Let's say that you've been playing for a while. You've tried all sorts of frames from the meta to the obscure, the old and the new, and though most of them were like, neat, the majority of them lost your interest as the novelty wore off and it dawned on you that their gameplay didn't go much deeper than pressing buttons to vaporize whatever was in front of you. Even the ones you liked, the ones you stuck with, felt like they were missing some essential somethingness.
You're slowly drifting away from the game and its never-ending cascade of numbers when your veteran friend with a penchant for roads-less-traveled makes a recommendation for a frame you'd never considered using before. You're hesitant, but this friend is the exact same kind of freak that you are, so you decide to trust him and try it out. Compared to other frames and their straightforward "press 1234 to kill things," the learning curve for this one is savage. You die in humiliating ways to regular enemies off the Steel Path. You take fifty times longer to complete missions than you did before. You feel like you're slamming your face over and over against Qorvex's mighty concrete thighs. You have no fucking clue what you're doing.
Still, you persist. And then one day, it clicks. You go from crawling to soaring to shattering the sound barrier. You not only bounce back to where you were before you picked up this frame - with it in your hands, you go far beyond. You solo Netracells. You plunge further into SP Circuit than you could before. You solo Archimedeas - hesitantly at first, on normal difficulty with no modifiers, before YOLOing it and jumping into a solo Elite Deep Archimedea run with full personal and loadout modifiers. You succeed, with laughable ease. Solo level cap content begins looking like something you might actually be interested in.
And best of all, you're having a blast. Content at this level has never been easier, and yet you feel fully engaged. You feel like a trickster. You feel like a dancer. You feel like a magician. Here, at last, is that essential somethingness all the frames you'd tried before were missing.
There's only one issue, though: most of the playerbase doesn't understand, or like how your frame plays. Almost everyone else you've met who mains this frame - your veteran friend, the player you stumbled across on Reddit who took the time to encourage you, the Discord full of the frame's most dedicated freaks and sickos who gently bapped you on the forehead for subsuming Silence before giving you so much advice that you had to scroll and scroll - likes how it plays and wants a few QOL improvements at most, for fear of destroying its one-of-a-kind playstyle. But their voices are few next to the voices of the non-players who can't seem to mention your frame without uttering "rework when?" in the next breath.
You think back to the developer decision that caused you to finally solidify your hiatus from FFXIV, to the words of your friends who'd woken up to see the job they'd loved playing for years suddenly gone:
black mage pre-7.2 was a complex dance of mircomanging timers and skills and sacrificing mobility in exchange for Big Damage Numbers. it was the most complex caster in the game and people (including myself) loved it for that. then ffxiv patch 7.2 came out and the devs removed all of the timers and skill expression in favor of a simple job anyone can pick up and play. black mage is now one of the simplest casters in ffxiv. This Is A Bad Thing. it was a rework made to appeal to people who didn't like black mage, alienating basically everyone who actually did.
You begin to fear that what happened to black mage in FFXIV will happen here, too - that the developers will take away something you love to appeal to the people who never loved it in the first place.
You still with me? All right, here's where I kick the hornet's nest:
I'm talking about Limbo.
Listen. I know he's not meta. I know he's a noob trap. I know he's obscenely hard to pick up and that playing him takes a lot more effort than other frames. I know that, incompetently played, he's a nuisance in groups. Trust me, I know. I still enjoy him more than any other frame I've played. I still don't want him to be reworked in a way that destroys his essential identity. I'm not going to say no to QOL (please make it easier to see what's rifted or not, oh my god) and I'll accept light retouches that'll make him friendlier to groups without sacrificing the core mechanics of the rift. What I don't want - what his dedicated players don't want - is a rework that obliterates how he plays in favor of making him like all the other frames.
Don't do to Limbo what Square Enix did to black mage, DE. Let us keep our funny guy, please. Listen to the people who play him - who actually, seriously, regularly play him, not just picked him up and dropped him, the people who've taken the time to understand his kit for what it is - not the people who don't.
The Inevitable FAQs
But I don't like how Limbo plays!
