Stalker

[NostalgicAtBest]

 

The Stalker is a very interesting feature, and is pretty well implemented.

 

But being a potentially scary character, there are some things that can bring out some of Stalker's potential as a nightmare. (I'm kinda hoping that some Stalker creepypasta will spawn)

 

Following this intro, I've got a couple feature-suggestions for Stalker that will, in theory, make him a more frightening character to meet.

 

 

 

If it were possible to have Stalker played by a really good player (possibly a dev), that would be cool, getting rid of all the exploits and cheap wall-sticking, and making him an altogether more intense encounter.

 

But I understand it would be unbelievably impractical.

 

Other than a smarter "Oh, I'm stuck on a wall!" AI code, there's nothing else I have for that.

 

I thought about giving him more abilities would remedy it a little, since Slash Dash is the skill that always gets him stuck (in my experience)

 

Giving Stalker access to more abilities like Loki's decoy or Ash's smoke bomb (minus the invisibility. Change that to a teleport) would also increase the intensity of a battle, since you'd have no idea where he is, or whether or not what you're attacking is the decoy or not. (Make the decoy able to move and have attack-animations, but do no damage. Giving it lower-than-the-original's shields and health would give players a way to identify the decoy and the original.)

 

Any balancing issues could be solved by limiting the uses of each of his abilities. To avoid him spamming Decoy as he sees fit.

 

Whenever I encounter him, even though it happens somewhat frequently and I'm the one who's always targeted within my squad (for some reason), I have a small panic-attack and I feel as if the only thing I can do is run.

 

And then I click my LMB and I realize I have a gun.

But that's besides the point.

 

The thing that really kills the experience, is when Stalker Slash Dash's at me, and hits a fence or something and gets stuck on it. Then we're all able to just take cover and shoot him to death. It's really anti-climactic. I've already gotten the Despair and Hate BP. (Now I just gotta farm my &#! off for Morphics!)

 

 

 

 

Stalker has a potential to be genuinely frightening, like my first Infestation mission. 

(I went solo on that one.) (I'm not too keen on horror things, don't judge)

 

The flickering lights work well in-game, but I only feel a slight problem when it occurs in a larger room. The flickering effect works best in a smaller room.

 

And I don't know where else to go with this.

 

Give larger rooms a longer delay in between flickers, maybe? I dunno.

 

 

 

I also suggest adding more to Stalker than just text. 

 

Stalker's text-taunts are quite threatening and creepy, but text-only is just wasted potential.

Give Stalker a voice, preferably a creepy, low voice (similar to G-Man from Half-Life, and other voices I can't put my finger on)

 

If the voice that is recorded sounds scary enough, remove the texts. It will make for an altogether scarier experience to hear (or not) his voice and get snuck up on. Not noticing his voice will make it entirely scarier for the player.

 

But, if subtitles really are necessary, put small, scribbled/scratchy text on random parts of the screen. Making the text appear anywhere on-screen, would make it awesome.

 

(I.E 

 

Or possibly, in-game decals of messages written on walls with blood. 

(I.E  ) (mspaint ftw)

 

Elements such as these would make the Stalker experience more of an experience, and less of an encounter. (Also, I suck at mspaint with a mouse D:)

 

When Stalker appears, Lotus could also say some lines about him. Like, hinting about texperiences she might have had with him.

 

She could say stuff like this:

"Wait. I'm getting a strange reading on the scanner... It looks like... No... It can't be..."

"TENNO, watch your back, I'm getting a strange reading in the vicinity."

"Oh no... He's... Here?"

 

Weird, foreshadow-y things like that. It would also make Lotus more interactive and less, "We can't leave the ship without the VIP! Keep looking.", "Great, NOW GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE." (That one bugs me the most), and "I picking up a large security force coming your way... It's the Grineer."

 

(No S#&$, Lotus, they've only been the single faction that I've been murdering in this mission.)

