Frame Identity > [Current year] performance/relevancy

[Jarriaga]

 

Pablo sharing his perspective from a designer's point of view. This train of thought is why some frames -even if updated-  will remain personal picks and will naturally drift apart from the meta.

Granted that CC has taken hits with CC-immune enemies, but the alternative is a room frozen in place with helpless enemies. DPS and nukes are more manageable in comparison because you can buff enemies to compensate, but CC either works or it doesn't work.

This is why several Helminth abilities will remain as they are by proxy.

[Aruquae]

Sure, that’s one way to think of it. Another way is to stop making CC downright useless, while also thinking outside the box for some ability tweaks. 
For example: Switch teleport switches more than one enemy (like a wave). Could make them drop their weapon or something, or they can just stay confused. Could also scale with range. 
Decoy augment: Decoy teleports behind a group of enemies, confusing them some more. (Not actual confusion CC, I just mean they’ll turn around due to the taunt). 
Radial Disarm: Just make enemies able to get disarmed cmon now. DE talking about nuking, tanks and shieldgate, but they don’t give us the option to use cool CC frames and let them do what they are supposed to do. 
Speaking of which… radial disarm could have a small push away effect… that could combat the melee enemies a bit (not crazy, just a small shove that staggers for half a second). 

It’s not about “Making every frame a nuker” it’s about how they approach it. You don’t need to tweak every frame to be a nuker, these examples really highlight Loki’s trickster theme. 
Plus DE, if you don’t want every frame to be a nuker… then make CC useful? Why so much CC immune enemies? Even small CC is useless against them. Could even add some sort of feature that diminishes CC effectiveness to combat complete room chaos (a slow withering effect on the CC with an internal cooldown that doesn’t scale from the actual ability duration). 
Edit: TLDR A lack of open mindedness due to DE slowly pushing themselves into a corner in regards to CC. 

Edited February 27 by Aruquae

[Aldain]

Sure, but Switch Teleport still has no business being an entire separate ability when it could be a hold cast on Decoy and actually give way to an ability not used exclusively for the meme of "I'm invincible for 9ish seconds".

Keeping with a frame's identity doesn't exclude making it not comically inferior to myriad options and/or barely held together by scotch tape via an augment mod.

Hell Inaros proves this in spades as he's still basically the same but ACTUALLY DOES SOMETHING with his coming rework, maybe not "blow up the entire tileset" something, but at least more than he used to.

Edited February 27 by Aldain

[Xzorn]

The game has changed but I'd say for the worse.

Loki Master Race was a thing due to Enemy Exponential Scaling. Not getting hit is how you fought high level enemies thus Invis and CC.

Loki remains one of a handful of frames who can still room wide CC. DE stopped making them long ago yet they continued to aggro both stealth and CC play methods. Originally, all they had to actually do was scale enemy damage more linear. Instead we got frames that don't get hit with 7k eHP and frames with 130k eHP.

Somehow they went the opposite direction. Now enemies soft cap defense making damage power creep such a problem it might as well be ignored and kinda looks like it has. The ultimate thing that would kick you out of a mission is no longer a balance between Offense and Defense and instead remains enemies doing belligerent damage.

With the addition of Nullifers and Overguard now not only CC is at a disadvantage but also protection methods like Snow Globe.
It's less the game changing and more bad design choices stacking on top of each other that prevent concept for working.

I literally said this in another post. They're just limiting creativity in frame design and ways to play the game.

[_Anise_]

I agree with the opening sentiment, he dosn't necessarily need to be a viral spreader or aoe room nuker but he can still get a rework

also he does not have to be king just fun, 3/4 of his kit is on wisps #2

a bunch of people suggesting he get the ability to disguise himself as other warframes or enemies something that I would actually play him a bit more for just for fun, he is the trickster aferall ?

