Khora has no theme - an author's observation on Warframe's 'Frame conceits

[Sitchrea]

I am an author and storyteller. Most of my days are spent at a cafe writing or travelling to conventions to sell my books. Because of this I often notice the storytelling devices developers use in their games to tell the player what they want the player to know. So when I look at a character in a videogame I look for what themes and conceits the creator uses to convey his intent. In Warframe, 'Frame "themes" are more about distinction than moral conveyance, but the process remains the same: each character can be boiled down to a single descriptive word.

Ash? Ninja. Loki? Trickster. Ember? Fire. Nezha? Trap (Just kidding, it's actually just the god "Nezha").

But with Khora... I am at a loss.

What is the theme of Khora? Well, from what I gather, she has no central theme. Each ability has it's own theme, giving Khora no real identity.

• Whipclaw's theme is that it's a whip. In Warframe, weapons can be entire class themes - see Excalibur, Mesa, and Ivara. Khora is not one of those Warframes, as it is only when using this ability the whip is ever seen. Ensnare uses her whip for a brief moment, but the description of Ensnare does not describe it as such ( I'll save this for my next point). I take it the intent for Whipclaw was to give the player the "wrangling" part of being a Beastmaster, of whipping cattle or animals in the field to make them do what you want. This would work, however as there is no synergy on using the whip with the player's actual pets, the players uses it much more as a weapon than a tool. I suspect this is also the reason most players still expect an Exalted Whip, as it follows the same visual language as Excalibur, Mesa, and Ivara whose abilities revolve around their weapon themes. However, since Khora does not follow this visual language, it leads to players being even more confused about what exactly they are experiencing while playing her.
• Ensnare talks about "Living Metal." If Khora is supposed to be a Beastmaster, I do not see any connection to this and the concept of living metal. Perhaps the intent is to say that Venari is summoned out of the living metal of the Warframe, but there are several lore issues in saying that (Aren't Warframes more biological than inorganic? How can Venari survive on its own as told in the Ghoul Fragments if it requires living metal from Khora?). Ultimately this theme does not add anything to the Warframe.
• Venari is a summoned Kavat. Simple, effective conveyance of theme. This is the only ability which lends itself to Khora's promise to the player of being a Beastmaster.
• Strangledome is chains and/or barbed wire. While it says "living metal" in the description, the visual and sound effects present the idea of chains or barbed wire more than living metal. One could argue the thematic inclusion of Strangledome was to give the idea that the player is creating a pen or cage one in which one might keep an animal, but then most animal cages don't string up and eviscerate the animals kept inside. At least the cages I've seen don't do that.

In all I've observed, Khora has a set of abilities that were designed for a Warframe who wasn't supposed to have those abilities. As we know, the only ability that survived from her previous - and better - iteration is Venari. However, due to Kavat AI having far too many shortcomings, the ability fails to give the ideal of a "Beastmaster" as players only use Venari as a mobile healing station. The idea of "Beastmaster" is lost to three other abilities which simply do not fit.

Edit 1: Relevant Addition

  3 minutes ago, GinKenshin said:

iirc the designer and artist who came up with her drew inspiration from a 'spider queen'. you can kinda see it in her default helm and her default syndana 

 

having said that, frames can have multiple themes, in fact most frames have 2 themes, 1 for their abilities and the other for their appearance. for example, hydroid is a water theme for his abilities and pirate theme for his looks. chroma is a dragon theme in his appearance and elemental theme for his abilities....sometimes the theme can combine in the abilities/appearance like chroma and his 1 and 4 

See my previous reply.

As for 'Frames having more than one theme - absolutely agree with that. But notice: those themes go well together. Dragons are understood to be elemental creatures in most Fantasy. Pirates and water are assumed to go together. 

Yet so far in this thread alone we have had the themes of Spider, Whip, Dominatrix, and Beastmaster all put into one. Some of those go well together, but not all four. This is why  the execution is flawed - Khora's theme, whatever it was intended to be, does not translate well through her visual, textual, and gameplay implementation.

