Infested Defense Is Broken, And How To Fix It.

[Roukoswarf]

Anyone who has been around for a couple months remembers the patch where they claimed enemies would be more aggressive to the pod, instead of focusing on the first player they see, or the decoy within range.

 

This patch made sense, enemies finally would get to the pod instead of ducking for cover and camping out for tenno from 20 meters away, it made rounds faster and more challenging to defend.

 

BUT

 

This was mainly an issue with grineer and corpus defense as they inherently had guns and had the ability to hide in cover away from the pod or players, this was not an case for infested, as they would always overwhelm any player they saw and would already reliably make their way to the pod as melee based enemies.

 

THE PROBLEM

 

In the current system, there is no real way to manage hoards of infested beyond vauban or straight damage (which damage does not work beyond a certain enemy level once nobody can kill them fast enough). This makes only one single strategy even feasible for infested defense: Bastille, Bastille, and more Bastille.

 

PREVIOUS STRATEGIES

 

Previously, managing the infested defense hoards beyond stages where you could easily kill them was rather up to the players, many strategies worked, such as:

 

Trinity: blocking the main paths to the pod with melee and ice, ensuring as many infested as possible would stay aggressive to the trinity and not rush to the pod, which was already hard, but now this is impossible.

 

Loki: Using decoy on the stairs, or on top of some boxes just out of reach for most infested worked reasonably well, and with a good loki was a valid strategy for high wave infested, this is also completely impossible even more so than the trinity strategy.

 

Nyx: nyx had moderate success post chaos nerf (which was needed), but still worked extremely well when combined with a loki's decoy, furthering the need for class diversity and teamwork in a defense mission.

 

And these are only the few strategies I was greatly familiar with at those times, I have seen many parties manage with vastly different methods of crowd control in infested defense.

 

CONCLUSION

 

The pod aggressiveness change was needed for gun-based factions, but the inherently melee based infested were already very hard to manage pre-patch and had a vast number of strategies to manage them. The current state of things only leaves the single option of vauban on high-wave defense missions, which is very bad for diversifying gameplay.

 

I vote that the infested defense pod aggressiveness should be at least party reverted to its previous state, allowing other frames than Vauban to dominate infested defense with a single power.

 

Questions, comments, and suggestions welcome!

[ThePresident777]

So, you are saying that after a certain level the enemies are too tough.  There is nothing wrong with letting the player push beyond their capabilities.

[Roukoswarf]

No, I have 0 issue with enemies being too tough, I have issues with vauban being a one stop ticket to wave 60 defense.

 

I want enemies to kill players, not just avoid them and run for the pod with no way to manage them other than vauban.

I miss other frames than vauban being able to manage the mobs with proper strategy.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Roukoswarf

[StrangeLob]

Infested enemies can easily overrun teams even with a Vauban if a team member slips up, or if a toxic somehow lunges far enough if and when the bastille goes down for a fraction of a second. Higher waves can easily be failed because of this. In the AI's present state, even with a Vauban higher waves can be hard for slightly unfocused players to complete. Forget about going very far without one either; even with Nyx's chaos, crowd control methods other than bastille are sub par and straight damage other than Nova's Molecular prime will have too small a range to be effective enough against the hordes of enemies even after wave 10 or 15. Basically, to get past wave 15 or 20 you *need* a Vauban. In higher waves of Corpus and Grineer defense you can expect the same outcome without a Frost or a very good Vauban, but it's slightly more bearable with some of the more open maps, where the attackers can be less accurate and teammates can bodyblock for the cryopod more effectively. With infested, there's no margin for error.

[Angius]

Tbh, I have no problem with surviving long on Xini, even without Vauban in my team... Jst kill them before they reach the pod.

 Nyx can do well with her Chaos, Rhino can clear the pod with his Stomp, even Volts Overload works on low-level minions.

Also weapons are important - best setup is probably Torid for killing groups, and Kunai/Despair for killing those who are left.

