Gender Bias In Warframe Power

[Cradicias]

Now, I don't really much care if they're male or female (though, it is kind of awkward that the same operator can be both male and female due to the current setup, Vor even going as far as to indicate that we're just hopping into different frames), but there is an obvious power difference between Male Warframes and their equivalent Female counterparts.

 

Look at Rhino and Valkyr. Rhino's Iron Skin makes him very hard to kill... Unless you get hit by a hell of a lot of damage in one moment, then you're dead no matter what. Valkyr, however, is completely invulnerable and even heals from the use of her Hysteria each time she hits something. I know one is an ultimate and the other not, but, in their respective roles of Tank, Valkyr does a better job at surviving as a whole.

 

Then there's the newest Warframe, Mirage, compared to Loki, the other trickster. Mirage has not one, but five decoys, that do -actual- damage and not insignificant damage either, and that follow her around to provide constant protection. She can't teleport, but, Loki's teleport was sorta obsolete anyways compared to Nova's. She can semi-stealth with Eclipse, which when she's not hiding in the shadows, boosts her damage a lot. She can also turn environmental objects into traps, negating enemies ability to use the consoles, making her also good at stealth. Then her ultimate... Laser disco ball of death that also steals Excalibur's radial blind.

 

The comparisons continue with Trinity and Oberon, where I don't even need to explain how big of a difference there is between the two in power, Trinity being a nigh immortal well of infinite energy who doesn't even need to attack to kill things.

 

Gotta start leveling the playing field a bit, DE. Every female Warframe we've gotten in the last few updates have been spectacular, while the males have been quite lackluster (Oberon, Nekros, looking at you).

 

That said, I love the work you guys do, but the discrepancies can't be ignored. Hope those updates you're looking to do with the Warframes gets back some equality.

[Zakharon]

Truth, I always have clan mates telling me female frame powers are better

Edited July 20, 2014 by Zakharon

[vaugahn]

ITT: men's rights activists 

[ValhaHazred]

Feminisht CONSPIRICAH!!!!

Edited July 20, 2014 by ValhaHazred

[Nachino]

GIRL POWER!!!

Rhino is more like an all-around frame, but yea i get your point.

[Cradicias]

GIRL POWER!!!

Rhino is more like an all-around frame, but yea i get your point.

 

Could make the same argument for Valkyr really. She has a mobility/damage power (Ripline), an almost zero cost CC that opens people up for Finishers (Paralysis), a team melee buff (Warcry) and an invulnerability power (Hysteria). Rhino has a mobility/damage power (Rhino Charge), a CC power that keeps enemies inactive for quite some time and does damage (Rhino Stomp), a team damage buff (Roar) and an invulnerability power (Iron Skin).

 

Edit: Oh, and she has the highest, unholy level of armor.

Edited July 20, 2014 by Cradicias

[Nachino]

Could make the same argument for Valkyr really. She has a mobility/damage power (Ripline), an almost zero cost CC that opens people up for Finishers (Paralysis), a team melee buff (Warcry) and an invulnerability power (Hysteria). Rhino has a mobility/damage power (Rhino Charge), a CC power that keeps enemies inactive for quite some time and does damage (Rhino Stomp), a team damage buff (Roar) and an invulnerability power (Iron Skin).

 

Edit: Oh, and she has the highest, unholy level of armor.

Mmm i actually never saw her like that but i guess you are right. Although i would add that Rhino is an easy to use and great frame for low levels but he is outperformed by a significant amount of frames.

I would argue about the Mirage/Loki comparation but i still need to try Mirage so i´m going to ask.

Would you say Loki is better for stealth than Mirage and Mirage better as a trickster? Maybe he still got that going for him.

Edited July 20, 2014 by Nachino

[Cradicias]

Mmm i actually never saw her like that but i guess you are right.

I would argue about the Mirage/Loki comparation but i still need to try Mirage so i´m going to ask.

Would you say Loki is better for stealth than Mirage and Mirage better as a trickster? Maybe he still got that going for him.

 

Maybe only by the fact that he has a genuine Stealth power in the form of Invisibility. But, all his other powers have nothing to do with stealth, just trickery. So, he's more of a "F&$% YOU" frame like Mirage is. All based around messing with the enemy.

[DSpite]

I hope to god this is a joke thread.

