Remove Loki As A Starting Frame

[Darkmoone1]

 

 

Loki doesn't NEED mods, he doesn't NEED a good weapon, he doesn't NEED a potato. What he NEEDS is a player with enough common sense/gaming sense to figure out what works well and what doesn't. If invisibility spam is all you do you will think you NEED mods and a good weapon.

 

No he doesn't NEED it, but it is certainly encouraged to lift the ease of playing him. You don't think having Vitality or Redirection ease the play of Loki?  Playing as Loki is certainly unforgiving and giving this to a new player is certainly not in their best interests. Especially when they have no knowledge of what awaits them as they progress into the game. Common sense and Gaming sense are nothing when you are actually new to the game. You're not familiar with the total duration of Invisibility, you don't know how far the reach of a disarm goes or how long and you certainly do not know how long or how much health a decoy brings. What is to say you won't get punished for overextending on your attacks?

 

You state these things under the assumption that people will extensively research and find these things, but the truth is that people just want to jump in and have a good time. That is what Loki fails at doing. With all of his pluses its his biggest minus and that is the frustration that it can give newer players.

[SquirmyBurrito]

No he doesn't NEED it, but it is certainly encouraged to lift the ease of playing him. You don't think having Vitality or Redirection ease the play of Loki?  Playing as Loki is certainly unforgiving and giving this to a new player is certainly not in their best interests. Especially when they have no knowledge of what awaits them as they progress into the game. Common sense and Gaming sense are nothing when you are actually new to the game. You're not familiar with the total duration of Invisibility, you don't know how far the reach of a disarm goes or how long and you certainly do not know how long or how much health a decoy brings. What is to say you won't get punished for overextending on your attacks?

 

You state these things under the assumption that people will extensively research and find these things, but the truth is that people just want to jump in and have a good time. That is what Loki fails at doing. With all of his pluses its his biggest minus and that is the frustration that it can give newer players.

 

No, I don't. Primarily because I never use Vitality, Redirection, or Vigor on my Loki builds. I just don't see a point in modding up his health and Shields when he is designed for misdirection. Why waste the one-three slots on survive-ability when I don't need it. Especially when that added survive-ability is inferior to the survive-ability that his abilities grant him.

 

Being new to a game doesn't mean that a gamer (assuming the player has played games before or can use reasoning) is completely clueless. Bullets hurt, enemies do damage. Loki is squishy. Loki has abilities that counter his squishyness. The logical solution should be abundantly clear to any player, and there are multiple solutions at that.

 

The UI now tells you exactly how long your invisibility is going to last, knowledge of reach can be acquired via experience, as can a rough idea of the health of a Decoy. All those things come from learning as you play, which is something every new player should be doing. This also applies to the other two starters: How far slash dash travels, the reach of radial blind, the height of super jump, the damage/number of targets/reach of radial javelin, the reach of pull, the range of crush, the duration of bullet attractor, the amount of shields you get back and/or damage shield polarize does to its targets.

 

 You just assumed that players interested in a game will not bother researching the game and/or its characters. That is false as it is what friends of mine did. That is why the wiki even exists. 

 

Loki requires player knowledge, yes I know. But as I said earlier, that also applies to EVERY OTHER FRAME. Loki isn't some overly complex character that requires tons of game knowledge to play.

 

What is it specifically about Loki that makes you feel like he requires knowledge where others don't?

Edited March 3, 2014 by SquirmyBurrito

[Axterix13]

DE probably has the means (or can create the means) to track retention versus starting frame choice.  If the Loki falls below the others in that regard, then yeah, it would be in their best interest to change it.

 

Actually... yeah, Obi-Ron would be a pretty good starter frame. I wouldn't want to see him replace Loki, but he could (sorta) work. Primarily because he isn't all that good for higher level gameplay and he fills a role (partially) that isn't touched by the other two. My biggest problem with him is that he would still likely promote ult spamming in the newer players. Maybe DE should add him as a fourth choice. Banshee is probably the ideal frame for replacing Loki as even her ult requires some degree of planning before use.