 

 

 

And also an annoyance point, I think when Stalker kills you, it shouldn't really count as a "death". As in, you get a free revive. I mean, he's MEANT to kill you, usually appearing several levels above your capabilities. Especially since I, as the owner of a semi-crappy router-modem combo, encountering him on solo with one revive left is a nightmare.

 

 

 

Remember, DE, the goal to making Stalker scary is to make him scary, not "UGH, SERIOUSLY. He better drop the Dread BP!"

 

Make him like Dead Space, not Dead Space 3.

 

Resident Evil, not Resident Evil 6.

 

You get the point.

 

 

 

And that's it with my Stalker suggestion-things. Hope you enjoyed.

The post, and/or my S#&$ty mspaint drawings.

Edited August 10, 2013 by NostalgicAtBest

[X3Evanescence]

This concept is excellent. Stalker needs a buff, and his AI seriously needs some tweaking. (Stop standing there shooting at the wall like an idiot Stalker!]

He will be the emo Santa Claus no longer!

For the "Player taking control of the Stalker part", I don't quite agree.

P.S. What Stalker?

Edited August 10, 2013 by X3Evanescence

[Hipolipolopigus]

+1. I'll Photoshop some text up for you.

[alchemistjkt]

oh hey, the daily "let players play as the stalker" thread.

also:

there is no stalker.

[Omegarick]

This concept is excellent. Stalker needs a buff, and his AI seriously needs some tweaking. (Stop standing there shooting at the wall like an idiot Stalker!]

He will be the emo Santa Claus no longer!

For the "Player taking control of the Stalker part", I don't quite agree.

P.S. What Stalker?

No purple text? And no, no player controlled stalkers

[Hayden11121]

I remember my first stalker.

 

 

I was Volt, with only electric shield.. he had his mk1 braton abck then.

 

 

I heard him come, and I got into a corner and used electric shield.

 

He stood there and shot at me for a good 2 minutes.

[NostalgicAtBest]

This concept is excellent. Stalker needs a buff, and his AI seriously needs some tweaking. (Stop standing there shooting at the wall like an idiot Stalker!]

He will be the emo Santa Claus no longer!

For the "Player taking control of the Stalker part", I don't quite agree.

P.S. What Stalker?

 

 

No purple text? And no, no player controlled stalkers

Yeah, now that I think upon it more, it seems like less and less of a good idea. But it was an idea to solve the AI problems.

[jwya]

Shouldn't it be easier to solo him on a solo connection? But for the rest of the stuff (except revives) it's pretty cool. Maybe the revives could work such that if u are at a sufficiently low mastery rank/health/(insert skill/survivability), then u get entitled to a "free"revive (maybe payabl. With credit)

[NostalgicAtBest]

And I was WAITING for "P.S. There is no Stalker" posts. XD

 

Denying Stalker's existence was a good play by the devs. (Or whoever started doing that)

Makes it cool. Kinda like Herobrine.

 

It's too bad Stalker appears too frequently for anyone to be like, "Oh, I guess it was my imageenayshun!"

[jwya]

This concept is excellent. Stalker needs a buff, and his AI seriously needs some tweaking. (Stop standing there shooting at the wall like an idiot Stalker!]

He will be the emo Santa Claus no longer!

For the "Player taking control of the Stalker part", I don't quite agree.

P.S. What Stalker?

so long as the player isn't some excessively feisty/pro guy (I.e. Akamikeb) I'm okay

[Hipolipolopigus]

I was too lazy to do perspective for wall-writing, so I just did an improved Stalker message :P

 

 

Click to Zoom!

 

 

 

[ChaoticVice777]

I was too lazy to do perspective for wall-writing, so I just did an improved Stalker message :P

If the text font was changed and/or maybe if the screen glowed red with flickering lights, it would be more interesting to see the introduction of the Stalker...

[jwya]

How about suddenly spawning lots of grineer/corpus/warframe corpses when he starts giving u messages?

[Vashna]

Looks really fun :)

 

Stalker does need a tweak or two.

 

*Stalker appears*

 

Me; >.> <.< Where's he at?