[Nachino]

I hope to god this is a joke thread.

Why?

[Clats01]

so basically what your saying is that you want a frame that has the same powers in both a male and female variant

[Thaumatos]

At this point I'm pretty convinced that female frames get the longer end of the stick (giggity).

 

Not that DE is biased towards females...but they seem to like giving them distinctly awesome abilities.  Probably a subconscious thing.

 

GIRL POWER!!!

Rhino is more like an all-around frame, but yea i get your point.

Rhino is a tank.  The 'all-around' frame is xcal.

 

Forget about that fact though, Valk is a zerker frame yet she's got the most armor and an invuln ultimate.  How should Rhino be any weaker in damage soaking than Valk?

[Azawarau]

Non hitscame weapons stink for mirage # 1

 

Youll get hit more often with it on

 

Radial disarm simply cant be matched in utility even for mirage

[Cradicias]

I hope to god this is a joke thread.

 

Why would this be a joke? It's an obvious discrepancy that male frames in the last few updates have been drastically weaker and less useful than their female counterparts. Again, I don't care about gender myself (I have all the warframes, almost all of them maxed out). I just feel it's kinda strange that all the female ones have just been kick @$$ and the males have been "meh." Cool ideas, but poorly implemented in terms of usefulness.

 

Edit: Admittedly, title may seem a bit inflammatory, but I couldn't think of a less offensive, yet accurate, way of stating the problem.

Edited July 20, 2014 by Cradicias

[Nachino]

At this point I'm pretty convinced that female frames get the longer end of the stick (giggity).

 

Not that DE is biased towards females...but they seem to like giving them distinctly awesome abilities.  Probably a subconscious thing.

 

Rhino is a tank.  The 'all-around' frame is xcal.

 

Forget about that fact though, Valk is a zerker frame yet she's got the most armor and an invuln ultimate.  How should Rhino be any weaker in damage soaking than Valk?

Excalibur is defnitely not an all-around frame, he´s got great CC and good mobility, not much else. Rhino on the other hand has team damage buff, mobility, CC and tank abilities, they are no the best at that though.

Rhino being an all-around frame is the reason why i said he isn´t as good at tanking as Valkyr is, Cradicias replied back explaining how her abilities include tanking (Apart from her armour). mobility, CC and team damage buff. Valkyrs damage buff, CC and damage buff are all melee focused tough.

[noneuklid]

I can think of counterpoints to the OP (like Iron Skin allowing much more powerful ranged attacks, Saryn's perpetual "meh" status, or the relative parity of Vauban and Nyx), but rather than trying to make a point-by-point comparison to figure out whether or not it's actually true... let's just grant it.  For the purposes of this discussion, OP, I'll allow this claim and say female-shaped Warframes are more always powerful than male-shaped Warframes.

So what?  Maybe the Warframe universe is naturally biased this way.  The Grineer are led by Queens, and are stronger than the patriarchal Corpus.  Maybe women are just on average slightly smarter and more powerful than men there, and adopting a female 'frame gives us an edge in some ways.

 

*shrug*

[Zeitzbach]

Why would this be a joke?

 

This is going to be amusing...

[Cradicias]

I can think of counterpoints to the OP (like Iron Skin allowing much more powerful ranged attacks, Saryn's perpetual "meh" status, or the relative parity of Vauban and Nyx), but rather than trying to make a point-by-point comparison to figure out whether or not it's actually true... let's just grant it.  For the purposes of this discussion, OP, I'll allow this claim and say female-shaped Warframes are more always powerful than male-shaped Warframes.

So what?  Maybe the Warframe universe is naturally biased this way.  The Grineer are led by Queens, and are stronger than the patriarchal Corpus.  Maybe women are just on average slightly smarter and more powerful than men there, and adopting a female 'frame gives us an edge in some ways.

 

*shrug*

 

Well, that'd be all well and good if the lore supported that idea, but, nothing has been released to give that idea. As for why it matters, some players, myself included, prefer playing characters of their own gender. And, well, it's disappointing to have male Warframes be released now that are so lackluster, then immediately have a female Frame come out that is just spectacular. Just be nice of DE to show as much careful thought into the powers all around. Past female and male warframes included. I do feel the plight of Saryn after having recently leveled her. She's sorta boring besides Molt.

