What's Up With The Stalker?

[OricSharp]

In a recent encounter with the Stalker, I got solidly stomped. That's not what this is about, I'll make that clear right now.

 

What this is about is what happened immediately thereafter: I spent one of four revives before he even left, got up and finished the mission like I would have if he hadn't appeared at all. This left me wondering what the point of the Stalker is - in the event that you do get ganked by him, it's not like you fail the mission. You might be one Revive poorer, but with four revives per frame per day, it's more a mild annoyance than something warranting creepy voices, flickering lights, and an enemy 15-20 levels above your frame.

 

Now, I know that you get a chance of getting some bit of his gear if he attacks and you kill him. I know that he's probably going to end up being significant, or be explained, later on, and possibly some manner of anti-grinding measure (in a game where grinding is a huge part of the game), but...again, when he kills you, you lose precisely one revive. When you kill him, you maybe get something of his gear and a bit of XP. His AI isn't particularly challenging to deal with, even, as he seems to have some inexplicable issue with elevations; he's just a bullet sponge with a creepy intro who can occasionally gank players.

Even the time when I died earlier was due less to any kind of difficult AI and more to him just not taking any damage from Shuriken, though I've no idea why this happened, as I didn't get any message about my Tenno powers being useless.

 

So...what's the point? What's the deal with this guy? Why is he even a thing? I'm not saying he should be removed or anything (again, he's basically pointless except as a mild annoyance and bit of atmosphere, with lame AI and an occasional bug or invincibility clause), just actually kinda curious what's supposed to be going on here.

[JerichoFayne]

The first rule Stalker is you don't talk about Stalker.......

 

....

 

In all seriousness, the point is to create another challenge, not completely destroy your game experience.  I think dropping you & requiring you to spend a revive is a nice compromise.

[Fundance]

Stalker creates fairly interesting situations when you're not ready for him. I've had him pop up right in the middle of doing solo missions while I was absolutely surrounded by enemy mobs. It made me have to quickly focus on clearing the room and then moving to a spot with a good vantage point so that I could see him coming. The point of him is to give players one more reason to change up their game plan if they want a shot at his loot.

[TheSadisticDragon]

He used to block revive from either you or one of your friends, but for some reason they nerfed that (sadly enough)

 

I wish he could get out of hiding with a slash dash, since that whole getting out of smoke while standing up slower than a stun-lock gives everyone way to much time to kill him if you are not alone.

[OricSharp]

He's not even really challenging, if you don't do what I did in my most recent encounter and go "Oh, I've already taken 40% of his HP off, think it was one use of Shuriken that did that. I'll just spam Shuriken at him from five feet away, hopefully that'll finish him off. Wait, why's he not taking damage? Ah, dammit." And then dying from Slash Dash.

He has the AI of a Moa, almost - no taking cover, just stomping toward you and trying to shoot you. He doesn't even account for elevation before trying to blitz with his Slash Dash. The only thing that makes him anything approaching challenging is fighting him while also trying to deal with large groups of other enemies...and with the agility of a Tenno, you can often get somewhere no enemy can reach, thus nullifying that if you do so before he spawns. Or after, really, as then you can just snipe him, with your only concern being his arrows.

Last time I killed him, in fact, I did it by hopping out of cover, unloading my pistols in his general direction, stepping into cover to reload, and repeating that until he left. Hardly a challenge.

 

As for ruining gameplay experience - he rarely attacks to begin with, and only after you've brawled a few bosses into the dirt. I really don't think it'd be that bad to have the Stalker killing a player mean that player couldn't use a Revive to pop back up and finish the mission. Let other players pick them up, of course, if there are other players involved, but don't just have it be "Oh, you died. No worries, just get up and finish the thing." There's a line between ruining of experience and seeming pointless that the Stalker is a little too far on one side of, in my opinion.

 

I suppose making the player change up their game plan is something, though. It's not much, but I guess it counts.

Edited August 23, 2013 by OricSharp

[Dead_Rabbits]

Now that i;ve been using nova alot in defense missions he comes for me almost twice a day.

[OricSharp]

Lucky you?

For me, I've had him attack a couple times in the last week, and other than that, it's generally been weeks between Stalker attacks, even if I were grinding a boss for a rare component. I remember going a month between attacks, and then getting two in two days. It's just RNG.

[Dead_Rabbits]

And he just came for me a third time.

Nightmare alert with no shield mode and he was lvl 80.

 

Did not survive that one lol.

Edited August 23, 2013 by Dead_Rabbits_Vspec

[Tetsmeha]

It's just the devs trying to throw a curveball at you to break repetative gameplay.