Teleporting and Daze effect (AI)

[Beardedflea]

This thread is meant to bring to light what I find to be the problem with the daze effect that is a result of the Switch teleport mechanic for the Grineer Commander.

For those that haven't encountered a  "commander" I'll quickly explain as to what he does and how the mechanic interacts with the player. Simply put, when a player is in line of sight of a Commander it will switch teleport the player causing the player to be ported and to then be locked in a daze/stun animation with no ability to use your Warframe. Most of the time the Commander will prioritize teleporting the player into a group of Grineer and (potentially(according to the wikia, haven't seen it myself as of recent)) can teleport a player through walls and doors.

 

So what's the problem? Well firstly I believe that the ratio between execution of mechanic and punishment is way too high. If a player is in a cluttered room full of Grineer and there is a Commander waltzing through, 90% of the time he is going to eye you down and teleport you into a group of Grineer. This of course leads to an animation of your Warframe (not the player, this is important) questioning not only his/her surroundings but their existence. During this time you cannot interact with your Warframe and so you spend your time watching your Warframe become a bullet sponge and being at the mercy of RNGesus whether or not you are going to die.

Anyway point is, overall this mechanic removes the player's skill from the equation forcing them to watch the game play out with no control of the results being dealt out on the Warframe. And before any of you mention anything about "Well maybe you should prioritize your targets correctly" well I invite you to do endgame grineer missions so you can understand my point of view.

I genuinely believe this mechanic can be improved in favour of a mechanic that instead of disabling the warframe's movement, but rather disabling the player's vision. You could have it that once the teleport is in a effect, it distorts the screen/UI to an incredible degree decreasing the player's vision but still allows the warframe to move giving players a time window to get to safety and therefore the skill in overcoming this mechanic is learning your surroundings and really being immersed in a scenario.

 

In short; Commander teleports player > player teleported > screen/UI is distorted > player will have to move into cover, or fight blind for a set time window > UI/screen clears up and player is back into the fray 

 

 

Edited October 24, 2017 by Beardedflea
Resolving misleading parts.

[Fukushu]

13 minutes ago, Beardedflea said:

...And before any of you mention anything about "Well maybe you should prioritize your targets correctly"...

I honestly believe anyone who uses this "argument" in regards to the Commander Teleport that can happen long before we know they're there (like when you get teleported the instant your start opening a door) and have no way to counter it has no idea what they're talking about and shouldn't be taken seriously.

That aside, after not encountering a Commander for a very long time (I'd been doing Corpus missions a lot since they sometimes give more affinity), I'd forgotten just how badly designed these enemies were, and after getting teleported several times by three Commanders in the same room with no way of getting to one before the other could teleport me  and nearly dying due to the stupid "Hurr, what just happened" animation lock, it became extremely infuriating. Deaths in games should be caused by player error, not because a dev is so bad at developing challenge the only way they can make any risk is by taking control away from the player.

In my opinion, DE should completely remove the animation lock, 'cause who in their right mind is going to stand in the middle of a group of heavily armed mercenaries and try to get their bearings while being shot at? We should be able to react immediately after being teleported to escape any possible danger, then start figuring out where we are, what's near us, and how to react, but I have to say I like your idea of adding a screen distortion. As long as it isn't too strong and/or distracting (to avoid causing harm to epileptics and migraine sufferers), it'd be a good way to let us maintain control while also keeping us a little disoriented.

[Beardedflea]

25 minutes ago, Fukushu said:

That aside, after not encountering a Commander for a very long time (I'd been doing Corpus missions a lot since they sometimes give more affinity), I'd forgotten just how badly designed these enemies were, and after getting teleported several times by three Commanders in the same room with no way of getting to one before the other could teleport me  and nearly dying due to the stupid "Hurr, what just happened" animation lock, it became extremely infuriating. Deaths in games should be caused by player error, not because a dev is so bad at developing challenge the only way they can make any risk is by taking control away from the player.

In my opinion, DE should completely remove the animation lock, 'cause who in their right mind is going to stand in the middle of a group of heavily armed mercenaries and try to get their bearings while being shot at? We should be able to react immediately after being teleported to escape any possible danger, then start figuring out where we are, what's near us, and how to react, but I have to say I like your idea of adding a screen distortion. As long as it isn't too strong and/or distracting (to avoid causing harm to epileptics and migraine sufferers), it'd be a good way to let us maintain control while also keeping us a little disoriented.

