Can we have DE look at Limbo again instead of harassing players that are "doing it wrong"?

[chainchompguy3]

1 hour ago, Bobtm said:

You cannot shoot an enemy locked in Stasis without sacrificing Weapon feedback.

It's still entirely possible to shoot a stasis'ed enemy, it does all the same damage it normally would.

If enemy health bars displayed stored damage, and found a way to do the same for projectiles, then there would be absolutely no downside to stasis.

fix the one last thing that bothers people, that it can go on for seemingly forever, by giving it a fixed, unmoddable duration, and stasis becomes just about perfect.

Your stop-start proposal works too, though if the time-freeze is too short, there's little set-up that can actually be done with it, which is the whole point of freezing allied projectiles in the first place: the "Unleash the barrage" moments. Really only something that can be debated after an actual number is in-game.

 

But yes, your later point stands: it's at the very core of Limbo's design to act as a sort of squad leader. Deciding who can fight what, and changing the situation to better suit the needs of the squad. If you are playing to win a mission, a good limbo is by far one of the best assets you can have.

Unfortunately, most players no longer play this game to win: they play this game to have fun, because all sense of challenge has fallen out the window.

Now this is just a for-fun shoot-'em up prize game.

And in such a game, playing YOUR way is crucial to not getting bored.

And that kind of destroys the ability to play limbo. A squad leader in a game of everybody doing whatever they want.

 

The rift mechanic, the thing that makes limbo truly unique, cannot be fixed to be less intrusive. I mean, it could, but then it would no longer be the Rift, it'd just be another CC.

[DatDarkOne]

53 minutes ago, RikerWatts said:

Yeah it IS intrusive, but with where Limbo is now and how unique he is? I'd prefer people to learn what Limbo is and how to work with him rather than accuse all limbo players to be trolling. If we notify people who are ignorant to the matter that you can melee every target in the rift, they might just be happy to slice and dice instead.

Tell this to an Ivara player right after Stasis has made all of her abilities useless.  That one is just very annoying.  Now a Limbo player who uses Stasis in a Primary/secondary only Sortie is just trolling period.  

[Bobtm]

27 minutes ago, chainchompguy3 said:

It's still entirely possible to shoot a stasis'ed enemy, it does all the same damage it normally would.

This is incorrect, and a very common misconception perpetuated by Limbo players when trying to justify the current iteration of Stasis.  There are a few things that will assuredly prevent a shot from ever dealing damage when Stasis is being used large-scale and these two things will always occur before Stasis' natural expiration.

• Yourself or another player melee'ing the enemy who was shot at.
• Cataclysm's shrinkage allowing the enemy's position to shift out of the shot's trajectory.
• Banish's duration expiring on a target before Stasis' duration expires, resulting in the same effective situation as noted in the above point.

There's no two ways about it, Stasis quite literally interrupts and prevents gunplay from functioning, period.  Which is the primary reason players at large hate having a Limbo along for the ride.

32 minutes ago, chainchompguy3 said:

Unfortunately, most players no longer play this game to win: they play this game to have fun, because all sense of challenge has fallen out the window.

And this particular line is the defacto epitome of incorrect.  A game is always played for fun alone and for no other reason.  While yes, winning itself is fun to a degree, not everyone plays something only with min-max efficiency at the forefront of their thought process.

Challenge hasn't ever really been a major focal point in Warframe at all either.  Way back in the day missions were easy, even in Damage 1.0, we would regularly fight enemies going into the thouasand level ranges. In fact, enemies have gotten harder over the years overall, their damage output having been increased drastically compared to what it used to be.  Warframe has always been in the realm of "power fantasy" type games, not skill checks by any stretch of the imagination.

36 minutes ago, chainchompguy3 said:

The rift mechanic, the thing that makes limbo truly unique, cannot be fixed to be less intrusive. I mean, it could, but then it would no longer be the Rift, it'd just be another CC.

Also incorrect.  I personally just described a few ways in which Limbo could be made less obtrusive in nature/ability with some minor tweaks both to Banish and Stasis.  There are also other really good ideas out there to expand on Limbo's mechanics, like iirc the one proposed by Azamagon with regards to Melee Channeling being mechanically tied to Rift mechanics for extra options.  Fixing the abilities' currently flawed nature does not devalue the abilities nor does it make them not unique in terms of their feel.  It just makes them objectively better than they are now by removing the trollish aspects.

Also, the Rift itself already is already just another CC, so there's no reason to pretend Limbo is on an imaginary pedestal.

