As an "engineer" class...

[TankHunter678]

Technically an easy to use AoE weapon with plenty of ammo and hits hard enough that using it on a single target is more then perfectly acceptable is more of an easy button then automated turrets. If you want an example, the Ogris used to be this in Warframe. It used Rifle Ammo which gave it a maximum ammo capacity of 510ish rounds. It hit like a truck allowing it to destroy high health single targets, and was a very potent AoE weapon.

So long as ammo dropped, and you had a rifle ammo mutator the weapon had effectively infinite ammo and could deal with everything that was not a boss built with specific weakspots that had to be hit to deal damage (as explosive weapons could not hit weakspots period).

The Ogris even had the benefit of being a silenced weapon that would not raise alarms unless the target survived the hit.

 

[Beemann]

lol. Likes vary from person to person dude. Every game is made to cater to a crowd with certain set of Likes. No game is expected to appeal to every single person out there. When folks find a game that feature things they like they play it, when folks find a game that features things they don't like they don't play it.

Maybe you should recall who used "people like it" as a defense for turrers

I'm curious. If whether people like or dislike something doesn't matter. What would you say is the right criteria for putting something in a game?

My point is that you have to explain the mechanical/qualitative reasons for something being in the game unless your argument is that it will bring in more people than it will turn away. If the latter is, in fact, the case, bring in those stats

I didn't say it was a major draw for any game. I said there was a lot of people who look to use it. How could I show that?
You mean like character play percentages of games like Overwatch and TF2? Go ahead and look them up.

I use the Vortex/railgun plenty but I don't like it. I use it because it's effective, and not using it at all would be intentionally putting myself at a disadvantage

if you ignore all patterns of use and success

You've named 2 games with turrets that were successful. I can name at least 3 that werent off the top of my head
Something about a pattern?

Oh please, nobody is buying that. All three of us were working within a simplified example to make a point. If we are going to expand the example to cover the full gamut of possibilities we should just expand the example to cover them all.

It's still a simple example, you just have to address it like a rational human being

End result is that there absolutely should be different strengths and weakness between builds. Specialize in certain areas and not others, be generalized and you're neither extra weak or extra strong for anything. We all know this.

Doesn't necessarily need to be the case, but will have to be due to the desire to have a customization system. However, I'd suggest that the way to go forward with that is to allow across the board combat viability and hybridize into specialized secondary roles. Something that was discussed at length in a much earlier thread.

You didn't debunk my positions, you disagreed with them. Who says who is really right? You sound like you think you're a lawyer trying a case before yourself as the judge.

You have yet to offer any solid positions, so yes, I haven't specifically debunked YOURS. However I was under the impression that you were arguing against my attempted debunking of the idea of turrets as a good mechanic, and thus far you have yet to address any points in a meaningful manner

Yes, among other things. Plenty of variety and sub genre's that are shooters. Plenty of variety in expectations among them.

But there does appear to be a central theme to shooters. Something to do with what they're called
It's on the tip of my tongue. I believe it rhymes with booting

Yeah great. Let the turret hater say stuff that will call in the AOE haters. You guys can then duke it out, telling everyone else what skill should look like.

AOE weapons actually have a skill curve (assuming proper falloff). People can argue about balance re:explosives, but explosive weapons are prominent on some level in basically every shooter that matters

You kind of have a point that the skill curve can be off kilter like that. Not that wanton AOE has much different effect. Or easy crowd control. or a few other things. Turrets aren't the only easy button that messes up the skill curve.

AOE is not automatic kills. CC isn't kills at all. If my friend CCs a crowd, I can still be the one who frags said crowd. If my friend is hitting targets and softening them up with AOE, I can be dealing the finishing blow, or hitting harder targets for whom spread out damage is not so problematic. Assuming we're at the same level, we will have roughly the same fail rate, with AOE compensating a little, and CC giving more breathing room. Turrets are an automated level of success unless manually controlled. You can, depending on circumstances, fuck up landing a rocket (airborne enemies are an excellent example of this) but you can't personally fuck up with the AI doing a job for you

It doesn't matter. "Too hard" is a matter of perspective. Not every game has the same skill expectation for their players. What one game sets as too hard for players another game may set at just fine.