I don't think ult spamming is something to worry about too much.  To make that really viable, you need various mods a newbie won't have.  And if they research what they need to get to change that, well, they could also research what frame to get...

 

Banshee would be an interesting choice as well.  Sonar would be useful to make the Mk-1 more effective, and her knockdown would be very handy on captures.  Her ultimate leaves something to be desired, but that's also the case for the Excalibur, plus lack of mods, reactors, and so on means new players won't use the ultimates that much anyway, so not a big deal.

[Darkmoone1]

 

What is it specifically about Loki that makes you feel like he requires knowledge where others don't?

I don't believe it is the abilities themselves, but more of how you apply them. Loki is a different frame of itself compared to, at the very least I would say Excalibur. Between the two one has abilities that naturally write themselves, ala Excalibur. All of his abilities are simple to understand and clearly define what is called a beginner warframe. For example, his slash dash is the simplest yet the most effective beginner tools in the game. You see an enemy, you slash it. It's cheap, does damage, and at early levels can kill a low level enemy quickly. Put together more low level enemies and you get a simple yet satisfying way to entertain the new player.

 

Then you get decoy which is a different defining beast altogether. It requires knowledge that only experience gives that can make effective use of it. Where would you use it? When would you use it? Surely you don't use it on one enemy that wouldn't be satisfying or very effective since you can shoot them anyway. Ok, use it on a group of enemies. Ok, you used it. Now who do you shoot? What if there are two enemy heavies?  Examples like that show that only experience would give a Loki player a better perspective on how to use their abilities more effectively.

 

A more extreme example would be radial blind and invisibility. Blinding enemies is just a matter of when to use it when you or someone else is in trouble. Not really a difficult feat. Invisibility is a matter of running from person to person and knowing that you can melee with bonus damage, or knowing you can kill that enemy within the given time to run to the next guy. Knowing when you have enough time to kill one more or running out of time with your pants down and caught between groups on enemies. That is experience. 

 

Loki requires, the knowledge of experience or patience, that some newcomers may or may not be willing to put in. That is my point. Maybe your friends are patient, but there could be hundreds more who may not be. Why give them the option of potentially struggling when people can have a safer option like Ash? I know and understand Ash isn't the most popular(or best) of frames right now, but he can give a more entertaining and gratifying experience for a newcomer than Loki would. I am sorry that you probably don't see it from my point of view, but I still respect yours even if I disagree with it.

[Yefrign]

all you need as loki is invisibility...

 

use that whenever you get into a fight and bob's your uncle you can deal with anything you come across.

 

and it will only get easier once you get mods like Continuity and Energy Siphon... so the issue is....

[SquirmyBurrito]

I don't believe it is the abilities themselves, but more of how you apply them. Loki is a different frame of itself compared to, at the very least I would say Excalibur. Between the two one has abilities that naturally write themselves, ala Excalibur. All of his abilities are simple to understand and clearly define what is called a beginner warframe. For example, his slash dash is the simplest yet the most effective beginner tools in the game. You see an enemy, you slash it. It's cheap, does damage, and at early levels can kill a low level enemy quickly. Put together more low level enemies and you get a simple yet satisfying way to entertain the new player.

 

That's BS, both of their ability sets are pretty straight forward.

 

Then you get decoy which is a different defining beast altogether. It requires knowledge that only experience gives that can make effective use of it. Where would you use it? When would you use it? Surely you don't use it on one enemy that wouldn't be satisfying or very effective since you can shoot them anyway. Ok, use it on a group of enemies. Ok, you used it. Now who do you shoot? What if there are two enemy heavies?  Examples like that show that only experience would give a Loki player a better perspective on how to use their abilities more effectively.

 

No, it really doesn't. You press one while pointing somewhere and a Decoy pops out ready to draw aggro. Not only is that something so common in video games that any gamer should be able to understand; The description of the ability makes figuring out what it does a non-issue "Loki deploys a holographic copy of himself, drawing enemy fire.". 

