Could you maybe fix Loki? It's been a decade...

[Vashramire]

They need to get on frames that have been in a bad state for like a decade. Wukong, Hydroid, Ember, and soon Inaros are nice but Loki? My boy is a 4 button wonder that requires an augment to work on some factions. His 2 is for survivability but they also gave it to Ash for some reason when his 4 gives I-frames. Identity crisis much? His 1 is useless unless augmented (so you can hide the taunting decoy to survive better? Surely you can see the counterintuitive gameplay DE) as unlike any other clone/decoy it just has health and duration, no invuln absorb time or damage capability and it's his subsume. What? His 3 is for trolling almost exclusively with minor mobility uses and has had times it's more toxic than Limbo was. It's so disorienting to use and even worse on teammates. His trickster theme even was done better on Mirage so what does he have that makes him, him? He can wall latch for a long time. *slow clap*

DE he was my first frame in the beta. I've been drinking copium for a decade but I can't ignore this any longer. I don't lightly make a plea for some attention but I think 11 years is a reasonable wait. He has been pushed under the rug when he should have been reworked a long time ago and his skills aren't fun anymore or even in line with the current warframe designs so I'm baffled as to how it has lasted this long. All the other starters got updates a long time ago but not him. Make him the trickster god he's suppose to be not an inconvenience to play.

PS: why do you hate Vauban Prime so much? That farm is toxic.

[Aldain]

Honestly the toughest part is figuring out what the hell do to with him, anyone can see his 1 and 3 are hilariously bad...the 3 especially.

Making his 1 not die to a a gentle breeze is an obvious choice imo (be it via making it invincible or just significantly more durable), I'd also roll his 3 into a hold cast function of it just for posterity. Give him a whole new 3rd ability, something, ANYTHING would be better than Switch Teleport, Kullervo literally rolled into the game and put his 1st ability into Helminth SOLELY to dunk on Switch Teleport as a skill.

Probably would give his 4 the current augment natively and make a new augment instead, it's been powercrept and also hit by collateral damage from things like Overguard so much that making it natively give a Rad proc wouldn't be a game breaker.

His 2 is fine and probably the only part of his kit that doesn't need to be replaced or reworked.

Also he needs a passive that isn't a meme because even Wall Latch builds are designed to Wall Latch as little as possible, nobody, not one single soul is going to Wall Latch for a whole minute, and anyone saying "I do" I'm calling out for being a complete contrarian.

[Tiltskillet]

28 minutes ago, Aldain said:

ANYTHING would be better than Switch Teleport,

Another Decoy would be worse!  :P (Also Safeguard Switch makes Switch Tele good, if we're counting augments.)

[trst]

The problem is that Loki has the same issue Inaros did: despite their issues they're still some of the most regularly played frames. DE just doesn't have incentive to change Loki since players still use him despite only having one actual ability. And probably the only reason we're seeing an Inaros rework soon is because of how constant his complaints have been, meanwhile Loki doesn't get brought up nearly as much and there tends to be pushback claiming that he's somehow entirely ok in his current state.

 

Also Vauban Prime's farm is a pain because original Vauban was an even bigger pain with his parts only coming from the old Alert system. And even then it was still far easier to get his Prime back then due to sometimes taking weeks for an Alert to pop up at all for a certain part and some players taking months to get it due to missed alerts.

Now Vauban is one of the easiest frames to get while his Prime is in an equivalent place on the opposite end of the spectrum.

[Aldain]

16 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

Another Decoy would be worse!  :P (Also Safeguard Switch makes Switch Tele good, if we're counting augments.)

Counterpoint, any Helminth specific ability save you both having to use a mediocre ability AND waste a Warframe slot on making the ability slightly less garbage.

I put Energized Munitions over it for example, which I find still significantly better of an option than 3 measly seconds of invulnerability.

Safeguard Switch being "good" is something I find VERY hard to believe when we have several frames that can become functionally immortal for much longer, all without a clunky movement ability.

[Zahnrad]

10 minutes ago, trst said:

The problem is that Loki has the same issue Inaros did: despite their issues they're still some of the most regularly played frames.

Heh, I was about to come into the thread to mention this.

Loki isn't really in a bad place, but he suffers from the Inaros problem, he has abilities that really need a glow up. But because he is still incredibly useful he never really comes off as warranting a rework or etc.