So you could easily name one but won't? And we never discussed difficulty, but rather "skill". Can you name a shooter with automated turrets in which a person using those turrets has a high level of resource management or overall skill required? I sincerely doubt you can. The only examples I can think of where the class itself can take more than a little skill involve the use of the class' own aimed weapons, rather than the use of turrets. Granted I only full-on binged on class based shooters during the previous wave of them, so what do I know?

@TankHunter678
I wouldn't use Warframe's weapons as an example of good balance though. DE has also made hitscan burst weapons that are tremendously safe and easy to use, but that doesn't make hitscan or burst automatically broken. It all depends on implementation
Automated turrets, however, will always have the issue I've described. There is no way to implement them where they are not automatically better or worse than X% of players of a particular skill level, and with no additional skill factors, and it will not budge from that spot once people learn what decent turret placement looks like

 

[HighCaliber]

Maybe you should recall who used "people like it" as a defense for turrers
My point is that you have to explain the mechanical/qualitative reasons for something being in the game unless your argument is that it will bring in more people than it will turn away. If the latter is, in fact, the case, bring in those stats
I use the Vortex/railgun plenty but I don't like it. I use it because it's effective, and not using it at all would be intentionally putting myself at a disadvantage
You've named 2 games with turrets that were successful. I can name at least 3 that werent off the top of my head
Something about a pattern?

I recall, I said it. No one ever knows if a feature will pull in more people than it pushes away, all anyone can try to understand is if there is an audience for it. The only way to try to figure that out is to see if it's something folks seem to have seemed to like elsewhere. Like I already said, there is no perfectly accurate way to record the enjoyment of any single feature in a game. Game companies do their best to get a sense of it. It's part logic, part instinct, part opinion, part personal preference. It's not an exact science and there is no guarantee.

The premise of your argument is no better. You want to disregard "like" because it's a subjective thing prone to questions of "how do we know?". Then you tell me to use "mechanical/quantitative" reasons is if those are not prone to each of our personal opinions and questions of "how do we know?" they will result in anybody enjoying them. It's part logic, part instinct, part opinion, part personal preference. It's not an exact science and there is no guarantee.

It's still a simple example, you just have to address it like a rational human being

Doesn't necessarily need to be the case, but will have to be due to the desire to have a customization system. However, I'd suggest that the way to go forward with that is to allow across the board combat viability and hybridize into specialized secondary roles. Something that was discussed at length in a much earlier thread.

Doesn't matter if we have preset classes or custom roles. There should be clear differences in strengths and weaknesses between them. Doesn't matter if it's in their primary or secondary purpose. It still needs to be different from each other for this game.

You have yet to offer any solid positions, so yes, I haven't specifically debunked YOURS. However I was under the impression that you were arguing against my attempted debunking of the idea of turrets as a good mechanic, and thus far you have yet to address any points in a meaningful manner

In your opinion I haven't. Some other folks understood what I was saying.

But there does appear to be a central theme to shooters. Something to do with what they're called
It's on the tip of my tongue. I believe it rhymes with booting

That's great.

AOE is not automatic kills. CC isn't kills at all. but you can't personally fuck up with the AI doing a job for you

Every different thing has it's own skill curve. Turrets, CC, aoe, whatever. None of them are exactly the same. When I say "easy" that's like, on a spectrum. There is a spectrum for how strong or weak each of those van be too.

So you could easily name one but won't?

Doesn't matter what I name. You could easily disagree with my view on it and proclaim yourself right.
I might as well let you do that now and not waste my time debating over yet another thing.

And we never discussed difficulty, but rather "skill".

I'll use big words if it help you. The ease or difficulty required to perform an action to a certain level of proficiency is the skill requirement.

 

[Metal Bin]

They provide support, using turrets to spread aggro, shields to block projectiles, and provide ammo and healing. So where is the problem with engineers doing less dps?

Equal DPS is fine. DPS=Damage per Second. An offensive class spends all their time shooting at the target. An engineer can't as they have other things to do. So less seconds shooting equals less damage. Smaller the team = less distraction so more time to shoot that is balance. Reducing damage on top of their less seconds due to distraction is a nerf and breaks the class.

 

[TankHunter678]

I wouldn't use Warframe's weapons as an example of good balance though. DE has also made hitscan burst weapons that are tremendously safe and easy to use, but that doesn't make hitscan or burst automatically broken. It all depends on implementation
Automated turrets, however, will always have the issue I've described. There is no way to implement them where they are not automatically better or worse than X% of players of a particular skill level, and with no additional skill factors, and it will not budge from that spot once people learn what decent turret placement looks like

I cannot think of any shooter series besides ARMA (which prides itself on being as realistic as possible, thus no hitscan period) that does not have tremendously safe and easy to use hitscan burst weapons.