What's he doing over there? ok then..pew pew..moving on.

 

Can't say he has never ended me tho despite his faults :)

[NostalgicAtBest]

How about suddenly spawning lots of grineer/corpus/warframe corpses when he starts giving u messages?

Gibbed Corpses would be so much better. No need to distinguish between either, there's just random gore everywhere that you haven't been to already.

[__Kanade__]

I'm getting tired of DE saying "who?" whenever we mention the Stalker, we've been trying to ask for Stalker improvements, but they keep shrugging it off, I don't care if the lore comes at a later time, while we are interested in learning about the Stalker's background and they still want to keep that under wraps then fine, were not asking about his lore, were asking about giving him improvements, cause right now, he just interrupts the mission for a few seconds, he doesn't do anything else but stand there as an open target and bp drop.

Edited August 13, 2013 by __Kanade__

[Slackoth]

Well the other day when i was soloing for ferrites, the first time i encountered stalker and he starting flickering my screen, at the same time my steam died off, my windows media player stopped and i got disconnected from the warframe server chat LOL. I honestly thought it was part of it at first I was like HOLY S#&amp;&#036; how did this game do that, but it was just coincidence.

 

The wall texts r a p kool idea, they could add jump scares in addition to the flickering and really deaden the ingame sound when stalker spawns.

[Zerathos_Dagon]

I agree 100%, Stalker has great potential to be a very awesome and very scary experience.. But he needs improvements bad. Not only does he get stuck a lot, but he also gets instagibbed easily by players who are at least decently equipped and know what they are doing at least a bit. On top of that his attacks don't vary that much either, he just walks along the battlefield firing arrows, sometimes his despair, and throwing in a slash dash here and there.

The suggestions you made would indeed make the experience much better. Giving the Stalker a creepy voice and putting in bloody messages on the walls of the mission(s) he spawns in would be a great addition that would make me pee my pants!

However, before any 'cosmetic' changes would commence, I highly suggest first fixing his AI and giving him some good stats and a nice skillset to work with. That way he will actually be a tough and interesting fight, instead of the 'Oh, HIM again' experience it is now.

Here's hoping the Stalker will get improved soon! :)

Edited August 13, 2013 by Zerathos_Dagon

[Ghobe]

If it were possible to have Stalker played by a really good player (possibly a dev)

This right here is the best part. No i'm not saying it because "ermagerd pvp" I'm saying it because it could become so much more personal. I mean he has a voice now, imagine if it was a special team of players/devs(a.k.a. not everyone, and they'd all be under an NDA to not be allowed to say if they were one) that were him, and they were setup to have their voice modded and could speak directly to the player while introducing "real ai" to the game. It would not only make for a unique encounter every time, but a truly scary encounter. Just imagine that voice he has now....and your name being said by it, not just text, actually said.

 

Also as to what was being said before about corpses and what not appearing places...that's not an assassin, that's a psychopath...big difference. Though him having some kind of calling card like leaving your name somewhere in the level in blood on the wall and when you see it your screen flips out and he just appears in front of you, everyone else is blasted out of the room, and the doors are locked....that could be awesome...the first couple times...it would be irritating after the 50th time.

 

 

 

I'm getting tired of DE saying "who?" whenever we mention the Stalker, we've been trying to ask for Stalker improvements, but they keep shrugging it off, I don't care if the lore comes at a later time, while we are interested in learning about the Stalker's background and they still want to keep that under wraps then fine, were not asking about his lore, were asking about giving him improvements, cause right now, he just interrupts the mission for a few seconds, he doesn't do anything else but stand there as an open target and bp drop.

He actually has had several improvements. He's just not close to perfect yet.

 

 

 

I honestly thought it was part of it at first I was like HOLY S#&$ how did this game do that, but it was just coincidence.

You think a game couldn't do that? It could ;) Though it would start having to require admin access to play so it could manually shut down/mute the programs for a time.

Edited August 13, 2013 by Ghobe