Edit 2: Because someone doubted my credentials, here is a link to my work through my publisher: http://papersteelpress.com

Edited April 30, 2018 by Sitchrea

[Hixlysss]

Strangledome should be replaced with the exalted whip and be a status weapon. Simple as that.

Though I believe her theme was something of Beastmaster mixed with Spider, I remember hearing one of the devs say something about "Spider, but weaves metal instead of silk" or something like that.

[KaineKaneChing]

I kinda want her 4 to have rad proc so we can have a meatshield dome instead of wasting bullets on swinging enemies.

[aligatorno]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominatrix

That's mostly what they've refered to her as. And how was the first iteration better? The only difference in terms of powers was her having an Exalted Whip instead of strangledome, the first 3 powers worked pretty much the same.

[Sitchrea]

Just now, Hixlysss said:

Strangledome should be replaced with the exalted whip and be a status weapon. Simple as that.

Though I believe her theme was something of Beastmaster mixed with Spider, I remember hearing one of the devs say something about "Spider, but weaves metal instead of silk" or something like that.

I did not get the feeling of being a spider at all. Her description says nothing about spinning a web - her description entirely advertises her as a Beastmaster.

[Kalec]

vor 1 Minute schrieb Hixlysss:

Strangledome should be replaced with the exalted whip and be a status weapon. Simple as that.

Though I believe her theme was something of Beastmaster mixed with Spider, I remember hearing one of the devs say something about "Spider, but weaves metal instead of silk" or something like that.

Exalted Whip won't happen. Get over it.

How can people be so annoyingly attached to something that they never had in the first place.

[Nitro747]

Problem is that they brutally murdered Khora's concept after they noticed they weren't able to come up with any way to make Khora's Impact and Puncture modes any useful. That was supposed to be her theme. Just take a look at ther signature pistol.

Instead of releasing her that way anyways and just accept that most of time people will use her in the Slash mode, they decided to turn her into the most generic warframe ever with some boring abilities.

Also, they didn't even bother giving her a quest. Not even a damn little quest even after months of delays.

[--F--NerevarCM]

5 minutes ago, Kalec said:

Exalted Whip won't happen. Get over it.

How can people be so annoyingly attached to something that they never had in the first place.

They think the rest of the player base and DE are idiots.

DE saw exalted whip OP combo with anything a mile away. Thank God they removed that thing.

 

Edit: Whips are OP, slide attacks are meta. Thats why they want Exalted Whip so much. They don't care about Khora theme, they just want a OP exalted whip

Edited April 30, 2018 by -SDM-NerevarCM

[Railgun]

5 minutes ago, Sitchrea said:

I did not get the feeling of being a spider at all. Her description says nothing about spinning a web - her description entirely advertises her as a Beastmaster.

It was said on a dev stream that the original concept for her was to be a spider frame. 

[Syln]

il y a 1 minute, Kalec a dit :

Exalted Whip won't happen. Get over it.

How can people be so annoyingly attached to something that they never had in the first place.

We can guess about something like the fantasize of an exalted scolliac+slide attack which is why it didn't get past through the concept state in my opinion.

[GinKenshin]

4 minutes ago, Sitchrea said:

I did not get the feeling of being a spider at all. Her description says nothing about spinning a web - her description entirely advertises her as a Beastmaster.

iirc the designer and artist who came up with her drew inspiration from a 'spider queen'. you can kinda see it in her default helm and her default syndana 

 

having said that, frames can have multiple themes, in fact most frames have 2 themes, 1 for their abilities and the other for their appearance. for example, hydroid is a water theme for his abilities and pirate theme for his looks. chroma is a dragon theme in his appearance and elemental theme for his abilities....sometimes the theme can combine in the abilities/appearance like chroma and his 1 and 4 

[aligatorno]

5 minutes ago, Nitro747 said:

 

Also, they didn't even bother giving her a quest. Not even a damn little quest even after months of delays.