Ultimately though, what helps balance out those hitscan burst weapons is how terrible they are when it comes to swarms of enemies. They have to deal with each enemy one at a time. This ultimately is why I never used burst weapons in Warframe for instance, because their slow fire rate was not sufficient against the three factions in the game. Especially early to mid game where the focus was on quantity over quality. Same in Firefall.

The biggest issue with Automated Turrets is how many of them can be deployed by a single person. Using Bastion in FF as an example, if they could have 5-6 multi turrets, 3-4 Rocket Turrets, and 2-3 Repair Pods up they had an area pretty much locked down against most threats. They still had to do work themselves, especially against siege type and shield type enemies, to support their turrets. However once deployment modules were removed it went from a class that can hold its own... to a joke no one wanted to play unless they were masochists. Or include in their parties.

A turret player needs to have a decent amount of turrets to get the job done, but not enough to go overboard and not have to work.

Well I will just leave it at this: Turret based builds require different skill sets not built around twitch. Which makes it a good option to bring into the game because it enables a wider audience to come into the game. If the turrets can be customized, and have a wide variety of their own, it will attract the crowd that prefers to think through problems instead of twitch through problems.

Turrets have their issues, however it is still a case of putting player power in something external that can be destroyed. Unlike other weapon types that can become the end all be all if they have too many bonuses. I would rather see turrets then another weapon like the old Warframe Ogris. As much as I loved the thing.

Also, turrets make for a good excuse to increase the range of enemy types.

 

[zdoofop]

you don't really need an excuse to add variety when it comes to enemies

 

[Ars Nova]

I cannot think of any shooter series besides ARMA (which prides itself on being as realistic as possible, thus no hitscan period) that does not have tremendously safe and easy to use hitscan burst weapons.

Ultimately though, what helps balance out those hitscan burst weapons is how terrible they are when it comes to swarms of enemies. They have to deal with each enemy one at a time. This ultimately is why I never used burst weapons in Warframe for instance, because their slow fire rate was not sufficient against the three factions in the game. Especially early to mid game where the focus was on quantity over quality. Same in Firefall.

The biggest issue with Automated Turrets is how many of them can be deployed by a single person. Using Bastion in FF as an example, if they could have 5-6 multi turrets, 3-4 Rocket Turrets, and 2-3 Repair Pods up they had an area pretty much locked down against most threats. They still had to do work themselves, especially against siege type and shield type enemies, to support their turrets. However once deployment modules were removed it went from a class that can hold its own... to a joke no one wanted to play unless they were masochists. Or include in their parties.

A turret player needs to have a decent amount of turrets to get the job done, but not enough to go overboard and not have to work.

Well I will just leave it at this: Turret based builds require different skill sets not built around twitch. Which makes it a good option to bring into the game because it enables a wider audience to come into the game. If the turrets can be customized, and have a wide variety of their own, it will attract the crowd that prefers to think through problems instead of twitch through problems.

Turrets have their issues, however it is still a case of putting player power in something external that can be destroyed. Unlike other weapon types that can become the end all be all if they have too many bonuses. I would rather see turrets then another weapon like the old Warframe Ogris. As much as I loved the thing.

Also, turrets make for a good excuse to increase the range of enemy types.

I play/played Bastion as my main in FireFall. Even after update/without deploy modules, I considered myself good at it. If there was a narrow space, can hide behind turret nest, but in an open area, it becomes a lot less effective, and then you gotta use skill to keep the enemy off you, and the turret nest becomes a supply point/way to stop yourself getting totally surrounded. It also distracts the enemies so you have less to deal with at any one time.

And i have seen so many arguments that turrets lower the skill requirements.... but thing is, same could be said about many playstyles - for example, high damage sniper rifle? No need for CC, just kill everything from a distance. Large AoE? Great for swarms, against individuals? Medium range spamming.
And what about the idea that turrets are guaranteed output? Make them use projectiles like player weapons, and aim at centre of hitbox, then add enemies that require hitting weak spots, but still let the turrets draw aggro. Add in my earlier suggestions that make keeping your turrets alive really important, and you really have to decide in what situations NOT to use turrets.

Sorry about posting unfinished earlier, on my phone, accidentally clicked send early.