Edited February 27 by _Anise_

[schilds]

I like the cohesion of his existing kit. It's one of the best designed kits (other than perma invis :P). He has survivability through invisibility + disarm + decoy. He has clustering (dmg amplification) through disarm + decoy. He has mobility through decoy + switch teleport.

One of the biggest issues is how fast decoy dies. The other is the slow clustering of enemies with disarm + decoy (which was fine way back when but the game has increased in pace dramatically).

I think there are things they could do to raise the value of Loki's abilities, many of which are about level design, gameplay, enemy ai and behaviour, etc. However, there are some things they could change directly on Loki that wouldn't affect his flavour/style, for example:

• Decoy should probably be invulnerable. If that makes it too op in terms of CC, make an enemy only target it until they've hit it a few times or they take damage from a player. Given the fast pace of the game it's fine if the effect is short lived. A few seconds window is all a player should need to capitalise on a cc ability.
• Make decoy increase the movement speed of enemies targeting it.
• His passive could be something like more damage to enemies facing away from him. This would synergise with his abilities to give him a bit of a damage boost. Wall latch is not particularly a Loki thing, I don't think anyone would mourn its loss.
• His invisibility should not affect any enemy he has sufficiently damaged.

There are things that could be done to increase the value of his abilities even if they don't raise him to meta status.

 

Now I've typed all that I'm gonna post it again in feedback :P.

Edited February 27 by schilds

[Waeleto]

Say that to Grendel 

[MutoManiac]

For me, he just needs to be a bit tankier. Maybe just higher base armor and health so I can use different shards and arcanes, would be a huge improvement.

[(PSN)robotwars7]

Pablo's post is kind of worrying if you think about it.

firstly it basically confirms that Loki is never getting a rework, because it would invalidate his identity. I get that, but I think someone like @Skoomaseller would also see the irony in him saying that while at the same time making an augment for Yareli that impairs her unique identity as the K-drive frame. so which is it, Pablo? does a frame's identity have to be taken into account when reworking/giving them augments or not? I'm getting mixed messages here.

secondly, Pablo basically acknowledges that the state of the game is one of "if it doesn't nuke or use meta damage types like viral/slash, it's less effective", and it's true, he has a point, and this is also how a lot of people, especially metaheads, think. DE have painted themselves into a corner with all the nuke frames and with design choices that make only DPS frames top picks, compared to the CC and Support frames, which are generally less relevant, and stealth abilities for frames like Ash, Ivara, and indeed Loki are basically irrelevant outside of Spy missions.

IMO DE really need to start looking into other kinds of game modes besides ones where the rate of kills per second is the only main factor; Disruption does this pretty well, since you only have to worry about the Demolyst: we need more modes like this where CC and non-DPS oriented frames can shine as well.

Edited February 27 by (PSN)robotwars7

[Skoomaseller]

27 minutes ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

Pablo's post is kind of worrying if you think about it.

firstly it basically confirms that Loki is never getting a rework, because it would invalidate his identity. I get that, but I think someone like @Skoomaseller would also see the irony in him saying that while at the same time making an augment for Yareli that impairs her unique identity as the K-drive frame. so which is it, Pablo? does a frame's identity have to be taken into account when reworking/giving them augments or not? I'm getting mixed messages here.

secondly, Pablo basically acknowledges that the state of the game is one of "if it doesn't nuke or use meta damage types like viral/slash, it's less effective", and it's true, he has a point, and this is also how a lot of people, especially metaheads, think. DE have painted themselves into a corner with all the nuke frames and with design choices that make only DPS frames top picks, compared to the CC and Support frames, which are generally less relevant, and stealth abilities for frames like Ash, Ivara, and indeed Loki are basically irrelevant outside of Spy missions.

