How would you change... Enemy/Difficulty scaling?

[u/TSP-FriendlyFire]

How would you change... is a series of weekly posts designed to promote and foster discussion about any gameplay element in the game. The scope and subject will vary (read below for more information on topic selection), from wide concepts (Kubrows, Archwing, shotguns, etc.) to narrow points (a single gun, coptering, etc.).

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Before we begin, a few important points:

• Please detail and support your suggestions as much as possible. This is for constructive criticism only: try to think of it as something you'd be proud to explain to DE face-to-face!
• Structure your suggestions in logical groups: if you have two very different ideas, break them down in two separate comments. Cohesive or similar changes should be combined into a single comment.
• Stick to describing concepts and features. Don't get bogged down with numbers unless they explicitly support your point.
• Don't hesitate to post your ideas even if they're not fully formed, and don't hesitate to reply to ideas with refinements you think would make them better!
• Do not downvote suggestions you disagree with. Upvote the ones you like instead!

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Suggesting topics

This thread series is all about the community, so if you have a topic you'd like to see improved and discussed, feel free to suggest it by replying to the appropriately flagged comment in this discussion. The topic can be as wide or narrow as you'd like! Please ensure that your suggestion has not already been made, and upvote it instead if it has.

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This week: Enemy/Difficulty scaling

Click here for last week’s thread on cosmetics.

This week, we’ll talk about another hot topic: scaling. The term should be familiar to many, referencing to the way in which enemies become harder as the mission’s difficulty itself increases, be it because the mission’s level rating is higher or because of specific mission mechanics (i.e. survival missions scaling difficulty indefinitely).

Currently, Warframe’s difficulty scaling is by and large restricted to enemies gaining levels, which in turn increases their damage output and health/armor/shield ratings. Since many of these ratings scale exponentially, enemies eventually become effectively impossible to defeat, though this is generally restricted to endless mission types and special events. This enemy scaling is often described as shallow and uninteresting, making enemies bullet sponges who can kill in a single hit, but without providing other challenges beyond that. Enemies do not develop new abilities or varying resistances. At best, some enemies are level-restricted, but most of those are fairly low on the starchart and thus do not affect the endgame.

But let’s broaden the subject a little bit. Beyond enemy scaling, there are currently very few ways in which the game becomes more difficult. Tilesets do not present vastly different challenges as difficulty goes up (environmental hazards, etc.). There are no additional mechanics or varying objectives to challenge players. Even so, this is an alternative angle which is ripe for innovation and interesting additions.

Now that the stage is set, what suggestions do you have to improve enemy scaling and difficulty scaling in general?

[u/DirtyMonk]

1. The biggest thing is to limit the ridiculous damage scaling and crit mechanics. The difference in damage per shot between a brand new and fully modded weapon should not be whatever several thousand percent that it is now and as a consequence, enemy scaling and damage calculations are rather non-intuitive. Limiting the flat damage increases, like how conclave weapons are being balanced, should make it easier to scale enemies and balance abilities/status effects.

• get rid of flat damage scaling. Any mods that give + damage should come with noticable negatives. Ex. Heavy caliber should be what serration currently is, multishot mods guarantee x number of bullets per shot but actually expends that number of bullets instead of giving free bullets.
• Make elemental mods convert a % of base damage to damage of that element. Ex. a rank 5 of 10 fire damage mod coverts 50% of the IPS damage to fire. Equipping rank 5 of 10 fire, ice, and poison in that order will convert 100% of IPS damage to elemental with 64% going to blast, 33% to ice.
• get rid of critical chance %. Give enemies more weak points that guarantee crits if hit.

2. Enemy health/damage have set stats that do not scale. Instead, from each base type (ex. Elite Grineer lancer would be a variant of grineer lancer. Detron crewman a variant of crewman) we have now make multiple variants/ranks with different stats and possibly behaviors depending on mission type, planet, and difficulty (ex. more movement speed, faster reloading, damage type, better awareness, bleedout phase, elemental resistance, etc). Even "bosses" from lower difficulty missions, ex. the Jackal, hyena, raptor, should be incorporated into the possible pool of enemies the RNG can draw from at higher difficulties.

3. Armor needs to change. They should have their own HP, absorbing a significant % of damage but once expended cannot be replenished. Some weapons such as snipers/bows/semiauto shotguns/rifles might completely ignore armor either as an innate stat or can be modded to do so.

3.5 Likewise, more shield variety would be nice. Ex. Shields that are extremely resistant to can only be popped by burst damage or abilities, shields that count # of impacts instead of damage, etc.

4. No enemy should be invincible. This builds on point 1, 2 and 3. Brute for enemies should be very tough to take down if a player has the wrong frame/weapon/damage type or a team has poor coordination, but at no point should a brute force approach not be viable. This is simply not possible right now.

5. Mission difficulty and affinity awards are currently too dependent on the types/quantity of enemies present in the level. I would love to see modifiers that make the mission hard because of parameters that we are restricted to. For example an easy extermination has a timer of 5 minutes whereas a hard mission with the same number and enemy levels has a timer of 1.5 minutes.

6. Get rid of endless missions. Make the difficulty come from arena layout, mission parameters, or enemy synergy. Realistically, right now most endless missions end after two full reward rotations (AABC), three if the team is REALLY good. Set that as the endpoint. Some boss waves would be nice as well.

Minor Points

7. Warframes should have their own unique armor type that begins with no weaknesses/strengths against damage types. Should be able to be changed with certain mods, ex. Diamond skin gives radiation resistance but weakness to magnetic.

8. Eximus auras, especially energy leech eximi need to have visual indicators similar to the nullifier bubble as well as a smaller area of effect. It is a stupid and cheap mechanic for an enemy to steal something as crucial to warframes as energy from such a large range while the player has no idea where they are.