The Sacrifice and Venus. These two are their priority and the reason her quest got scrapped. 

[Sitchrea]

Just now, SergeantSunshine said:

It was said on a dev stream that the original concept for her was to be a spider frame. 

That's irrelevant. If the intent was to create a spider theme with Khora, then Khora fails in conveying that theme as well.

It doesn't matter what the intent was, I am outlining how to execution of theme is flawed.

[Midrib]

7 minutes ago, -SDM-NerevarCM said:

They think the rest of the player base and DE are idiots.

DE saw maiming strike + exalted whip combo a mile away. Thank God they removed that thing.

I mean as much as i hate maiming strike and Whips and the overuse of exalted weapons in general.,

the rest of the playerbase and DE are idiots if they removed Exalted whip because of maiming strike, since the mod doesn't even work on exalted weapons.

Edited April 30, 2018 by Midrib

[--F--NerevarCM]

1 minute ago, Sitchrea said:

That's irrelevant. If the intent was to create a spider theme with Khora, then Khora fails in conveying that theme as well.

It doesn't matter what the intent was, I am outlining how to execution of theme is flawed.

Khora VISUAL theme is Spider Queen. The theme for her abilities is dominatrix/beastmaster.

[Sitchrea]

Just now, GinKenshin said:

iirc the designer and artist who came up with her drew inspiration from a 'spider queen'. you can kinda see it in her default helm and her default syndana 

 

having said that, frames can have multiple themes, in fact most frames have 2 themes, 1 for their abilities and the other for their appearance. for example, hydroid is a water theme for his abilities and pirate theme for his looks. chroma is a dragon theme in his appearance and elemental theme for his abilities....sometimes the theme can combine in the abilities/appearance like chroma and his 1 and 4 

See my previous reply.

As for 'Frames having more than one theme - absolutely agree with that. But notice: those themes go well together. Dragons are understood to be elemental creatures in most Fantasy. Pirates and water are assumed to go together. 

Yet so far in this thread alone we have had the themes of Spider, Whip, Dominatrix, and Beastmaster all put into one. Some of those go well together, but not all four. This is why  the execution is flawed - Khora's theme, whatever it was intended to be, does not translate well through her visual, textual, and gameplay implementation.

[Xgomme]

Black Widow/Catlady/BDSM

Since a widow is often alone, she turns into a catlady, and when you're a catlady you like BDSM.... Catwoman told me

 

(But I guess their final plan is simply "metal". The shape of her abilities will remind other themes but they're all related to metal. Metal Whip, Metal Shine Blind, Metal Cat, Metaldome.)

 

 

+ I think it's the second time they scrapped the spider theme from a frame. I'm pretty sure Nekros was made to use Valk's 1st ability. He's also themed around spiders (Binds/Raknis helm) so that spiderman ability could be made for him, but added on the next frame instead : Valkyr

Edited April 30, 2018 by Xgomme

[Sitchrea]

Just now, -SDM-NerevarCM said:

Khora VISUAL theme is Spider Queen. The theme for her abilities is dominatrix/beastmaster.

See above.

[--F--NerevarCM]

3 minutes ago, Midrib said:

I mean as much as i hate maiming strike and Whips and the overuse of exalted weapons in general.,

the rest of the playerbase and DE are idiots if they removed Exalted whip because of maiming strike, since it doesn't even work on exalted weapons.

TBH whips are meta right now. Thats the only reason why people want a exalted whip so much. I bet that if her had a exalted machete, everyone would prefer strangledome.

And with Khora bringing Venari with a separated build, people are already asking for exalted weapons to have a separated mod screen, that would make maiming strike and any other mod work with exalted weapons.;

Edited April 30, 2018 by -SDM-NerevarCM

[DiosGX]

Thank you for saying this the way you said it. I appreciate it.