1. Where would you use it? -Near enemies.

2. When would you use it? -When you want something to draw enemy fire.

3. Who do you shoot? -That's for you to decide. This applies to Slash dash as well since it charges in a straight line.

4. What if there are two enemy heavies? -Those enemies will be busy shooting the Decoy.

 

Your examples were silly and tried to add complexity to a simple press 1 and gun situation. If a new player can't figure that out they shouldn't even be playing video games. Hell, they're probably too busy trying to wipe up their own drool to bother learning how to use a controller or M/KB. 

 

A more extreme example would be radial blind and invisibility. Blinding enemies is just a matter of when to use it when you or someone else is in trouble. Not really a difficult feat. Invisibility is a matter of running from person to person and knowing that you can melee with bonus damage, or knowing you can kill that enemy within the given time to run to the next guy. Knowing when you have enough time to kill one more or running out of time with your pants down and caught between groups on enemies. That is experience. 

 

You have got to be kidding me. Radial Blind is even less of a fire and forget skill than Invisibility is. With Radial Blind once you've casted it you have to avoid enemies that will run up and try to melee you. You also have to deal with grenade spam. Invisibility frees you from most worries as the only thing that is going to put you down is stray fire or AoE attacks that you were a little too close to. And the UI now tells you when it is about to run out. You do not need experience to figure out how to use Invisibility. Radial Blind also has the added problem of having a range number so newly spawned enemies and/or enemies that where out of range can just walk in range and shoot you. This forces you to recast it. Invisibility does not have this weakness.

 

Loki requires, the knowledge of experience or patience, that some newcomers may or may not be willing to put in. That is my point. Maybe your friends are patient, but there could be hundreds more who may not be. Why give them the option of potentially struggling when people can have a safer option like Ash? I know and understand Ash isn't the most popular(or best) of frames right now, but he can give a more entertaining and gratifying experience for a newcomer than Loki would. I am sorry that you probably don't see it from my point of view, but I still respect yours even if I disagree with it.

 

No he doesn't. Your point is false. Ash is no safer. If those players are impatient they're going to absolutely HATE Ash's ult. That's your opinion, I find/found Ash to be boring and still hate him. If I ever find myself in a situation where I desperately need a frame slot but can't get the plat needed to purchase more he is first in line to get sold (despite the fact that I have two Lokis and could just sell one). I really dislike everything about him. His looks, his feel, his abilities, his play style, his lack of scaling. BUT, I tried to set aside my bias for the purpose of looking at whether or not OP's suggestion held merit. I found this to be wrong. Loki is a great addition to the starting line up and is a great choice for any beginner who is doesn't mind a little work when that work is guaranteed to pay-off. 

 

TL;DR- Stop trying to fool me. I did the Loki starter experience twice, one with and one without intimate knowledge of how he (and the game) works. He was neither amazingly complex nor a hassle to deal with. The ol' "the starter weapons are crap" argument should not be brought up as a reason for striking Loki from the starting line up. If anything you should take that to a separate thread and title it "The Starting Weapons Are Horrid, Please Fix Them." or something like that. Loki not having any direct damage skills is not a con, it is a non-factor that swiftly becomes a pro. He isn't mod dependent, he just gives off that impression due to how greatly he can benefit from certain mods.

 

On Excal being less complex: His abilities require mod combinations that are more complex than Loki's. Slash Dash requires duration mods to change its travel distance. This will not make sense to most new players. Super Jump's jump height is affected by power strength mods.

 

In comparison:

Decoy- Duration controls its duration.

Invisibility- Duration controls its duration.

Switch Teleport- Range doesn't matter, this will likely cause some confusion.

Radial Disarm- Range is controlled by range mods. Damage applied to chargers is increased by power strength. 

 

That's one out of four for Loki and two out of four for Excal.

 

Forgive me if I came off as aggressive. It was not my intention. I just tend to get pretty upset when I feel like someone is misrepresenting something for the purpose of furthering their argument. 

Edited March 4, 2014 by SquirmyBurrito