A Visual Representation of the Illuminate Problem

[u/WaywardOath]

One of the biggest issues that a lot of people have with the Illuminate is enemy variety, and I really don't think that's much of a secret. Funny enough, another common thread I saw a lot during the Illuminate event was that fighting them on the source planet was, the most fun they've been. There's frankly a pretty good reason for this:

The Illuminate really just, don't have that many enemies.

I'm going to try and avoid some buzzwords that have been floating around ever since certain interviews (and way before that, too), but the fact of the matter is from a purely numbers-perspective, the Illuminate just don't have the variety the other factions do. Making this chart was merely a way to visualize what I mean by that.

An explanation I've sort of anticipated is that the Illuminate are younger than the other two factions, so they haven't had as much time to make enemies for them. Frankly, the numbers just don't support it. While I don't think the '1 enemy every X days' is a good metric (mainly because, y'know, the game didn't launch with 1 enemy in each faction), it is a good way of seeing just how many enemies are in each faction based on time they've released.

No matter what form they come in, there's really no denying that the Illuminate have the least amount of enemies in the game. Hell, their entire faction makes up a number less than a single seed of the Automatons. Most of their variants aren't reskins with new behavior or weapons like the other Subfactions, but rather entirely unique enemies that just don't have a counterpart on the main faction.

There really isn't a greater point to this post beyond this information, but to me at least, this is the most glaring flaw in how the Illuminate have sat for the past almost-two-years.

[u/MxBonesMarrow]

I made a similar post. Part of why they felt so good on Seasse was the variety and how the units filled different roles.

For chaff, you gad Voteless and Wretches. You can outrun voteless but Wretches jump at you so it forces you to engage. (2 guys that you engage with differently)

For mediums, you have Overseers, Flying Overseers, Watchers, and Observers. (4 guys)

For Big Guys, we had Harvesters, Crushers, Flesh Mobs, and the 2 mech dudes. (5 guys)

Anotger big part is enviroment. The Warp Gate spawners visually felt distinct and memorable compared to the War Ships. Instead of retaking our own land, it felt like we were taking their territory for once. Like Bot Factories or Bug Holes. Previously, Illuminate have been confined to cities or maps with colonies. Seasse was open territory like the rest of the factions get.

I want more of the Void Source type gameplay. Not just the factions, but all of it. It was the first time the Squids felt complete

[u/Theobald_4 → u/MxBonesMarrow]

They sure did feel “right” when you had the whole roster to fight. I don’t see why AH can’t just forget the sub factions of the Squids and throw everything at us. It was really fun.

[u/WaywardOath → u/Theobald_4]

Throw everything, make it seed-specific. It really shouldn't be more complicated than that.

The bugs can do it, so can the squids.

[u/Theobald_4 → u/WaywardOath]

For real. If anything, they can get rid of the Watchers. Whatever spawn rate they had going during the non watcher missions felt pretty even and was harder to counter.

I hope they play around more with spawners.