Stalker Rework

[Icymountain]

Alright, about The Stalker. Just some suggestions on how to improve him and his 'fear' factor.

-Solo Play Encounter
Pretty much the same thing, except this prevents you getting normal enemies to kill him for you, and perhaps adds a bit of challenge.

Everything's the same, the lights flicker a bit and the stalker taunts you a few times. However, on the last flicker, the lights flicker violently and completely go out, leaving you in complete darkness, with you really unable to see anything. Your flashlight then flickers on, you look around as the room starts to brighten a little as your natural night vision kicks in. You realise youre not in the same room as before. Your minimap malfunctions and shuts offs. The stalker laughs, goes "There is no escape!" and begins his assault.

Basically the only difference here is that he teleports you to a dimension/room of his own. This different dimension could be the Orokin room your mastery rank tests take place in, except its black instead of white, and the circle in the room and lights of the pillars are all red, and the room is bigger too. Its quite dark in there, so your flashlight will come in handy for spotting him. Of course, with skilled eyes, you can still spot him by his glowing red lights on his suit. Also, perhaps he'll only drag you to his own dimension after you've killed him a number of times when he appears in the room you're in. Could change the last taunt to "You will not escape this time" to fit this.

Once you've defeated him, he disappears as usual, and the dark room around you begins to 'melt', leaving you standing exactly where you were before he appeared. Anything he drops appears/spawns right in front of you. Oh and your radar returns to normal.

-Multiplayer Encounter
For the stalker's victim, it will be the exact same thing as solo play, except you get 'taken by him even on your first encounter, assuming youre in a game with multiple players, which helps in preventing your teammates from just decimating the stalker the moment he appears in the room. For the teammates, however, this is what they will see.

Lights flicker, blah blah blah, lights go out. After the victim is taken by the stalker, a big ball of darkness stands in his place. Any players near the ball of darkness is knocked back after the lights come on again. Now, depending on the amount of extra players, a number of stalker 'shadows' will step out from the shadow globe. 1 shadow for each player. These shadows are basically weaker versions of the stalker, just a bit stronger than a standard heavy unit. These shadows would have no shields, but relatively high health, and each will be a single aspect of the stalker. The 2nd player will have the Essence of Dread attack him, the 3rd the Essence of Despair, and the 4th the Essence of Hate. If there are only 2 extra players, then the Essence of Despair will not show up.1 player, only the Essence of Dread will appear. From the names, you can probably tell what weapon each uses.

After defeating these shadows, the extra players can attack the ball of darkness if the victim has not finished his fight with the stalker. While the globe is being destroyed, the victim can visually tell inside the stalker's dimension, as cracks of light start to form all around, starting from the top. Once the globe is destroyed, the victim's screen flashes white and both him and the stalker fall out of the globe back into the normal map, and the fight continues like how it is currently.

-Fighting the Stalker and his shadows
Not much I can think to improve here, except improve his AI. Though i was thinking, maybe give him 3 stages.

For the first 20% of his health, he uses Dread only, with special tactics. Assuming his dimension is the Orokin test area i was talking about earlier, he will constantly walk from pillar to pillar, using them as cover while shooting at you while moving to the next pillar. He occasionally teleports from pillar to pillar too, so youll have to stay alert.

Next 20% he uses Despair. Here, he doesn't bother with cover as much. Though he does the same thing as before, this time he will teleport around much more frequently, sometimes on top of the pillars. So basically here he runs around from pillar to pillar pelting you with Despair blades, while teleporting from pillar to pillar much more frequently as well as on top of pillars sometimes to get in a few more shots quickly before teleporting away back to the ground or maybe another pillar top. Here he will use the skill Shuriken.

Next 20%, he'll use the Hate. This time, he makes use of the darkness to land in melee attacks. Here, he teleports in and out of the map. When he is ready to strike, he teleports some distance behind you and runs towards you. Once he reaches you, he tries to hit you with a total of 3 times, before teleporting out of the map, and back in again when he wants to attack. The break in the attacks shouldnt last for more than a handful of seconds. If you spot him before he reaches you, he will either
1. Raises Hate in an effort to block anything you shoot him with, similar to your own 'Block', with similar animations and %dmg reduction. Once he reaches you, again tries to hit 3 times before teleporting out.
2. Instantly slash dash towards you, and tries to hit you 3 times before teleporting out
3. Instantly teleports right behind you, tries to hit 3 times, and teleports out.