[kyori]

Khora is just a lost child. Started off well with the whip and a default cat, ya a beastmaster theme... then slowly DE didn't know what to do with IPS which was what Khora was based on initially, then from there Khora became a mess too.

Some people said she looked like a typical ancient japanese spider demon and perhaps DE caught word of that hence changed her 4 into a web like strangledome... but that made it even more a mess as it function quite same as her 2 plus the spider theme and beastermaster theme became a mix.. total mess.

Nonetheless as the next new frame will come in July, there is really not much time to delay Khora anymore, so no choice, just release her as it is now, just a new frame with repetitive power like some older frames, just different in look  and execution but overall function much like Nidu's Larva, Frost's Globe etc

[aligatorno]

1 minute ago, -SDM-NerevarCM said:

TBH whips are meta right now. Thats the only reason why people want a exalted whip so much.

Pretty much. I`ve even seen people asking DE to allow for her 1 to be able to slide at least. Why slide with a Maiming  Atterax when you can slide with Khora? Whips are pretty powerful without sliding too, but I`ve never seen anyone use them as such, which is why I doubt that their intentions are to use it for combos. 

Excluding her 4th ability, her whole kit was almost identical to how it is today. Her 1 was still a whip hit, her 2 was a whip hit who grouped affected enemies together and her 3 was still the kavat. 75% of her kit was identical , yet they praise it like it was something completely different and new compared to what we have today. 

[DiosGX]

2 minutes ago, -SDM-NerevarCM said:

TBH whips are meta right now. Thats the only reason why people want a exalted whip so much. I bet that if her had a exalted machete, everyone would prefer strangledome.

Should just be re-implemented, there's an easy fix for the entire thing:

Make her 2 function the way it does and add Strangledome as an alternate function by holding the casting power down. They are effectively the same ability anyway. Re-introduce the exalted whip which was the only saving grace after the dire disappointment of Damage 2.5 disappearing—at which point Khora should have disappeared as well. But the only thing that held anyone's actual interest anymore was the whip.

So just make the whip not stupid like they did to the non-China release of Wukong. China's Wukong's exalted bo was a million times dumber than any Maiming Strike-anything we could build on our version. Make the whip unable to extend beyond a certain threshold, make it not affected by melee range mods. There's no reason DE cannot just be a stern parent and say "ok you can have that red rider BB gun but you are not allowed to shoot it at this and that."  They've already been stern-heeled about power use-abuse in Sanctuary Onslaught. There's no reason they can't also define that whip to not be abusable.

[GinKenshin]

5 minutes ago, Midrib said:

I mean as much as i hate maiming strike and Whips and the overuse of exalted weapons in general.,

the rest of the playerbase and DE are idiots if they removed Exalted whip because of maiming strike, since the mod doesn't even work on exalted weapons.

so let's say that there was an exalted whip and maiming strike and all the other mods that make whips as broken as they are wouldn't work on her....then what? sliding all over the place would still be the best option. even if you consider the 'special' effect that exalted weapons have, for what we know that special effect is the IPS switch, which will make everyone use slash in the first place 

 

even without the mods, slide attacks with her exalted whip would still be the only 'strategy' that people would use her for, just like how exaclibur's EB is a mobile energy wave turret

 

basically, get over it and move on since it ain't happening 

[Midrib]

2 minutes ago, -SDM-NerevarCM said:

TBH whips are meta right now. Thats the only reason why people want a exalted whip so much. I bet that if her had a exalted machete, everyone would prefer strangledome.

sure but DE have been designing gameplay mechanics for years now and if they don't want something to function like something else, im damn sure they can pull it off.

Exalted blade is just a long sword but it hardly functions like one, they could've made Khora's whip work, it just needed a bit more creativity.

Either way I don't like strangledome nor do i like another exalted weapon, they are both unoriginal and frankly boring.