 

And Infested defenses always were the easiest ones, at least for me. Just meeleing all the way with my flaming Fragor and Iron Skin on, ocasionally using Rhino Stomp if enemies were near the pod.

And nothing really changed, it's still one of my favourite strategies (second one is Nyx with Torid).

[Roukoswarf]

Angius: There comes a point that no matter how much damage your party does, you cannot kill them before they reach the pod without vauban. And there isnt another way to manage them like there used to be.

 

Remember when infested used to actually attack you while you melee them?

[Angius]

Well, yeah... I must agree, that it's kind of stupid, that all thatthey do is just rushing the pod. I was stayoing still with my Nyx inside a pack of them and just shooting with my Torid.

Only one of them attacked me. The rest was just rushing to the pod.

[PaperAlien]

Bastille probably needs a nerf to the number of enemies it can pick up.

[KaoKill123]

maybe u shld ask DE to make some infested immune to tenno's skill ability. so some anicent will walk through those vortex or something.

[noir_kero]

I kinda agree with this.

 

But rather than just infested def. I want more defense strategy alternatives, rather than Vauban for infested high waves, and Frost for corpus/grineer high waves.

[TheHeraldXII]

I'm with OP because it isn't about whether or not you can get to wave 15 with a random assortment of Warframes, but rather about letting a variety of strategies beyond "have a Vauban" and "nuke everything" be viable.

[Liminal]

IMO infested defense should have a different map. One without boxes to stand on... but with many paths (a bit like a Tower Defense game without towers).

I didn't sleep tonight so that might actually be a stupid idea.

[Ruriko]

I don't really see what the issue is here. I commonly go to wave 15 solo with Nova, thanks to Molecular Prime and gauging distances. It's a simple matter of stacking the explosions to deal with ancients without any real effort.

 

If I team with a Frost with a Stretched Snow Globe, I can push that to 25. Add an Ember for Flame Wave and it becomes 30, 35 if they're a particularly well modded Ember. 

 

Comically enough, I can get to wave 20 solo with Nyx, but that's because Chaos results in extreme comedy. IMO, Nyx is the most underappreciated frame for defense missions. Make enemies kill each other so that you can make extreme progress without much issue? Pretty awesome.

 

What I am trying to say is that you're right to think that defense missions need some adjustment, but not because of Vauban. If you can't make good progress in a defense mission, it isn't because you didn't have a Nova or a Vauban. It's because you didn't use the abilities given to you. The only real thing that Infested defense needs is a different variety of maps to better take advantage of the "primal pack mentality". They should be harder, not easier. Far progress in defense missions should be the result of hard, diligent work, not careful manipulation of various gimmicks.

[Lers]

The OP has a point. You CAN go decently high with a semi-competent group of talented individuals, with somewhat lacking frames (high to mid tier).

 

However. Add Vauban to the list, and you can (and probably will) go a bunch of leagues higher than without him. He can drag out defense missions semi-indefinitely pretty much until a) he misses a Bastille by 0.5-1 secs and a single random ancient one-shots the pod or b) the group runs out of recources.

 

You cannot deal with a horde of ~lvl200 ancients comming in from multiple sides at the same time fast enough without having some form semi-permanent protection or cc around the pod.

 

 

...

If I team with a Frost with a Stretched Snow Globe, I can push that to 25. Add an Ember for Flame Wave and it becomes 30, 35 if they're a particularly well modded Ember. 

 

Comically enough, I can get to wave 20 solo with Nyx, but that's because Chaos results in extreme comedy. IMO, Nyx is the most underappreciated frame for defense missions. Make enemies kill each other so that you can make extreme progress without much issue? Pretty awesome.

...

 

Just to use your numbers as comparison: on Palus (Pluto), with a Nova-Vauban combo you can go up to wave ~50-60 just with the two of you.

[Lord.Finster]

How about...

Ancient disrupters lose their power to drain you but are immune to your Tenno powers.

Toxic Ancients gain the ability to launch a Torid grenade once (like J3 Golem).

In General, the Infested would profit from a few ranged units. Sth. that shoots spikes like the Sandskates.