IMO DE really need to start looking into other kinds of game modes besides ones where the rate of kills per second is the only main factor; Disruption does this pretty well, since you only have to worry about the Demolyst: we need more modes like this where CC and non-DPS oriented frames can shine as well.

yeah lmao 

was surprised seeing this from him especially after announcing Loyal Merulina 

Edited February 27 by Skoomaseller

[Xzorn]

14 minutes ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

IMO DE really need to start looking into other kinds of game modes besides ones where the rate of kills per second is the only main factor; Disruption does this pretty well, since you only have to worry about the Demolyst: we need more modes like this where CC and non-DPS oriented frames can shine as well.

 

It's not even really game modes though obviously some frames do better at different missions.

It's more the enemy designs. What good is invisibility when a Sentient decides to disco inferno on your head? When Nox came out the enemy entirely ignored invis. Much of Fortuna did as well. Might still. There's many enemies now with AoE you can't disarm. Even if you can you have to drop Overguard and then it's probably too late.

Loki has perks. Enemy Clumping, x8 Stealth, Radiating Disarm. DE are the ones who killed Decoy while Switch Teleport was always kinda niche.
His Decoy change is mostly just a revert from 9 years ago.
 

[SDGDen]

41 minutes ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

DE have painted themselves into a corner with all the nuke frames and with design choices that make only DPS frames top picks, compared to the CC and Support frames, which are generally less relevant, and stealth abilities for frames like Ash, Ivara, and indeed Loki are basically irrelevant outside of Spy missions.

a corner they *could* get out of by doing a significant game-wide balance pass, which would mostly consist of nerfs.

also a corner they were kind of forced into by the playerbase not accepting the idea of "nerfs are necessary for balance".

 

[Aruquae]

1 minute ago, SDGDen said:

a corner they *could* get out of by doing a significant game-wide balance pass, which would mostly consist of nerfs.

 

Or a corner that they can get out of by adding more enemies that can be CC’d. Or even encourage CC rather than damage. 
They got into a corner by adding content that doesn’t need CC, and they can get out of it by adding CC content. 

[SDGDen]

1 minute ago, Aruquae said:

Or a corner that they can get out of by adding more enemies that can be CC’d. Or even encourage CC rather than damage. 
They got into a corner by adding content that doesn’t need CC, and they can get out of it by adding CC content. 

CC didn't matter long before things like CC immunity and overguard were added, because it was simply easier to nuke the enemies than to CC them.

turns out death is the best form of crowd control.

[Aruquae]

19 minutes ago, SDGDen said:

CC didn't matter long before things like CC immunity and overguard were added, because it was simply easier to nuke the enemies than to CC them.

turns out death is the best form of crowd control.

At least CC was an option. We don’t get that option anymore 

[Jarriaga]

33 minutes ago, Aruquae said:

encourage CC rather than damage. 

That is literally impossible without consequences for killing too fast or too many enemies or specific enemies, which in turn means a hard penalization on some frames merely using their stock abilities. As long as the "a dead enemy deals no damage" mentality is king there won't ever be a need for CC. It's a courtesy option.

Edited February 27 by Jarriaga

[-Krism-]

1 hour ago, Waeleto said:

Say that to Grendel 

Grendel has retained his identity with his rework, what are you talking about?

[Waeleto]

11 minutes ago, -Krism- said:

Grendel has retained his identity with his rework, what are you talking about?

I'm talking about not being able to eat the whole room anymore 😔

[pwnSacrifice]

I like that some idea of "identity" is being maintained, and I agree with Pablo on specifically Loki here, but that doesn't mean he should be left in 2013 either. Loki isn't the only frame in this spot either (atlas, Caliban, equinox all come to mind)

I think, like Frost, updating the game with indirect buffs might be what, at least, Loki needs. Much like robotwars above said, game modes where stealth matters, or enemies that we truly care about disarming would help a lot. I want Loki to be relevant again, but he really should maintain his trickster style.