[chainchompguy3]

1 hour ago, Bobtm said:

This is incorrect, and a very common misconception perpetuated by Limbo players when trying to justify the current iteration of Stasis.  There are a few things that will assuredly prevent a shot from ever dealing damage when Stasis is being used large-scale and these two things will always occur before Stasis' natural expiration.

• Yourself or another player melee'ing the enemy who was shot at.
• Cataclysm's shrinkage allowing the enemy's position to shift out of the shot's trajectory.
• Banish's duration expiring on a target before Stasis' duration expires, resulting in the same effective situation as noted in the above point.

It's almost like an ability's usefulness can be changed by the situation at hand.

• Yes. While killstealing is prevalent throughout the whole game, it's made worse by one damage source being delayed, while another is not. That's why I suggested that it be made consistent, among other things. But you would have still done enough to kill it: your gunplay wasn't negatively affected.
• Applicable to any CC. The difference here being that this CC, Cataclysm's shrinkage, is on an easily see-able timer, and thus you aught to be able to gauge whether a particular enemy will be outside of Cataclysm before stasis ends. increasing stasis duration even changes Cataclysm shrinkage speed, so they match up well enough for it to be applicable to all stasis durations.
• This one is a bit more legitimate, but moreso because banish's timer is unpredictable even for the limbo using it, as the timer on the ability only displays the most recent cast, and there are no other cues to it's duration.

Regardless, the point still stands that if you want to kill enemies with a gun while they are stasis'ed, it is still possible. It's inconvenienced, yes, and that should be fixed as much as possible. But it is not made impossible, as you say.

 

1 hour ago, Bobtm said:

And this particular line is the defacto epitome of incorrect.  A game is always played for fun alone and for no other reason.  While yes, winning itself is fun to a degree, not everyone plays something only with min-max efficiency at the forefront of their thought process.

Challenge hasn't ever really been a major focal point in Warframe at all either.  Way back in the day missions were easy, even in Damage 1.0, we would regularly fight enemies going into the thouasand level ranges. In fact, enemies have gotten harder over the years overall, their damage output having been increased drastically compared to what it used to be.  Warframe has always been in the realm of "power fantasy" type games, not skill checks by any stretch of the imagination.

A game can be played for the sense of accomplishment, for overcoming a great hurdle.

Many games focus on this: competitive shooters, RTS's, Moba's, etc.

In a game where the enemy is a challenge, and the goal of the team is to win, then individual playstyle preferences take the backseat in favor of what is effective, and what will win the game. When there is leeway, one can fill in the gaps with their own personal touches, but if, say, a MOBA player decides they think it's fun to play an assassin as a tank, they will be called a bad player, get kicked, and the rest of the group will move on to try and actually win.

I was saying that such is not the case in Warframe, yet Limbo is designed as if it were. As if completing a mission wasn't already super easy. Limbo tactially divides enemies up, as if they were dangerous enough to need to be corralled like so, and not just perma-stunned and slash-procc-ed to death. Limbo pauses the entire game, to give everyone crucial time to think, yet we don't need that, because we often have the power fantasy to just annihilate whatever is giving us trouble.

Limbo is meant for a game like STALKER, or Fallout on a very high difficulty. I'd list more games like that, but I don't play many, so I don't know many titles off the top of my head.

 

Whether this game used to be challenging or not is besides the fact.

 

2 hours ago, Bobtm said:

Also incorrect.  I personally just described a few ways in which Limbo could be made less obtrusive in nature/ability with some minor tweaks both to Banish and Stasis.  There are also other really good ideas out there to expand on Limbo's mechanics, like iirc the one proposed by Azamagon with regards to Melee Channeling being mechanically tied to Rift mechanics for extra options.  Fixing the abilities' currently flawed nature does not devalue the abilities nor does it make them not unique in terms of their feel.  It just makes them objectively better than they are now by removing the trollish aspects.

Also, the Rift itself already is already just another CC, so there's no reason to pretend Limbo is on an imaginary pedestal.

Your right, I used the wrong word there. I meant to say "The rift mechanic cannot be fixed to be Completely non-intrusive"

Because it's letting another player decide who can fight who, without your direct input. In the wrong hands, that's always going to be intrusive. No way around it.

If you give everyone the ability to control it, you fix the problem, but then limbo isn't very special, now is he?

If you make it so that Limbo's choice isn't the final decision, and you can still fight regardless of rift status, then what's the freaking point of banishing in the first place?

 

Limbo's Rift can be made less intrusive, but at the end of the day, it's core concept will always leave at least 1 person complaining that a bad Limbo kept banishing their targets, and that's intrusive to their gameplay.