[Noble_Cactus]

In the past few updates, we've had Zephyr. While Turbulence is a good defensive skill, it doesn't offer much to the team.

As for other frames?

Frost owns bullet Defense.

Vauban is the king of anything without a gun.

Loki turns his foes into simpering infants with sticks.

Volt speeds up his entire team and makes farming runs almost literally a breeze.

I think both genders are equally represented.

-

Also where does Vor imply the same Tenno occupies different frames? After all, there's the Valkyr conundrum, where Valkyr is Valkyr and only Valkyr. There's barely any lore in this game, so I think there's a bit of a schism we have to accept where not everything that happens in the ship is canon.

I like the idea of each frame being occupied by a unique individual anyway, since it reminds me of the Japanese sci fi/Tokusatsu shows this game is based on.

Edited July 20, 2014 by Noble_Cactus

[noneuklid]

As for why it matters, some players, myself included, prefer playing characters of their own gender.

 

The character you are playing has no gender, so this is impossible.  If you mean you prefer your avatar to appear male since you are male... well, consider this a quick and relatively painless introduction to sympathy for the much more prevalent problem of female FPS gamers.

I understand that you're male and playing this game, so it might not seem fair to compare it to a female who isn't you playing Call of Duty or some other game that isn't this.  But them's the breaks in this industry.

 

Also where does Vor imply the same Tenno occupies different frames?

 

Prologue.

Edited July 20, 2014 by noneuklid

[paplo]

: )

[Noble_Cactus]

Hmm, I don't remember him explicitly stating that in the prologue. Then again, I honestly kind of forgot what Vor said other than that the Tenno was his prize.

[Alad_VI]

I personally find that male/female frames are fairly evenly balanced. Using your Valkyr/Rhino example

 

Argument A: Rhino is super easy to get. One of the easiest bosses and he's from the second planet. So even if he is weaker I still have this.

 

Argument B: Shields. Rhino has them. Valkyr does not.

 

Argument C: Ults. Rhino's ult murders things and puts them in Matrix time. Valkyr's murders things but takes away her ranged ability while making her have invulnerability+lifesteal. I'd personally rather the Matrix time for high level missions.

 

Argument D: Other abilities. Charging forward for damage, knockdown, and lateral mobility>pulling someone towards you for damage/going into direction x. Massive defensive boost=gotta go fast. Damage for everyone on your team>push people around for little energy.

 

Moving onto Loki and Mirage.

 

Argument A: Decoys. Loki's can be put wherever you fancy. Also goes magnificently with his 3. Mirage's makes clones that stand in a close area around you and copy your attacks for reduced damage. I'd pick Loki's any day.

 

Argument B: Stealth ability. Invisibility will almost always be considered the ultimate stealth tool. Mirage has the ability to trap things that is dependent on enemies going near the traps and the traps being present as well as doing enough damage. Invis gives multiplier to melee damage as well.

 

Argument C: 3s. I personally find Mirage's 3 to be fairly boring and highly situational. Switch teleport is situational but less so, and it certainly isn't boring.

 

Argument D: Ults. Disco ball of Uber damage vs the power of hippies. One scales with levels, one does not.

 

 

Don't feel like pulling more ideas out of a hat so... yeah.

[Cradicias]

The character you are playing has no gender, so this is impossible.  If you mean you prefer your avatar to appear male since you are male... well, consider this a quick and relatively painless introduction to sympathy for the much more prevalent problem of female FPS gamers.

I understand that you're male and playing this game, so it might not seem fair to compare it to a female who isn't you playing Call of Duty or some other game that isn't this.  But them's the breaks in this industry.

 

...Gender = Masculinity/Femininity. So, yes, there are genders in the game as you can identify the frames by their respective gender leaning. The point of this thread isn't "Is it fair to males/females." The point is to ensure that all warframes get equal treatment when it comes to their power design, of which the males have been lacking significantly in past updates.

[vaugahn]

...Gender = Masculinity/Femininity. So, yes, there are genders in the game as you can identify the frames by their respective gender leaning. The point of this thread isn't "Is it fair to males/females." The point is to ensure that all warframes get equal treatment when it comes to their power design, of which the males have been lacking significantly in past updates.

 

Which sounds a lot to me like you saying males are unfairly underpowered. Warframe is one of the few games with good representations of both sexes (our characters can't have genders because they have no personalities), let's not mess with that.