for the wall of text.. but i'm finding myself capable of facing Infected that are only matching my rank, and as so, infected that are above rank 33 (or 35.. make it an average) but are still scaled using the same metrics, are the source of the current drama.

[UkyoSonoda]

Actually this discussion became part of another thread that originated about the abuse and overuse of stun/stagger mechanics in the game in general as an artificial and un-fun method of trying to increase the difficulty of the game. Infected are the biggest offenders of this as every single one of their units are capable of staggering and/or knocking you down.

[Kokuen]

well all I can say to you is to try using your surroundings to wipe out infecteds... sounds stupid? yes it does but still even I sometimes have a few problem dealing with infected after update 6, Chargers just hit too damn fast and strong, Runners now have too damn much HP and to top that the Ancient Toxic now is a damn problem -.-' but then like I said before, use your surroundings, lure it somewhere you can climb and kill it slowing it's not that hard and also depending on the warframe you're using it may turn out easier to deal with those, Rhino's Iron Skin for exemple make it so you can get out undamaged after fighting a horde of Infecteds Lv38+ the only painful thing is when you run through a closed door and face an freacking Ancient Toxic, those now deal so much damage just by getting close to you, the Toxic gas takes almost all my HP if I "touch" it directly, and when you're ganged by 2-3 of those while being stunned by Runners.... but still all good and the difficult makes it so you play more with friends and clanmates

[Namacyst]

Get Rhino modded with Armor and melee damage only, a Fragor with melee damage and speed and a Hek with puncture and damage and you need neither tactics nor skill to finish any infected mission ;)

[Judgebanks]

Personally I love slowing them down with Freeze damage, and with the massive splash effect of the fraggor, you are guarenteed to slow anything in the same room with you.

I don't see what the big deal is, you melee them, they die. Use a two-handed weapon escape flinch locking if it's that big of a problem.

Edited February 3, 2013 by Judgebanks

[Ced23Ric]

Can Infested be defeated? Sure, I solo Eris and Ceres Infested missions, even with partially leveled gear. That has never been the issue. In the thread you refer to, I even bolded, centered and enlarged it.

But this is not about survival.

The issue was and is simple: If the best way to deal with a faction is to deny a mutual interaction and cheese them as much as possible, it's a faction that needs to be looked at - and the main reason why that is so is the endless chainstunning that occurs otherwise.

So, in that light, I thank you for your report, your attempt to explain and help out, but that has never been the issue or a problem in itself. The Infested are annoying and frustrating by design. They have no awesome moments. They take away player control and limit your actions, going as far as even nullifying them, retroactively. That jump you made? Undone. Melee charge? Wasted. That groundslam? Nope.jpg - Etc. pp.

[Renan.Ruivo]

[...] lure it somewhere you can climb and kill it [...]

That's actually what i find myself doing most of the time. If the place is high enough, the ancients just freeze in place and i start to poke holes in their heads with my Lex. However i wouldn't say that this is an acceptable tactic. It's an exploit.

[neKroMancer]

We're space ninja, not a rooftop archer.

[Mak_Gohae]

We're space ninja, not a rooftop archer.

Actually..... the shinobi were basically the original snipers. They did hide in high places and popped shots.

[Renan.Ruivo]

Can Infested be defeated? Sure, I solo Eris and Ceres Infested missions, even with partially leveled gear. That has never been the issue. In the thread you refer to, I even bolded, centered and enlarged it.

The issue was and is simple: If the best way to deal with a faction is to deny a mutual interaction and cheese them as much as possible, it's a faction that needs to be looked at - and the main reason why that is so is the endless chainstunning that occurs otherwise.

So, in that light, I thank you for your report, your attempt to explain and help out, but that has never been the issue or a problem in itself. The Infested are annoying and frustrating by design. They have no awesome moments. They take away player control and limit your actions, going as far as even nullifying them, retroactively. That jump you made? Undone. Melee charge? Wasted. That groundslam? Nope.jpg - Etc. pp.

Just read that whole post of yours and i do in fact see things more or less the same way you do, with everything you said, even though i failed to make that much clear in my OP.

Like i said on my previous post here on this thread, my tactics when dealing with infested has been running away from them, baiting them, using the environment.. getting to high-places and prioritizing the targets. I.E, ancients only charge when they are close to you. If you are far from them (say, 30 to 50 meters) you can use precision guns to hit them and they will only walk, and not charge.

So in fact if you are located anywhere near an infected and at the same vertical plane as he/they are, you are doing it wrong.

The issue i brought on this thread, however, is the difference in rank scaling. I believe DE did the wrong thing in making all the mobs in the >40 rank areas have all their stats buffed across the board. In my opinion, the >40 rank areas should still feature rank 30 to 34 enemies, and introduce new threats in form of semi-rare elite mini-bosses (think a heavy-heavy). Now suddenly you'll have your old and known pals to kill, but at the same time have to keep an eye out for the mini-bosses skulking around = Added challenge.

Let's take the Jackal as an example. The Jackal is a prototype security bot, right? So in a >40 corpus area, you could perhaps encounter two or three production-line Jackals (not together at the same time, of course). Now that would be added challenge without having to resort to player frustration and artificial difficulty (increasing stats across the board is artificial difficulty, as far as i'm concerned.)

Missions in >40 rank areas could be different too. More challenging missions.. more secondary and tertiary goals, meaning you'll have to deal with even more rank 30~33 enemies (which might prove a challenge to your ammo pool.)

So TL;DR. The new Infected are a change in the right direction. The new >40 rank areas are not.

[Zakalwe]

I don't agree at all, the infected seem absolutley fine to me.

[V0LK]

The new Infected are a change in the right direction.

Maybe they are, but how they being handled is not. They are too strong to run in hordes.

A dozen of old-style Chargers and a few new ones is fine. But 6-7 Chargers with a stagger attack, few exploding runners and an Ancient on top is too much to be fun.