[RikerWatts]

11 minutes ago, Bobtm said:

And the problem here is that you're assuming it's impossible to change Limbo to remove/lessen his obtrusive nature while also retaining his unique feel. 

I go on the basis that DE would not want to change Limbo or any character, just look at Hydroid. He needed a full limbo-scale rework but instead he got shafted and his prime sold like dirt.

 

 

12 minutes ago, Bobtm said:

For starters they need to simply revert Banish back into a single-target ability by default, and give it a hold mechanic to charge up a small AoE on it. 

This could work, they've introduced that charge mechanic exactly on hydroid, but for the wrong abilities. For Limbo's case, it could theoretically improve him, but single banish is the exact thing DE wanted limbo to not have because the main complaint was "he only kills one thing at a time.". While your idea does not toss this into the fray again, DE will not do something as such to Limbo in that regard.

 

 

14 minutes ago, Bobtm said:

There are a few roads that Stasis can go down that would retain its useful nature but drastically alleviate its obtrusive nature.  One of these would be to turn Stasis into a high powered slow rather than a full-freeze,

Much like the fact that there is a projectile limit in stasis, there's the reason it wouldn't be allowed. Since it would also have to drastically slow projectiles in the wake. If people do not want limbo to stop gunplay, shooting a lot destroys his stasis, and personally, irritates me. There isn't really a way to make stasis work in middleground, there's just bad limbo players and good ones that know when and when not to stasis.

 

16 minutes ago, Bobtm said:

For example numbers, After casting Stasis time freezes for around 4 seconds, then once that time hits Stasis unfreezes all time, both enemy/allied, for 0.75 seconds.  This means that any ranged attack that was fired would then launch right then and there.  Then once that "go" ends time freezes once more for another 4 seconds.  The pattern repeats like this for the duration of Stasis.

Staggered pattern would ruin any gun that has a slow fire rate and would make people have to account for too much in the battlefield, not to mention for balance's sake, would mean enemies have to be allowed movement in that time, and some just ignore proper animations (toxic ancients and Hyekka masters, I'm looking at you.) and will outright spray an attack before any animation goes off, making anybody in front of X target instantly die in a stuttered animation or take unknown damage.
It sounds like a strawman at this point but it's just what DE does for balancing.

 

3 hours ago, Bobtm said:

Implementing either of those ideas would allow Stasis to remain both powerful and viable, as well as staying unique in concept.  But would instantly remove Limbo's "now you have to only melee because I said so" selfish capabilities.

Like I said, melee is best in his stasis and yes it does hinder gunplay, but limbo's allies have more control than Limbo on that. They can continue to shoot to forcibly break stasis.
But no players I've encountered have complained when I asked for them to use melee only in my cataclysm. None whatsoever.

 

 

3 hours ago, Bobtm said:

Removing Limbo's poor design does not mean removing Limbo's unique traits.

Of course it would not. I would hope not, I preferred old limbo but that didn't matter. He still got changed, and even though I miss old limbo, I adapted to new limbo and enjoy what he brings to the table. It'll be pretty difficult for DE to tweak Limbo to be exactly what everyone can enjoy just because of what he represents.

[(PSN)AtomicEyekon]

I don't see why all we need is a small tutorial somewhat like a mastery test upon completion of the limbo Quest you have to complete.

Knowing what de Steve can do in a few hours this would take no time at all to make

[XxaamirxX]

One of the problems I find is in Limbo's scaling. Limbo's Rift is already obtrusive enough to gameplay, the fact he scales entirely off Power Range makes the 'best build' for him the most obtrusive. Stasis, may be considered strong, but for all the wrong reasons in a co-op fast-paced game like Warframe. It's why Limbo is a great solo frame, but fails miserably in co-op play unless formally agreed upon.

While Limbo's current set of abilities are very obtrusive, I don't think every ability has to be as non-obtrusive as possible. Certain obtrusive abilities come with benefits, some of which are maximized for playing around the abilities (ex: Frost - Snow Globe, Nidus - Parasitic Link, Harrow - Covenant). Limbo's abilities can provide isolation in dire situations, a bit of energy regen, and crowd control, at the cost of being the most obtrusive Warframe in the game. Even playing Limbo at minimal range, even trying to use Banish or Rift Surge makes his problems all the more apparent, given how easy it is to mess up using these abilities. Limbo went from a great damage frame with old Rift Surge giving an easy 300% damage buff to a great damage frame if modded specifically for Rift Torrent with the most obtrusive build possible.

