Saturday, December 7, 2019

Funny post about the nemisis system in Warframe

Cass Marshall for Polygon:
Because I am in the state of having a nemesis yet not having triggered her higher aggression levels, the two of us are caught in a little bit of a cold war. Here’s how a day of playing Warframe goes now that Halidd Sorr is all up in my business:

I log in, and Halidd Sorr sends me a little bon mot, calling me her Adversary. It’s usually something about how she’s going to destroy me, and crush my weak, brittle tin skull. I go adventuring on some completely unrelated missions, chuckling to myself about her idle threats. Then, she steals a chunk of my quest rewards!

C’mon, what the hell? Am I not entitled to the sweat of my brow?

At this point, I’m not afraid of Halidd at all. I wish she would stop calling me at work so much, because that’s unprofessional, but she stays on her side of the system and I stay on mine. Everything’s fine, up until it changes.

Halidd Sorr shows up in one of my missions to beat my ass.

I’m not going to lie: It was a humiliating encounter. I’m on voice chat with my friends, and I’m in the middle of explaining the way a certain kind of upgrade works when I cut myself off with an “OH NO!” My Kuva Lich has arrived, and her health bar takes up a massive chunk of my screen. She’s screaming at me, I’m trying to get out of the elevator shaft I’m currently in so that I can start a fight, and my friends are reassuring me that everything will be alright.

We chip her down to about a third of her health, and then Halidd Sorr grabs me, breaking my spine over her knee à la Bane. After I revive myself I complete the mission, she steals even more of my loot! I haven’t experienced such a vicious act of bullying since high school.

I can’t stress enough how alarming this is. Warframe is a power fantasy where I can spin-jump 80 feet into the air, slide down a catwalk, and murder a dozen dudes without breaking a sweat. Now I know how those guys feel, because that’s how easily Halidd Sorr dispatches me.