I think everyone can agree Loki's 2 and 4 are some of the legitimate best abilities in the game, even if CC has fallen off. But 1 and 3 are incredibly niche. Getting out of bounds, Stealth Missions and I guess you could use them to get around the map faster? But Operator beats that easily and there are just straight up other Stealth based frames with more overall useful kits.

[Hexerin]

11 minutes ago, trst said:

The problem is that Loki has the same issue Inaros did: despite their issues they're still some of the most regularly played frames.

People seem to have not been taught one of the golden rules in school: "Simple does not mean bad. Simple is often superior." To my understanding, the reason so many like Loki is literally because of that simplicity. His kit just works, and is also super cheap to maximize (which leaves tons of room for mod loadout customization).

[Aruquae]

40 minutes ago, Hexerin said:

People seem to have not been taught one of the golden rules in school: "Simple does not mean bad. Simple is often superior." To my understanding, the reason so many like Loki is literally because of that simplicity. His kit just works, and is also super cheap to maximize (which leaves tons of room for mod loadout customization).

^This

While both are considered simple, Inaros' abilities were never useful to begin with
Loki's got a simple useful toolkit (even if some of it is outdated)

[Tiltskillet]

32 minutes ago, Aldain said:

3 measly seconds of invulnerability.

3 seconds for Loki, 6 seconds for allies, scaling with Duration.   Which Loki has a lot of room for.

 

33 minutes ago, Aldain said:

Safeguard Switch being "good" is something I find VERY hard to believe when we have several frames that can become functionally immortal for much longer, all without a clunky movement ability.

"Functionally" seems like a dodgy modifier for immortal there.  Personally the ones I find truly comparable to Safeguard Switch are Mesmer, Hysteria, Absorb, and Vazarin Dash.  Safeguard has pros and cons with all of them, including Mesmer and Mesmer Shield which I'd call one of the most terribly imbalanced ability-augment pairs in the game.  But  I'm sure it helps that I find Switch Tele fun, and Absorb, Hysteria, and Mesmer varying levels of dull in increasing order.  (Protective Sling is fun when I want to use Vazarin.)

I don't want to make it sound like I think Switch Tele is great design and can't be improved.  It certainly isn't and certainly can (and should) be.   But I naturally push back on proclamations that it's the worst ability in the game without qualifiers ("ANYTHING would be better.") especially when I wonder if it may involve somebody not having used the augment much.

[Nekomian]

My main concern with Loki is he's just like, THE augments frame - his base kit isn't bad but it doesn't scale to the same degree as newer frames, and he relies on augments like savior decoy, hushed invisibility, safeguard switch, and/or irradiating disarm to do what honestly should be included in his base kit.

His decoy is just discount resonator that at higher levels gets one shot and does miniscule damage. With the savior augment it has some niche use, but requires you to put it somewhere out of reach since it dies so quickly, defeating the purpose of a "decoy" IMO. I always subsume over this skill, it's very forgettable.

Invisibility is nice, but the AI often straight up does not respect it and will continue to follow and/or shoot the player with stray shots on other targets, rendering it a bit less helpful than it would imply (it is still very nice in solo at least). With the augment it's improved at least, but it should just do this in his base kit.

Switch teleport is super basic and the only reason I don't replace it with a subsume is for the augment with invulnerability; it can also be used to troll players or disorient them, which IMO is not particularly fun for team play. If it provided some other buff without the augment, like additional protection or status immunity on switch, it might be in a better place at least, but as is it's just a worse version of Wrathful Advance that swaps the target away from you.

Radial Disarm is nice, but many bosses and faction types already melee or use skills that are unaffected entirely by this (sentient laser spinning, as an example) - it necessitates the augment to make enemies attack each other, which honestly should be part of the base kit. It was fine on release, but with more new factions being virtually unaffected by the disarm past the initial stun animation it's rendered way less effective.

His entire kit also really dictates that you build him for duration and/or range, as power strength is negligible in the abilities themselves. As versatile as it can be, it feels very underwhelming in a lot of aspects and like you're kinda shoehorned into a specific build with augments without any helminth shenanigans, and it doesn't mesh super well with team play.

I don't think any of the abilities themselves need major mechanical reworks or changes, but providing some QoL to bring him a bit up to handle more recent content without piling augments into his build would be nice. It feels more outdated than anything, like it worked for the game in the past but has been slowly power crept and band-aid fixes applied rather than changing the core problems.

[(XBOX)zThulsaDoomz]

When people realize that a hound has loki's entire kit.....

[Aldain]

15 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

3 seconds for Loki, 6 seconds for allies, scaling with Duration.   Which Loki has a lot of room for.