Once Zephyr and Chroma get taken out of the picture, I hope DE takes a good look at Limbo and sees where he can be improved. While Limbo is very obtrusive, I believe the issue is, more than his obtrusiveness, his lack of offensive power to make up for it. There are two ways DE can approach a plausible fix for Limbo: either

1. Tone down Limbo and focus on his strengths as a defensive caster.

• Keep Stasis the way it is. Either let allies shoot through Stasis or let everyone shoot through Stasis.
• Fix Banish and Rift Surge's unreliable AOE mechanics, normalize Banish range, fix Rift Surge Banish to clearly indicate when a person will be Banished. Add clear visual/audio cues so it is clear who is Banished and who is not, without being more obtrusive. Have Banish be castable based on enemy state, rather than Limbo's state in the Rift, to make it more convenient to use. Give allies more options for dealing with enemies in the Rift. (ex: more portals, remove enemies from the Rift once they reach a certain distance from Limbo, give allies an option to remove enemies from the Rift)
• Reduce Cataclysm range to reduce room-wide Cataclysms.
• Buff Rift Surge, make Rift Surge viable to use with Stasis. Make Rift Surge buff allies in the Rift, so allies have a reason to enter the Rift.

2. Tone up Limbo and give him strengths as an offensive caster with utility.

• Rework or tweak Stasis to reduce salty teammates. Either give Stasis an increased drain at the benefit of all ally bullets going full speed in Stasis, or rework Stasis into a very strong slow which also slows enemy bullets/projectiles.
• Rework Rift Surge. As the old Rift Surge added value to being in the Rift, I suggest bringing the % damage back, and giving it to the whole team rather than just Limbo. Give allies a reward for playing alongside Rift Surge, perhaps in the form of a gun reload, energy regen outside the Rift, or move speed.
• Increase energy regen in the Rift for everyone, so allies who need energy have more reason to enter the Rift and get some energy back. Make energy per enemy killed apply for teammates as well, not just Limbo.
• Bring back increased reload speed, sprint speed, holster speed in the Rift, not just for Limbo but for all allies.
• Still reduce Cataclysm range, fix Banish/Rift Surge to be less obtrusive, etc.
• Add synergies between Limbo's abilities. Cataclysm does everything Banish does better, give Banish a use case in a Cataclysm. Add interactions between Stasis and Rift Surge that are meaningful, ex: attacking enemies in Stasis increases the duration on Rift Surge.

Personally I think mixing and matching between these changes could result in a Limbo who can provide something in a co-op setting, while still retaining his identity as the 'Rift Master'. Many of his problems stem from his obtrusiveness, but Limbo is an obtrusive frame who has potential to bring something new to the typical run-and-gun gameplay of Warframe, which is why I believe removing or toning down the Rift entirely would detract from Limbo. We will see where this goes in the near future I suppose.

[chainchompguy3]

How's this for an idea:

Upon Limbo joining a squad, everyone else in the squad is given limbo's passive ability to roll into/out-of the rift.

Remove Limbo's ability to banish allies completely. (this does not affect Cataclysm)

 

It makes it so that there's never a moment you're forced to wait for an enemy to be in-banished, or wait for limbo to assign an enemy to join you in the rift.

It takes away the ability for Limbo to banish you in order to save your life, but at the same time, that's something that requires so much hair-trigger reflexes that it's rarely happening anyways. Instead, it'd be left to the player's own judgement.

In addition, by having limbo not have to worry about Alliy rift-state, he can focus more on enemy rift/stasis state, possibly leading to fewer instances of accidentally leaving stasis on when it ought to be turned off.

It removes the ability to be unwantedly/accidentally banished, but you can still enter the rift.

 

It does pose the issue that we could just have squads of players that hop in and out of invincibility at no cost to themselves, so it'd need a cost of some sort: energy cost, cooldown to prevent spam, etc.

It also detracts a bit from Limbo's ability to properly manage a squad, but at the same time, if he's trying to set up a squad scenario, then he should be talking to his team to get their cooperation in the first place.

 

 

I have a gut feeling that this idea detracts a lot more from limbo, in a way that I can't put into words, but that could just be paranoia. So I ask you fellow forum-ers, how does it sound to you?

[(PSN)KnowLedge]

Limbo is trash. Should be removed completely.

[Spectre-8]

I have played 3 missions ( I counted them so I'm 100% sure about this ) with Limbo on my team , from there on I have abandoned every single mission if I see a Limbo in it .

I even went as far as deleting the warframe after I leveled it up to 30 , this ofc is because I didn't like how it looks and most likely never will .

I'm not saying it's the right way to do things but it works for me .