Last 40% he will use all 3 stages, frequently switching between them.

Also, maybe lower his shield regeneration quite abit, else he'll be unkillable this way. Or maybe make his shields only recharge between phases?

His shadows basically do the same thing as what the stalker does with each weapon



Alright, lengthy post! Personally, I think its really good, much better than right now, but whats good on paper might not be good as actual gameplay, so tell me what you think!


Edit:Oh, a nice suggestion by someone, he should be able to detect you through stealth. A way to implement this could be:

If you go stealth, a transmission from him pops up "You cant hide...", similar to when you try to mind control him or something. Or, to make it more punishing, when you use such a skill that doesnt affect him, an animation plays out where he teleports behind you and stabs you before teleporting away, taking away half of your shields, energy and a quart of health, as well as ending your stealth. If your sentinel is the one that cloaks you, the animation is instead him slicing your sentinel into half, basically killing it as well as preventing regeneration, if any, before teleporting away.

Edited August 18, 2013 by Icymountain

[X3Evanescence]

I totally agree!

Your concept is a really interesting way to fight the Stalker,

With more of the Nightmare theme that Stalker is supposed to convey.

He must stop being the Blueprint Pinata he is now....

[thelastpwnr99]

A rework like this would take quite a while..but maybe--

 

Update 12: Stalker Rising

 

-Along with the fixes and normal updates, a special Stalker encounter has been added, but only for certain planets (as to keep out the low levels from getting their whiney butts handed to them)

[Mighty-Yool]

Or just have Stalker not show up on Mercury. Light Nightmare mode.

 

+1 so hard, by the way. This sounds AWESOME.

[KimchiKen_Prime]

I like it :)

[itslikeme]

Fighting him only with a flashlight would be awesome.

[KoshLovesYou]

I think before you jump ahead and create interesting things the Stalker can do, you need to sit back and ask yourself "Why Do We Want The Stalker In The Game From A Design Perspective?", and once you've answered that? See where your ideas go from there. What he does should feed into what the goals for his role in the game is.

 

And to be fair, it's not really clear what that is so far.

[Icymountain]

I think before you jump ahead and create interesting things the Stalker can do, you need to sit back and ask yourself "Why Do We Want The Stalker In The Game From A Design Perspective?", and once you've answered that? See where your ideas go from there. What he does should feed into what the goals for his role in the game is.

 

And to be fair, it's not really clear what that is so far

Imo he's there to create more gameplay, just like all the other enemies and bosses out there. Following that purpose, my suggestion tries to make him more interesting. At least, more interesting than what the stalker is currently

[Bones98]

sounds pretty neat. I like the idea.

[MoustacheMike]

Some ideas aren't too bad (;
But at least for now make him able to climb thing.
Everyone knows that going on top of a box and shooting him will take him down easily. 
Sad stalker.

[DAWGUNITALPHA]

That sounds...really silly. There isn't a real need to make the stalker into a big thing.

[Icymountain]

That sounds...really silly. There isn't a real need to make the stalker into a big thing.

Then might as well remove him completely from the game, because he isnt significant currently. He's meant to be a mini-boss, so should'nt he feel like one? 

[DAWGUNITALPHA]

Then might as well remove him completely from the game, because he isnt significant currently. He's meant to be a mini-boss, so should'nt he feel like one? 

What you propose isn't much of a miniboss. Also, hyperbolic reasoning gets you nowhere.

[Icymountain]

What you propose isn't much of a miniboss.

Well, do you have a better suggestion then? Honestly, i do feel that the stalker needs to be a bigger thing, as he is now he's as insignificant as, say, a grineer heavy gunner. Stalker comes, you go "oh hey look stalker' and your squad guns him down the moment he enters and you get some free mods and perhaps a weapon bp. You dont even feel any fear of dying, especially if you have a full squad with you. Shouldn't that weapon require more work to defeat him, especially since the weapons you get are pretty good? 