Which really falls short when we consider that a frame like Styanax with his Augment can press 4 and give the entire team Overguard (which might as well be invulnerability 90% of the time), Rev can hit his 2 and block 5 blows for an entire team (plus more for himself).

Two Augments that make decent abilities better, as opposed to "Makes it function at all", every time I see people saying Loki is fine I can't help but think of this image:

[Tiltskillet]

2 minutes ago, Aldain said:

every time I see people saying Loki is fine

Fortunately I didn't, lol.

[Aldain]

6 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

Fortunately I didn't, lol.

Yeah I wanna apologize if my responses came off a bit hostile, I just kind of get a bit heated on the topic of Loki because his current state is a bit physically painful imo.

...It also might be a bit of annoyance for me having recently built a Loki Prime and only being able to justify to myself trotting him out for Spy missions if that.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

2 hours ago, Aldain said:

Honestly the toughest part is figuring out what the hell do to with him, anyone can see his 1 and 3 are hilariously bad...the 3 especially.

Making his 1 not die to a a gentle breeze is an obvious choice imo (be it via making it invincible or just significantly more durable), I'd also roll his 3 into a hold cast function of it just for posterity. Give him a whole new 3rd ability, something, ANYTHING would be better than Switch Teleport, Kullervo literally rolled into the game and put his 1st ability into Helminth SOLELY to dunk on Switch Teleport as a skill.

Probably would give his 4 the current augment natively and make a new augment instead, it's been powercrept and also hit by collateral damage from things like Overguard so much that making it natively give a Rad proc wouldn't be a game breaker.

His 2 is fine and probably the only part of his kit that doesn't need to be replaced or reworked.

Also he needs a passive that isn't a meme because even Wall Latch builds are designed to Wall Latch as little as possible, nobody, not one single soul is going to Wall Latch for a whole minute, and anyone saying "I do" I'm calling out for being a complete contrarian.

Switch teleport has an augment that scales with duration, basically giving you better version of rolling guard or vazarin dash....

So what're you talking about? How is 9 seconds of invulnerability "hilariously bad"?

[Tiltskillet]

54 minutes ago, Aldain said:

Yeah I wanna apologize if my responses came off a bit hostile,

No worries.  I'm an inveterate quibbler, and it's easy to for it to come off as implying a position  more extreme than I have.

[Vashramire]

I'm sure I'm in the minority but I view Helminth and augments as a bandaid. The frame should function well without those crutches in a good game. Him being simple isn't really a pro or con as long as he's engaging. Radial Disarm is great against guns and robotics while useless without an augment for other factions which is a flaw that a 4th ability doesn't do anything vs half the game. Also he is no longer the exclusive disarming frame so it feels wasted to spend more energy to disarm than a Mag or even hounds now which feels bad. And that's just tackling his 4. His 2 is nice I guess and you can make the duration decent but it's just weird in a fashion frame era that in a mission I never get to see my frame even though I was dumb and own the deluxe skin. Best bad decision you can make is have a custom skin for something that's invisible lol. But I feel that partially lies in the poor way the visually convey invis which is a graphical choice. I think part of his appeal is also how easy he is to get. If you had to unlock him with some investment of time and resources and he played like this I think he would feel like more of a let down like Caliban. Sure an early frame that can drop aggro and disarm 2/3 of the star chart in the early game that seems "simple" is a good frame in the beginning but realistically why disarm a room when most other frames can hit their 4 and just kill the room instead which works on all factions? Something else has to be brought to the table if they want him to be CC/disable heavy because there are others that also do it and better.

[Raarsi]

2 hours ago, Hexerin said:

People seem to have not been taught one of the golden rules in school: "Simple does not mean bad. Simple is often superior." To my understanding, the reason so many like Loki is literally because of that simplicity. His one single useful ability just works, and is also super cheap to maximize (which leaves tons of room for mod loadout customization).

Fix't.  You're welcome.

I do use Loki a good bit, but predominantly because he's a lazy means for perma-stealth and all of his other abilities being more or less useless in most circumstances means I don't ever have to worry about energy because all I'm using it for is to keep up Invisibility, with the augment silencing weapons during it simply the transparent icing on the see-through cake.

Yes, his Decoy could be buffed to be able to take more than three damage.  Yes, his Radial Disarm could be buffed so it natively does something more than just disarm.  And yes, his passive could be changed to something that actually makes sense.  The problem from what I've seen is a point that Reb made during one of the Devshort streams, explaining how Loki is intended to be a niche frame and that it's okay for him to be that way, which despite being a sound argument doesn't really explain how drastically that niche has dwindled over the years due to the current "nuke all the things" playstyle that players are more familiar with in this day and age.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Just a reminder that it's actually a good thing radial disarm only disarms.