 

[EvilKitten]

And i have seen so many arguments that turrets lower the skill requirements....

I think the real issue (at least as it pertained to Firefall) is more the fact that once placed the turrets operate independently of the player. While there might be skill involved with turret placement, once they are in place the player doesn't have any input on the damage they do.

If I might propose a suggestion, what if the "turret" abilities in Ember were more player interactive. For instance an "engineer" type ability might place a player mounted cannon with a small (say 60 degree) shield in front. The turret would be excellent for choke points or defensive positions (animal swarms etc), the ability would combine both defensive and offensive abilities but still require player interaction.

Another option might be automated turrets that, once placed, added an additional ability(s) which would utilize the turrets to supply damage. There could be several modes available, suppression mode would have the player select a radius in which the turret(s) would fire indiscriminately. Or the player could switch them to assist mode where the turrets would slave themselves to the players targeting reticle and tapping the ability would mark a target for the turrets to fire at. Again rather than merely automatically firing at anything in range this would allow for continuous player interaction. It would also allow the player to prioritize what the turrets are firing at.

There could also be long range ballistic turrets that a player can drop well back from a fight which would give them a special bombard ability (targeted AoE) with a medium to long flight time (depending on range). Higher tiers could even allow squad wide access. Additional turrets could be placed which would either increase the bombardment, or shorten the cooldown.

I am sure there are other concepts we could come up with, but they key here in my opinion is player interaction. I would not wish to see a fully automated turret like we had in Firefall because this game is supposed to be all about *player* skill, which means we need to be utilizing skill not just in how they are placed but also how they are used.

 

[Beemann]

I recall, I said it. No one ever knows if a feature will pull in more people than it pushes away, all anyone can try to understand is if there is an audience for it. The only way to try to figure that out is to see if it's something folks seem to have seemed to like elsewhere. Like I already said, there is no perfectly accurate way to record the enjoyment of any single feature in a game. Game companies do their best to get a sense of it. It's part logic, part instinct, part opinion, part personal preference. It's not an exact science and there is no guarantee.

This is why I said that "people like it" isn't a valid argument. You're appealing to a population of unknown size in the hopes that the game will be an Overwatch and not a Tribes Ascend, Global Agenda, Hawken or SMNC. In all honesty, I dont think turrets had much to do with the success or failure of any of those titles, though turrets did stagnate the meta in CB Hawken and 1.4 GA

The premise of your argument is no better. You want to disregard "like" because it's a subjective thing prone to questions of "how do we know?". Then you tell me to use "mechanical/quantitative" reasons is if those are not prone to each of our personal opinions and questions of "how do we know?" they will result in anybody enjoying them. It's part logic, part instinct, part opinion, part personal preference. It's not an exact science and there is no guarantee.

The point is that you have to actually present some sort of logical argument rather than insisting that I havent. That's kind of how discussions/debates work

Doesn't matter if we have preset classes or custom roles. There should be clear differences in strengths and weaknesses between them. Doesn't matter if it's in their primary or secondary purpose. It still needs to be different from each other for this game.

It's not actually necessary to have glaringly obvious strengths and weaknesses, it's simply a design decision to force teamwork rather than have it happen organically

In your opinion I haven't. Some other folks understood what I was saying.

You mentioned people liking it, then failed to address people who dont, or the number of people who do vs dont, then you made an argument re: games that have the feature that dont work the way I suggest, but then you failed/refused to give examples

That is exactly not having a solid argument

Every different thing has it's own skill curve. Turrets, CC, aoe, whatever. None of them are exactly the same. When I say "easy" that's like, on a spectrum. There is a spectrum for how strong or weak each of those van be too.

The "skill curve" of turrets is a minor learning curve that has to do with not picking out dumb spots for your turrets. You're not accounting for travel time, ammo usage, movement/evasion, tracking, etc. It's just positioning, and that's trivially easy to learn

Doesn't matter what I name. You could easily disagree with my view on it and proclaim yourself right.
I might as well let you do that now and not waste my time debating over yet another thing.

What an interesting way to say there isn't one

I'll use big words if it help you. The ease or difficulty required to perform an action to a certain level of proficiency is the skill requirement.

And there's virtually no difficulty in placing something to have it do work for you. The only skillset at all involved is a minor bit of positioning, and you can teach that with a series of images. Nobody has to step in game to know the sorts of places you should and should not be

I cannot think of any shooter series besides ARMA (which prides itself on being as realistic as possible, thus no hitscan period) that does not have tremendously safe and easy to use hitscan burst weapons.