[thelastpwnr99]

OKAY.  New plan.

 

Not a total rework of the Stalker...but instead, a small, 25 minute mini-alert that involves a more complex fight with him?  With potentially more drops but more difficulty?

[Casardis]

I think before you jump ahead and create interesting things the Stalker can do, you need to sit back and ask yourself "Why Do We Want The Stalker In The Game From A Design Perspective?", and once you've answered that? See where your ideas go from there. What he does should feed into what the goals for his role in the game is.

 

And to be fair, it's not really clear what that is so far.

 

Actually, some of us have quite a clear idea of his role in this game: twisting the pace and routine we have.

 

Right now, Warframe has almost zero random occurring events. Sure, we sometimes have ice or fire in the stage. Big deal! We're still going from point A to point B, and then point C, razing everything in your path. It's the same routine over and over again. If we're not going from one objective to the other, we're staying in one spot (Defense, possibly Mobile Defense as well).

 

The appearance of the Stalker breaks this flow because, for the most part, we have to stop to fight him, either for the loot or to get rid of the danger. In certain cases (low level players), you either run away or die. This random event adds dynamics to the slowly growing monotonous grinding.

 

Hek, I've encountered situations where people were confused at my words, someone asking me "are you smoking?" when I wrote "Stalker" in the chat, because they were ignorant of this foe. Another situation, which happened yesterday, was someone who actually rage quit because the Stalker was coming (yes it was quite ridiculous, but funny nonetheless, and routine-breaking).

 

The problem right now is that the Stalker's appearance is so minimal and infrequent that this random event barely adds anything. That's why I agree with TC here to make the encounter more interesting, since some of us rarely meet him anyway. It will also make him a more interesting threat than he currently is, while not making him too OP, but making the fight more interesting.

 

TC's idea also keeps the mystery behind him since no more lore about the Stalker is revealed in the process really, only his abilities (which makes him even more mysterious if he had such powers, as opposed to copies of other Warframes' powers). Stalker isn't an entity that should have too much presence and emphasis all the time, and that's often showed by DE and the "What Stalker?" inside joke.

 

Lastly, I think this idea, or something similar, will make Stalker battles more memorable. Some people's first encounters with Stalker sometimes end one-sided: either the Stalker kills them quickly, or he gets his arse handled to him. The latter often results in some players not even SEEING the Stalker at all, which is quite underwhelming.

 

 

TL;DR

 

- Stalker's purpose is to bring an element of randomness into gameplay, breaking the flow of monotonous grinding we become accustomed to after hours of gameplay.

 

- TC's idea allows for an interesting boss fight to be remembered instead of a "Blueprint Pinata" as X3 said, without taking away the element of him being a mysterious mini-boss that we don't know much about.

 

 

 

OKAY.  New plan.

 

Not a total rework of the Stalker...but instead, a small, 25 minute mini-alert that involves a more complex fight with him?  With potentially more drops but more difficulty?

This breaks the purpose of the Stalker completely, as well as the lore behind his mystery. Without any additional information currently, why would Lotus alert the Tenno to hunt down this foe? Furthermore, how the hell did she manage to find him? Lastly, the Stalker's supposed to be the predator, while we're prey (even though currently it's already the other way around mostly). This reverse-role is unappealing IMO.

 

Edited August 26, 2013 by Casardis

[Voidflow]

+1, OP. I like to fight solo against stalker than any other boss.

 

I don't own Hate, but does it have a big knockdown radius on jump attack? Once on the bottom, slash dash from stalker dead.

[Casardis]

+1, OP. I like to fight solo against stalker than any other boss.

 

I don't own Hate, but does it have a big knockdown radius on jump attack? Once on the bottom, slash dash from stalker dead.

I have the weapon and it seems to be the same radius and knockdown as Gram/Scindo/Fragor.

[Cerebrum123]

Very creative, I hope they get to put it in. 

[blackraver]

Seems like a great idea. It would be silly of DE to ignore such a high potential for content with stalker