Disarming enemies makes them move faster. A speed nova and high range radial disarm can speed defense waves up considerably.

The augment radial disarm is for crowd control.

[(PSN)robotwars7]

3 hours ago, Vashramire said:

His 2 is for survivability but they also gave it to Ash for some reason when his 4 gives I-frames.

ash is ninja themed.. if he couldn't go invisible, that'd be a major let down.

3 hours ago, Vashramire said:

Identity crisis much? His 1 is useless unless augmented (so you can hide the taunting decoy to survive better? Surely you can see the counterintuitive gameplay DE) as unlike any other clone/decoy it just has health and duration, no invuln absorb time or damage capability and it's his subsume.

Decoy sucks, primarily because it also scales off of power strength, which is the one thing you never mod Loki for. the fact it doesn't move or do damage just adds to that fact

3 hours ago, Vashramire said:

His 3 is for trolling almost exclusively with minor mobility uses and has had times it's more toxic than Limbo was. It's so disorienting to use and even worse on teammates. His trickster theme even was done better on Mirage so what does he have that makes him, him? He can wall latch for a long time. *slow clap*

yeah, this definitely needs to be changed. dunno how though. scrapping it seems most beneficial, but what would it be replaced with?

3 hours ago, Vashramire said:

He can wall latch for a long time. *slow clap*

his passive sucks, but then so does the passives for so many other frames.

3 hours ago, Vashramire said:

: why do you hate Vauban Prime so much? That farm is toxic.

I assume you mean the Cryotic requirement? yeah it is kind of rough, even though IIRC it was actually reduced once already. 

overall I agree that Loki needs a rework, but between DE not having any ideas or plans for him and a fanbase that will REEE at even the notion of him being reworked, I doubt he's getting looked at any time soon. 

[Aldain]

1 minute ago, Raarsi said:

Yes, his Decoy could be buffed to be able to take more than three damage.  Yes, his Radial Disarm could be buffed so it natively does something more than just disarm.  And yes, his passive could be changed to something that actually makes sense.  The problem from what I've seen is a point that Reb made during one of the Devshort streams, explaining how Loki is intended to be a niche frame and that it's okay for him to be that way, which despite being a sound argument doesn't really explain how drastically that niche has dwindled over the years due to the current "nuke all the things" playstyle that players are more familiar with in this day and age.

The big thing is that it's not even like it's a niche that other frames don't encroach on.

9 seconds of invulnerability from Switch Teleport might sound good on paper...but with how much of a joke incoming damage can be made these days for less effort (and wonky telepotation) by other Warframes it just doesn't make sense as a "win" for Loki.

Radial Disarm, nice idea and works intermittently, though with Overguard running around (also I'm not sure if Murmur units can be disarmed either so that's a whole ass faction that he might be unable to work against) and you covered Decoy already.

Loki doesn't really do anything in the same way Nyx doesn't really do anything, their niches have evolved without them and they're just left languishing in the past without a meaningful identity.

[Nira]

Idea for new Loki passive: all of Lotus' mission babble is now voiced by Tom Hiddleston!

[Tiltskillet]

9 minutes ago, Nira said:

Idea for new Loki passive: all of Lotus' mission babble is now voiced by Tom Hiddleston!

Clearly overpowered.  Matt Damon perhaps.

[stormy505]

12 hours ago, Aldain said:

and anyone saying "I do" I'm calling out for being a complete contrarian.

Um, actually I use this for riven challenges.

Half joking as I don't even know if the wall latch ones are still in the game.

[SirKnum]

15 hours ago, Aldain said:

Safeguard Switch being "good" is something I find VERY hard to believe when we have several frames that can become functionally immortal for much longer, all without a clunky movement ability.

Safeguard Switch being good is obviously wrong. It is very good. It's invulnerability can't be dispelled, Nullifiers and Acolytes won't all of a sudden make you mortal. And it's duration can be refreshed so you are not just functionally but actually immortal for as long as you have enemies to cast Switch Teleport on.

Don't get me wrong, that doesn't all of sudden alleviate all of his issues but Safeguard Switch is seriously underrated. The issue with Loki is that as long as you are in a situation where enemies do not pose a threat anyway his kit doesn't do much.