That being said, decoy is just a bad version of resonator, and with both being in helminth, I'm not sure if the changes coming in Dante unbounded will actually help. Wrathful advance is just a far superior version of switch teleport and ash's teleport. Ivara and arguably wisp also do the invisibility thing better, and titania and xaku disarms just about as well as Loki. That really doesn't give him anything to do that a more viable frame can do just as well if not better. They didn't just give away all his toys, they gave his toys to everyone.

So while I don't want a viral/slash room clearing dps I do want him to do something useful and UNIQUE. If it's in the vein of enemy manipulation all the better.

Edited February 27 by pwnSacrifice

[Aruquae]

22 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

That is literally impossible without consequences for killing too fast or too many enemies or specific enemies, which in turn means a hard penalization on some frames merely using their stock abilities. As long as the "a dead enemy deals no damage" mentality is king there won't ever be a need for CC. It's a courtesy option.

That’s fair. Disruption would be a good example though. Tanky enemies that run fast, should be CC’d to make it easier. Maybe enemies that take low damage until they’re CC’d by an in game mechanic in a certain mission, but it can CC’d earlier by CC frames. This would push towards more CC frame usage in at least those missions. 

Maybe modifiers to a game mode that push for CC. Enemies explode when grouped and piled together… hmm… or maybe you deal more damage the more enemies are CC’d?
Maybe a game mode that involves defending something… where a ton of small enemies immune to AOE come charging… this would also push for single target, but then you can add some large tanky enemies that take up your time so you can’t focus on the small enemies running to a large cargo. 
Just a bit of brainstorm, it’s possible. Players and devs just need to think outside of the box

[SneakyErvin]

I think it is a bit single minded of Pablo to say what he says. There are ways to improve Loki and give him some needed damage without destroying his identity, heck, it could even improve it.

Increased damage versus disarmed target. Personal for Loki.

Enemies attacking eachother while afflicted with radiation/confusion from Loki ignores armor and shields.

Decoy reflects and attacks enemies and inflicts them with confusion/radiation (rad preferably since it increases damage). Enemies still prioritize attacking the decoy if within its "aggro circle" over other "friends". Decoy would count as an enemy attacking allies so would ignore armor and shields.

Those are simply little things that could give him an oomph! Took a whole minute to come up with them.

[Aldain]

36 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

I think it is a bit single minded of Pablo to say what he says. There are ways to improve Loki and give him some needed damage without destroying his identity, heck, it could even improve it.

Like I said earlier, look at the incoming Inaros rework for evidence of that being possible.

It's a strange specific stance to take when they're clearly capable of having their cake and eating it too.

[Xzorn]

1 hour ago, SDGDen said:

CC didn't matter long before things like CC immunity and overguard were added, because it was simply easier to nuke the enemies than to CC them.

turns out death is the best form of crowd control.

 

Depends on the level range.

Weapon damagequickly surpassed a player's ability to survive long enough to make use of it.
Ability damage was also entirely useless. It was all about amping your weapons then being forced to lock down enemies or die instantly.

The more ideal approach would have been to tone down enemy damage then CC. Instead they added Void Tier 4 with x3 enemy damage.
Which obviously just made the situation worse.

[Aldain]

1 minute ago, Xzorn said:

Depends on the level range.

Weapon damagequickly surpassed a player's ability to survive long enough to make use of it.
Ability damage was also entirely useless. It was all about amping your weapons then being forced to lock down enemies or die instantly.

The more ideal approach would have been to tone down enemy damage then CC. Instead they added Void Tier 4 with x3 enemy damage.
Which obviously just made the situation worse.

That's the other end of the burning candle really, the damage candle is burning at both ends (player and enemy) and it's fast eliminating gameplay avenues in every direction.

Though there's sadly a very loud subset of players who I swear want everything to be ESO...

[-Krism-]

6 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

It was all about amping your weapons then being forced to lock down enemies or die instantly.

Amp weapon damage and then lock down enemies?

 

8 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

The more ideal approach would have been to tone down enemy damage then CC.

Tone down their damage and then CC them?