 

Edited January 16, 2018 by Spectre-8

[Bobtm]

19 hours ago, chainchompguy3 said:

I have a gut feeling that this idea detracts a lot more from limbo, in a way that I can't put into words, but that could just be paranoia. So I ask you fellow forum-ers, how does it sound to you?

While it is a good idea, it doesn't solve any of the flaws with Stasis preventing gunplay.  And don't edit my quote again to pretend Stasis does not prevent gunplay when it objectively does do this.  Gunfire simply does not function when a Catastasis Limbo shows up.  This is a problem that needs to be rectified.

Additional little fun-fact;  If it weren't obvious, whenever I do use Limbo these days Stasis is something I use in very short bursts, just a few seconds at a time.  If I end up having the misfortune of matchmaking up with another Limbo I lose the ability to turn off Stasis.  Yes, that's right, Limbo is even a troll to other Limbos.

The more that Limbo players ignore the obvious flaws that the ability set has, the more pushback that is gained by folks who dislike Limbo.  Which only serves to drive a larger rift between the two camps.

Edited January 16, 2018 by Bobtm
Typos, just can't ever get them out of one's system. Like riding a bike.

[chainchompguy3]

3 hours ago, Bobtm said:

While it is a good idea, it doesn't solve any of the flaws with Stasis preventing gunplay.  And don't edit my quote again to pretend Stasis does not prevent gunplay when it objectively does do this.  Gunfire simply does not function when a Catastasis Limbo shows up.  This is a problem that needs to be rectified.

Additional little fun-fact;  If it weren't obvious, whenever I do use Limbo these days Stasis is something I use in very short bursts, just a few seconds at a time.  If I end up having the misfortune of matchmaking up with another Limbo I lose the ability to turn off Stasis.  Yes, that's right, Limbo is even a troll to other Limbos.

The more that Limbo players ignore the obvious flaws that the ability set has, the more pushback that is gained by folks who dislike Limbo.  Which only serves to drive a larger rift between the two camps.

Obviously it's just 1 change among many.

there still needs to be changes to make the rift more readily noticeable, while making sure it's not just making the on-screen chaos even more cluttered.

And the whole point of attacking only the enemies on your plane is made harder by not being able to see through enemies that aren't on your plane.

And yes, Stasis does need changes. As you know, I'm of a differing opinion as to how much it needs, but I agree that it does need changes.

 

I'm just trying to brainstorm a way to give players more agency over the rift (just the rift, not focusing on stasis right now) (thus, lessening the innate intrusiveness), without destroying limbo's core concept in the process.

Letting allies attack regardless of their/the enemy's rift status is an absolute no-go. Rift would basically just be an energy regen buff at that point, nobody would bother trying to use it tactically, because it'd be all too easy to just ignore it. Even if it had a cross-dimensional damage penalty: too much penalty, and we're basically where we started. Too little, and it may-as-well not be there. And each individual's preferrences on what the happy middle-ground would be different, so somebody would always be unhappy.

Letting allies banish/un-banish enemies would make limbo just a "I'm here only so everyone else gets a 6th power added to their roster".

 

So letting allies control their own rift status, and be able to align themselves to the situation, seems like it'd have the least drawbacks. It'd still have annoying cases where a limbo banishes what you were shooting at, but then instead of sitting there waiting on limbo, one could rectify the situation themselves, and perform a roll. Yet it'd also preserve Limbo's ability to lay out a battle plan: banish the Heavy gunner so Mag can safely reposition, While at the same time, convince rhino to go to the rift because it's a shooter party in there, and he's invited.

Hell, maybe even add that functionality to Banish: Limbo can't banish allies, but he can send an auto-message to them saying "A Limbo in your party suggests you [Enter the rift]/[Leave the rift] Press [roll key] to [Exit]/[Enter].", and send it by attempting to banish them.

Obvious anti-spam measures would need to be in place, but it'd be great for PUB's, the place he suffers the most in.

 

 

If you've got a better idea for the rift as a whole, please, pitch in. With enough traction, it might even reach DE's desk. I mean after all, this isn't the only anti-intrusive-limbo thread.

[(XBOX)coll9502]

the problem is not with Limbo its how people play him, I have been playing him for about 1-2 months now since I got back into the game because his concept and lore to me were amazing but anyways, the problem is that he is really easy to troll with and even right when I looked at his abilities I knew he had massive trolling potential and so trolls wound gravitate towards him. The trolls that play him ruin it for the other people that actually play him right. If you want something to change then try changing the trolls not the warframe. 

Edited January 16, 2018 by (XB1)coll9502