You know now that you mention it, I'm now reminded how abysmal this mechanic truly is when there is 2+ Commanders in the room. At somepoint you are constantly dazed not being able to do anything, and like you mentioned who in their right mind will sit there taking bullets.

I think the animation lock is the biggest problem in this whole situation as you cannot and the game WILL not allow you to counter the mechanic unless you do the same old tactic of gunning down the enemy.

Also furthermore on the section of "UI/screen distortion" please do not resort to the magnetic effect. Why not add an affect that warps your screen and potentially warps your UI almost as if to emphasize the disorientation as the player/warframe has been involuntarily teleported causing their brain/systems to be scrambled  thus needing the player to get back to his senses. 

[VampirePirate]

You mentioned Loki but did not say anything about him.  How does he fit into all of this?

[LABAL]

20 minutes ago, VampirePirate said:

You mentioned Loki but did not say anything about him.  How does he fit into all of this?

Loki has the same skill, but his version is vastly inferior, only stunning the target for a fraction of a second, while the grineer Commander stuns the player for five whole seconds, with only one required to kill most warframes with the focused fire of all the surrounding enemies.

Edited October 24, 2017 by LABAL

[VampirePirate]

1 hour ago, LABAL said:

Loki has the same skill, but his version is vastly inferior, only stunning the target for a fraction of a second, while the grineer Commander stuns the player for five whole seconds, with only one required to kill most warframes with the focused fire of all the surrounding enemies.

I'm completely aware of what that ability does.  I asked the question to get him to talk about it, because the only thing he mentioned was the Commander.

[LABAL]

Just now, VampirePirate said:

I'm completely aware of what that ability does.  I asked the question to get him to talk about it, because the only thing he mentioned was the Commander.

So you need not the information, but a basis for argument.

[VampirePirate]

Just now, LABAL said:

So you need not the information, but a basis for argument.

Something like that.  Not that i want to argue about anything.  He said Loki and Commander, but he only talked about the Commander.

I wanted him to make it relevant.  I see the Loki power as a troll ability, which seems to be more for annoying teammates rather than helping.  I would rather they fix this feature or replace the ability completely.  Still, I did not see how it was relevant to the Commander's ability other than being a nuisance.  If that was all he meant by it, then i guess i have my answer.

[LABAL]

10 hours ago, VampirePirate said:

see the Loki power as a troll ability, which seems to be more for annoying teammates rather than helping.

Depends on who's at the wheel. I haven't seen a Loki troll in years, to be honest. Removing it from starter frames certainly helped.

[Beardedflea]

@VampirePirate To answer your question it was an honest mistake. I originally wrote about Loki  as a basis for people to understand what Switch teleport does and I then went onto explain about him in PvP, however I did mention that I won't be talking about PvP nor Loki because I personally don't play PvP and the majority of players only play PvE. So it will be unfair for me to critique something I have no idea about. Besides from reading the wikia, the animation lock/stun is significantly lower. I will edit it the post.

As for the trolling of Loki, this cant really be stopped unless you remove Switch teleport entirely, or you remove the player switching ability which would completely dissolve an interesting and tactical element of the ability. But this is a problem for a bigger topic, which really can't be stopped unless you remove abilities of Warframes that you considered "trolling" or completely rework abilities to the point they all become 1 dimensional and trolling becomes limited due to how simplistic the abilities are.

 

[VampirePirate]

25 minutes ago, Beardedflea said:

@VampirePirate To answer your question it was an honest mistake. I originally wrote about Loki  as a basis for people to understand what Switch teleport does and I then went onto explain about him in PvP, however I did mention that I won't be talking about PvP nor Loki because I personally don't play PvP and the majority of players only play PvE. So it will be unfair for me to critique something I have no idea about. Besides from reading the wikia, the animation lock/stun is significantly lower. I will edit it the post.

As for the trolling of Loki, this cant really be stopped unless you remove Switch teleport entirely, or you remove the player switching ability which would completely dissolve an interesting and tactical element of the ability. But this is a problem for a bigger topic, which really can't be stopped unless you remove abilities of Warframes that you considered "trolling" or completely rework abilities to the point they all become 1 dimensional and trolling becomes limited due to how simplistic the abilities are.

 

Thanks