Cringe Fest, Looking At The Mk-1 And Lato.

[SlightVect]

I've been DREADING tackling this because I already know this will earn me a bit of odd looks...

 

Where to begin...Sigh.

 

Le damages.

MK-1  (Rifle)         ║  LATO (Pistol)

Impact:2                 ║   Impact: 1

Puncture:4             ║    Puncture:3

Slash:10                 ║    Slash:7

Accuracy:40.0        ║   Accuracy:18.2

Fire Rate: 5.8         ║   Fire rate:6.7

Crit: 1.5x/5.0%        ║  Crit:1.5x/2.5%

Mag:60                   ║ Mag:15

Reload:2.0.            ║  Reload:1.2

 

Power creep es scary senor...Anyways!

 

Everyone has had to cope with the lacking damage of these weapons for what seems like a life time. The community as a whole KNOWS they're bad under the excuse of "Oh, they're just starter weapons to get you into the game." 

 

What.The.Actual. ****.

 

Numerically wise, the weapons are subpar to everything. 

 

 

"I heard you like walls of text so..."

OH BOY, MY FAVORITE. 

Let's start with the MK-1, Ol' reliable, Dear friend and my favorite nickname for it. "Trash"

 

Even as someone who actually firmly believes that each weapon should cater to a specific play style and be effective against a specific faction while being fun to use. This gun makes me grit my teeth in frustration.

 

While it may fill the need of bonus armor damage for early on due to the first missions being Grineer based and how it scales well up 'til the Captain. There should be no excuse as to why it only has Sixteen combined damage, a low fire rate, 1% status chance and 5% crit.  Why the hell would you keep this once you achieve 15k credits? Simple, you don't. You sell it and buy a Braton. As I'm positive we all did.

 

The base stats alone are terrible but how it scales with mods is even more depressing. The chances of a player finding sawtooth clip wand serration (Due to RNG) is really difficult unless they're really lucky. And even then, you're better off buying a Braton.

 

What about elemental? 

Have fun triggering that one percent status chance mate.

 

Aside from the lovely sound it makes. (Seriously, I love it.) The gun is just...IT'S POOPY. 

It has nothing that makes it stand out. 

 

So? It's just bad then.

In a PVE game, no weapon in the game should be un-viable. Everything should have it's strengths and weaknesses instead of being just "Starter weapons."

Warframe isn't an RPG where you're assigned a sword to toss away, a player actually bonds with their weapon and raises it like it was alive. I look back at the MK-1 and cringe constantly thinking. "I feel bad for the new players."

 

Please, have a heart DE...Buff this poor child.

 

Ah, the Lato. Quick, precise with a nice design.

I personally can't say anything bad about the Lato due to how strong pistol mods are. ( Duo multishot mods anyone?) 

 

The base damage may be lower than other pistols, but it makes up for it by how accurate it is and how little recoil it suffers from. However, this doesn't change the fact that every other side arm does it's job better.(Damage wise, anyways.) 

 

I can't really say anything else until either rifles in general get looked at or pistols get changed around. Because as anyone will tell you. Pistols>Primaries. 

 

 

Gimem dat feedback, gurl. -Pometheus

Note 1: I TOLD YOU I WAS GONNA LOOK AT 'EM, NOW SEND HALP.

 

[DiabolusUrsus]

This is part of why I'm a strong advocate of scrapping percent-based modifications and introducing flat (if somewhat lower) increases when it comes to things like Impact/Puncture/Slash and Critical/Status Chance. That is, failing the removal of all damage-increasing mods in favor of decent base weapon stats.

 

That said, I'm not quite sure how to go about balancing out the MK-1 and Lato, specifically. Same goes for the Skana.

[lautalocos]

eliminate the mk1-braton.

starter players should start with the normal braton (a decent weapon)

 

they also should buff the lato, but i would hold our horses with the skana until we get melee 2.0

[NalkorRN]

I like how DE turned the MK-1 Braton and Lato from semi-universal weapons in low-levels (in damage 1.0) into Infested-specific weapons with all that slash damage. You know, because every newbie totally wants a gun that does less than 15 damage or so per shot to the starting enemies and Infested no longer exist outside of invasions or the Dere-Lag Void. It's like they don't think 5 minutes ahead of their changes, which based on my posting history and how DE continues to F*** up, wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

[Furyion]

make all new playesr graduate from weapon to weapon in a equence to tier up with power creep and level based weapons before heading to cash the shop and over rideing the noob phase to instant op gratified weapons  ..this teaches them skills ...and less bad zipping behavior and to work in a team game as intended originaly

[Kaian-a-coel]

If Mk.1 was grineer-specific (I mean with mostly puncture), and maybe lato more corpus-specific (impact), It would be halfway decent for new players.

I mean swapping puncture and slash damage would already be nearly 30-40% damage increase on mercury!

 

It doesn't teaches them skill, it teaches them that their weapon SUCK and that they should get rid of it ASAP.

Now having an impact pistol to destroy shields and a puncture primary for armor, that would be better.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Kaian-a-coel

[Inez]

They're starter weapons. Level them and sell them. It frees up slots.

[Rafarix]

Unlike the MK-1 the lato's damage got nerfed for reasons unknown. They maybe starter weapons but that doesn't mean they have to suck.

 

The question I ask is why do they have to suck? ...because they are starter weapons? That isn't a very good reason. Why can't they be decent? The Lato before was decent and there were plenty of other sidearms that acted as sidegrades/upgrades from it.

 

If the mentality is: "They are starting weapons so they should suck." then I ask so why doesn't Mag, Loki, and Excalibur suck? They are starting warframes. 

 

If the starting warframes don't suck why can't the starting weapons not suck too?

Edited January 15, 2014 by Rafarix

[FaintestAura]

This also gives new players a bad impression of the game considering how difficult missions in mercury can be with these weapons. New player experiences have to be considered as that is how this game will grow. 

[SlightVect]

This also gives new players a bad impression of the game considering how difficult missions in mercury can be with these weapons. New player experiences have to be considered as that is how this game will grow. 

It made me nearly wanna quit as I noticed how terrible the Mk-1 was to the other weapons, power creep is a massive issue in this game. Especially in the old and current damage system.

 

They're starter weapons. Level them and sell them. It frees up slots.

You shouldn't have to suffer because a starter weapon is bad, re read the primary post.

[Axterix13]

I found the starting weapons passable for the first planet.  Grineer, so it worked decently enough.  Once I ran into Corpus though... so bad.  And because I'd been spending money on fusion and making myself a Cronus (blue print dropped; I had the stuff; what newbie wouldn't make it?), I couldn't afford a Braton.  Wound up using a code to get myself a Braton.  The starter weapons need to be general purpose, well balanced, not specialized slash ones.

 

The Mk-1 really should be something like 5-6-5.  The Braton would still retain RoF advantages and higher impact and slash, but at the cost of the smaller magazine, which is good because the reward item should be better.    Same deal with the Lato.  Lower its slash to increase the other two.  Something like 5-4-5.

[snark]

The braton mark 1 should be deleted. Why would anyone introduce their game by having 2 weapons that look the same? Poorly thought out stat distributoin aside, It's openly stating, "We're lazy."

 

 

 

They're starter weapons. Level them and sell them. It frees up slots.

No. They're the starter weapons, the things new players first experience when they're deciding if the game is worth wasting time on in a market full of F2P shooters.

Edited January 16, 2014 by BioSnark