Gatekeepers feel wayyyyy overtuned. They need a second look

[Pain]

While the early game enemies and the weapon balance progress up to hydro-plant are fairly balanced. I think alot of the weaknesses of the game's weapons really start hitting in this Dark Matter Update.

The gatekeepers enemies reek of devs not playing their own game. Their shields are *RIDICULOUSLY* spongey, and the game balance at this point is already suffering under bad balance. Basic ballistic weapons need a complete rework on how they are accessed. The armwraps likely need to be moved to the wristwatch slot or made powerful enough (or have ammo be accessible enough to make them worth using. By the time you get to reactors, you basically already unlocked the ultimate cheese weapons that just are instant-win button buttons: the laser weapons.

If you are trying to balance using around the right "counter" weapon, thats a terrible design. Doom Eternal tried that, and alot of people hated that as it breaks the flow of combat. and the "right" ammo that *should* counter the gatekeepers (lodestone) seems to do almost nothing for how scarce it is, and grindy it is to constantly collect the materials to make the munitions.

Do consider taking a second pass through on the gatekeepers as they seem overtuned with either their personal shield shenanigan nonsense or just pure health bloat.

Alot of the weapons are so underwhelming against them, you are basically force to either death laser them or get punished as you have too low DPS for how spongey they are.

I am going to add of screenshots of some of the ridiculousness, note, this is on a clean slate non modified normal difficulty. and it feels as excessive as it looks.

[Pain]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3438661009

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3438661775

[Pain]

so, taking another look at them, the problem seems to be the shields give them super sponge against most forms of damage except explosives, Which can melt even the giants with 6 grenades to the feet. Two for the sorcerers, and roughly the same for the grunts. this means, that the acid damage and "holy" damage from the lodestone ammo should likely be looked at, they seem incredibly underwhelming in effectiveness in comparison to what the GATE compedium describes them weak to.

[Kangaroo Salesman]

Using a laser katana and deatomizer made short work of them, i never went back to other weapons, except maybe the skink a bit. They still take quite a few swings though.

[Rae Nidae]

Skink tends to deal with most Gatekeeper enemies nicely considering that it:

• Deals acid damage that penetrates pretty much every enemy's various resistances
  
• Has a nonexistent downtime between shots and doesn't need to be reloaded (looking at YOU, sniper rifle)
  
• Can be refilled from pools all over Cloud Reactor and other areas with radioactive waste, which in turn gives it synergy with the Reactor armor set (even if I don't use it myself)
  
• Is cute

But yeah, their hardlight shielding makes them ridiculously tedious to kill with most other weapons, which is especially annoying since the hardlight trinket you can make for yourself feels like complete weaksauce by comparison.

The magbow I've been using for just about every other (organic) enemy was working just fine up until Dark Energy. I imagine one workaround for their shielding would be the use of null grenades, but like. A transuranic superalloy, a purported grimoire, and three arcane scrap just to make them??? Doesn't seem even remotely worth the cost of crafting AND the inventory space that they would take up, especially considering I'm moreso in need of resources from volatile pests / exor than Gatekeeper enemies, and the magbow deals with them just fine by comparison.

At the end of the day, Gatekeepers just. Do not feel fun to fight compared to every other enemy in the game at the moment.

[Pain]

Originally posted by Rae Nidae:

Skink tends to deal with most Gatekeeper enemies nicely considering that it:

• Deals acid damage that penetrates pretty much every enemy's various resistances
  
• Has a nonexistent downtime between shots and doesn't need to be reloaded (looking at YOU, sniper rifle)
  
• Can be refilled from pools all over Cloud Reactor and other areas with radioactive waste, which in turn gives it synergy with the Reactor armor set (even if I don't use it myself)
  
• Is cute

But yeah, their hardlight shielding makes them ridiculously tedious to kill with most other weapons, which is especially annoying since the hardlight trinket you can make for yourself feels like complete weaksauce by comparison.

The magbow I've been using for just about every other (organic) enemy was working just fine up until Dark Energy. I imagine one workaround for their shielding would be the use of null grenades, but like. A transuranic superalloy, a purported grimoire, and three arcane scrap just to make them??? Doesn't seem even remotely worth the cost of crafting AND the inventory space that they would take up, especially considering I'm moreso in need of resources from volatile pests / exor than Gatekeeper enemies, and the magbow deals with them just fine by comparison.

At the end of the day, Gatekeepers just. Do not feel fun to fight compared to every other enemy in the game at the moment.