Quake, Reflex, Serious Sam
In Warframe you can get free evasion buffs, can zip around corners and the braindead AI will just trundle after you or sit behind a box, etc.

Ultimately though, what helps balance out those hitscan burst weapons is how terrible they are when it comes to swarms of enemies. They have to deal with each enemy one at a time. This ultimately is why I never used burst weapons in Warframe for instance, because their slow fire rate was not sufficient against the three factions in the game. Especially early to mid game where the focus was on quantity over quality. Same in Firefall.

Except this doesn't actually carry over into the late/endgame, where weapons with 0 travel time and a lot of front-loaded damage are used extensively. You're also forgetting about shotguns, which absolutely are useful for groups of low-health enemies. The Sancti Tigris and Vaykor Hek trivialize most of the content in Warframe

The biggest issue with Automated Turrets is how many of them can be deployed by a single person.

GA had it such that you could only deploy 1 turret at a time, but 1.4's changes made turrets the singular focus in organized 10v10, to the point where every other class was there to keep them, and the robos buffing them, alive. It's really not about number of turrets, it's about scaling

Well I will just leave it at this: Turret based builds require different skill sets not built around twitch.

No, they just require fewer skill sets. Positioning is still necessary on every other class in the game, it just doesn't reward you so entirely obviously outside of extreme circumstances

Which makes it a good option to bring into the game because it enables a wider audience to come into the game. If the turrets can be customized, and have a wide variety of their own, it will attract the crowd that prefers to think through problems instead of twitch through problems.

Having to aim != having to twitch through problems. Firefall's PVE was actually quite slow for the most part, and rather easy to just blast through unless you were fucking around.

Turrets have their issues, however it is still a case of putting player power in something external that can be destroyed. Unlike other weapon types that can become the end all be all if they have too many bonuses. I would rather see turrets then another weapon like the old Warframe Ogris. As much as I loved the thing.

Except turrets can ALSO be the end all be all if buffed too hard, see again: Global Agenda
Also I'd definitely not like to see DE tier balance in Ember, but adding turrets is not some weird cure for that, only good goals and community feedback can help that.

Also, turrets make for a good excuse to increase the range of enemy types.

In what way? You can range-cap turrets pretty hard if need be
Also what does longer range enemies ultimately add to the game?

 

[Torgue_Joey]

In what way? You can range-cap turrets pretty hard if need be
Also what does longer range enemies ultimately add to the game?

CALM THE F*CK DOWN AND REREAD HIS PHRASE.
He meant variation, not distant.

LIKE IN 7 ENEMIES TYPES INSTEAD 4.

 

[Beemann]

CALM THE F*CK DOWN AND REREAD HIS PHRASE.
He meant variation, not distant.

LIKE IN 7 ENEMIES TYPES INSTEAD 4.

It can be read either way. My answer is also virtually the same for both. You can have enemy variety with or without turrets.

 

[Torgue_Joey]

It can be read either way. My answer is also virtually the same for both. You can have enemy variety with or without turrets.

NO IT CAN NOT!

He said "range of enemy types" (NOT DISTANT OR SHOOTING RANGE)

AND YES, I DON'T NEED A FLAMETHROWER AS AN STUPID EXCUSE TO ADD A F*CKING FIREFIGHTER
IF I CAN JUST SIMPLY ADD A F*CKING FIREFIGHTER LIKE THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

 

[Beemann]

NO IT CAN NOT!

He said "range of enemy types" (NOT DISTANT OR SHOOTING RANGE)

AND YES, I DON'T NEED A FLAMETHROWER AS AN STUPID EXCUSE TO ADD A F*CKING FIREFIGHTER
IF I CAN JUST SIMPLY ADD A F*CKING FIREFIGHTER LIKE THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Increase the range of enemy types can be

Increase the types of enemies in the total range
Or
Increase the range of subsets of enemies

But I will assume that the former is the correct interpretation, in which case, my bad

And Turrets are not a necessary counter to anything. They'll still be dishing out either hitscan or projectile damage, DPS based or burst-based. That's my main point. We don't need an analogy involving fire and firefighters. Player-deployed turrets have no inherent link to enemy variety.