That's fine! He's not for everyone! But there's over sixty other frames in the game and counting - please play a different, existing frame that fits your playstyle instead of taking away our funny guy.
But I play Limbo and I don't like how he plays!
Um. Well. Why are you still playing him, then?
But I want to play a stylish guy with a sweet hat.
Brysko's coming out... sometime... this year! Alternatively, nab the Mesa Heirloom Signa and pop it on your guy of choice. Sweet hats for everyone!
You're just a snob who looks down on everyone who doesn't play your hipster frame.
Nah. I like to think there's a difference between "I like my guy, please don't take my guy away" and "everyone who doesn't like my guy is a loser." Like I said, it's okay if he's not your thing! Please play a frame you do like! I'm always incredibly happy to see people enjoying themselves!
But with the game how it is, Limbo will never be popular or meta. Are you okay with that?
I am. I'm going to sound like a hipster for saying this, but I think it's okay for things I like to not be popular. And I was never one for meta stuff, anyway - my niche is solo content, so I'm already not hitting maximum efficiency. There's a lot of ways to play a game besides the Most Efficient Way. It's a game, after all, not a job!
But isn't it an issue when Limbo trolls people?
Well, let me ask you: how often does this actually happen? Like, sincerely: out of the dozens of missions you might run in a day, how many times do you see a Limbo? How many times does that Limbo mess with the mission to the point of it being unplayable? I've been playing for a few years now, and I'll concede that's less time than others have played, and I spend a lot of it solo - but in the years I've played, in the times I have gone off solo to farm or do more difficult content, I've been grouped with a Limbo maybe three times. Only once did he get in my way, for maybe two seconds after I walked into his rift by accident. At no point was he an actual obstruction.
Remember: rolling lets you exit the rift, and you can always report players for legitimate griefing. I'm definitely not opposed to small changes that'll make him friendlier to groups, I just don't want it to come at the cost of his identity.
You suck for playing Limbo jfc kys NOW
Deep breaths, friend. If it reassures you to know, I don't bring him to squads unless I'm with people who've agreed to it. Squads are where I pull out Nekros so everyone can be rolling in loot, or Zephyr to tornado-slam bosses into oblivion, or Trinity so EDA/ETA modifiers can be trivialized, or whichever other frame I think will synergize best with the mission type. Yes, it's unfortunate that I can't play my favorite guy in groups, but I'd much rather this state of affairs than losing his playstyle altogether. And helping people is its own reward.
But surely there are frames that do what Limbo can do for less effort. CC is weak, after all.
I think it depends on what content you're doing. I've taken shots at solo Elite Archimedea before with a few frames (notably Mag, Zephyr, Titania, Trinity) and Limbo not only was the only frame I succeeded with (again, with all modifiers!), he had a laughably easy time of it. Sometimes, especially in solo play where you're operating on 1/4 of the capacity the mission was designed for, there are problems that can't be solved with damage or invulnerability alone. Limbo, it turns out, has a kit that's great at those problems. CC is still very powerful.
(Yes, overguard and nullifiers exist. I'm very aware. They actually aren't as much of an issue as you might think, especially with Arcane Circumvent, Secondary Fortifier, or any good gun.)
If you're farming or speedrunning missions in groups, there are better choices than Limbo. But if you like thorny solo content, where the missions are more like a lock you need to pick with your frame's abilities, I've had more fun doing that with Limbo than the other frames I've tried. Again, there's more ways to play a game than just the meta ones!
What about [content creator]'s opinions on Limbo?
They're welcome to their opinions, but it doesn't change my experience.
What about MY opinions on Limbo?
*gestures again to the title of this post*
I'm a dedicated Limbo player and I have opinions!
Share them! Even if they aren't the same as mine! The more of our thoughts are out there, the better.
Holy shit this is long. I'm not reading all that.
Yeah, I tend to do that. Sorry. The tl;dr - devs should not rework frames to appeal to people who don't like them at the cost of alienating those who do. Limbo is the biggest example, but I'm sure there are others!