Yeah, thats why I made this post. They feel overtuned; only other enemy that feels that way in Dark Energy is the new alien monk with the Spear. Their attack speed seems a bit overtuned, they attack ridiculously fast and have almost no punish window on top of being able to just teleport away when pressured, so melee builds have little choice but to face trade the damage as they poise most hits otherwise. As shields just get shredded by the unrelenting thrusting.

So I am glad its not just me that sees the problem with their absurd sponginess off their shields.

[Terranaut]

Originally posted by Pain:

By the time you get to reactors, you basically already unlocked the ultimate cheese weapons that just are instant-win button buttons: the laser weapons.

Good thing everything is resistant to lasers then. =)

[Terranaut]

Originally posted by Pain:

shields give them super sponge

Witches die in one hit, just saying

[Pain]

Originally posted by Terranaut:

Originally posted by Pain:

shields give them super sponge

Witches die in one hit, just saying

I have yet to fight a witch. But I imagine they are all DPS or something, I will likely found out later tonight.

[Pain]

Originally posted by Terranaut:

Originally posted by Pain:

By the time you get to reactors, you basically already unlocked the ultimate cheese weapons that just are instant-win button buttons: the laser weapons.

Good thing everything is resistant to lasers then. =)

Even resistant to lasers does not save them from how fast lasers melt them

[Jojy]

The grunts are the main pain point for me. Jotuns are stupidly tanky, but, I kind of expect as much from something that's supposed to be a space marine. The mystagogues feel fine as is. But the damn shields on the grunts just absorb way too much damage.

[Rae Nidae]

Originally posted by Pain:

I have yet to fight a witch. But I imagine they are all DPS or something, I will likely found out later tonight.

Witches are probably the most "fair" to fight, but even so, they only ever show up in Shadowgate and assault events, and they can absolutely take more than one hit depending on what weapon you're using against them.

Originally posted by Jojy:

The grunts are the main pain point for me. Jotuns are stupidly tanky, but, I kind of expect as much from something that's supposed to be a space marine. The mystagogues feel fine as is. But the damn shields on the grunts just absorb way too much damage.

Yeah, the neophytes and chieftains are genuinely the most problematic out of all the Gatekeeper enemies. I can handle one of them, but the moment a second one enters the fight, it becomes an uphill battle that I'm unlikely to win; and three or more at the same time is just a death sentence at that point.

[Pain]

Originally posted by Jojy:

The grunts are the main pain point for me. Jotuns are stupidly tanky, but, I kind of expect as much from something that's supposed to be a space marine. The mystagogues feel fine as is. But the damn shields on the grunts just absorb way too much damage.

it was a single grunt tanking about 20 lodestone ripper blades and still somehow ninja flipping around that tilted me enough to actually post about it. I was going through one of the reactors (the radioactive dump one) and I actually had an easier time killing the giant over the ninja flipping tank that did crazy damage for being a grunt guy. Died like 3 times as for some reason, that shield was unbelievably tanky and I was tilted by the second go at defeating the butthole. after some testing, mugnades are the simplest answer to breaking their stupidly spongy shield and doing *actual damage*

[Underqualified Gunman]

Here's a suggestion for a shielded enemy rework.
damage a enemy is resistant/immune to only does damage to the shield (current system)
damage that is not a weakness or resistant type does 15% of it's damage through the shield
and damage it is weak to goes 50% through the shield.

This would mean a attack dealing 100 damage to a shielded enemy with no weakness or resistances would deal 15 damage to the health of the enemy and 100 to the shield.
A 100 damage attack with a effect the enemy is weak to would do 50% damage to the health and 100% to the shield.
Lastly a attack the target is immune to would 100% damage to shield and function as is.
I would also make shields sound different if the enemy your attacking is immune or weak to that attack. possibly even make the enemy stumble or spark when attacking them.

also the null grenades should make the enemies shields explode for some damage. giving them some extra gimmicks and visual feedback when you short out their shield runes.

[Sloop]

I stealthed past the entire Dark Energy content lol

Apart from killing each new enemy type a few times for the new materials there's really no point in fighting imo

The tuning and sheer amount of enemies and the player ammo economy (like for how many kills you can reallistically gear up before having to port back to base to recharge) kinda made the reactors a "fk this, where's my Crystalline set" section.

[Underqualified Gunman]

there's the gate defense rune farming you have to do if your like me and enjoy collecting all the unlockable crates in the game.