 

[Torgue_Joey]

Increase the types of enemies in the total range
Or
Increase the range of subsets of enemies

THAT SH*T ACTUALLY DOES MAKE SENSE........

 

[Pandagnome]

what about a sandworm turret eater it eats turrets and gets fatter :O

 

[Beemann]

what about a sandworm turret eater it eats turrets and gets fatter :O

It could just attack players instead. What if a team doesn't take turrets? Does it do nothing?

 

[Rocketeer593]

Lots of ideas and opinions on turrets in this thread. I tried to keep mine short, but it went long.
1) Turrets should be able to have foes agro them, and generate more or less agro based on what the turrets do (such as damage and offensive support traits increase agro rate, and defensive support traits decreases agro rate) and maybe how large they are if there are different sizes.
2) Turrets in general should both rotate and deploy quite rapidly. Whether deployment is near instant or taking up to 2 seconds at most idc a whole load. If they worked like the GW suggestion (until destroyed, picked up or manually destructed) and slowly regain another if one is destroyed, and have the max charges be 1 greater than the max deploy. If there ends up with more than one max deploy, it should at most cap out at 3 and use the same cooldown timer (if you lost all 3 you'd wait 3x the cooldown timer to get them all back). Any deployable (turrets, dispensers, mines) should also have a standard 2-3 minute idle timer that once expired will cause them to rapidly lose health and self destruct. If they have been repaired, damaged or target something by any active means it will reset said timer (passive repair perks won't reset timer).
3) If enemy ai treats turrets differently it should be more like a human would, ie all foes may attempt to take cover or dodge, but foes with aoe weapons may prioritize it more and those who don't have aoe weapons may prioritize it less due to the amount of time they would have to withstand fire.
4) A fast tunneling creature that is capable of moderate to heavy sustained burst damage to stationary things with minimal risk to itself sounds as a good as long as it can only burrow through outdoor areas (can't move though man-made floors), and can be damaged by shooting ahead of or near the front of the telltale trail of moved ground. The "Turretworm" should prefer stationary targets of any kind, but if none or is agro'd (which may take a little while) it may attempt to preform a "jump" in which it uses it's momentum to launch itself above ground in a straight line. Automated turrets should be unable to register the "Turretworm" unless it is above ground, which should only occur if it decides to attack a target that is moving, or cannot reach via any other means. Baiting the "Turretworm" into "jumping" onto a surface that it cannot burrow will yield a fairly long amount of time for potshots as it is briefly stunned, and then stuggles to retreat. Walls and deployable barriers will cause an extended stun compared to floors, but if the barrier damages foes instead of blocking them it will get more time than normal to damage the Turretworm due to the creature's length rather than an extended stun.
5) Ammo/health dispensers should be a constant short range flow of health/ammo that doesn't require that you practically fuse your character model with it, and be able to slowly repair itself and/or provide a constantly recharging shield dome that allows friendly fire to pass though unhindered whether innate or modifed.

 

[Pandagnome]

It could just attack players instead. What if a team doesn't take turrets? Does it do nothing?

Depends how many sandworms there are and if its hungry
when its not hungry it just doesnt do much sometimes it stalks people
it might work together with other sandworms to trap people to assist other npc's to finish them off
but usually it eats turrets because that is what it prefers!

 

[TankHunter678]

It could just attack players instead. What if a team doesn't take turrets? Does it do nothing?

Probably it could just ignore the players and tunnel to a nearby base and start eating its defense turrets. Spawning a dynamic event where you have to stop a siege worm before it destroys all of the base's defenses.

 

[Beemann]

Depends how many sandworms there are and if its hungry
when its not hungry it just doesnt do much sometimes it stalks people
it might work together with other sandworms to trap people to assist other npc's to finish them off
but usually it eats turrets because that is what it prefers!

Right, but nothing about that is inherently tied to a turret. It could be a force-field eater, or a medic eater etc.

Probably it could just ignore the players and tunnel to a nearby base and start eating its defense turrets. Spawning a dynamic event where you have to stop a siege worm before it destroys all of the base's defenses.

That sounds like a more substantial thing than an enemy that just eats player-deployed turrets, and does not require those deployed turrets to exist

A better example would be something like an enemy that needs to be hit in two spots at once (say a weak point on the face and one on the back), but I don't know that something like that is a particularly GOOD mechanic, and would probably just be annoying and gimmicky to deal with. Also it's still doable with multiple players, so a turret isn't really needed unless we're imposing solo content on people now