[My ideas for kuva lich system]

First of all,, english is not my first language so sorry for any grammar errors you could find 🙂

 

While I know the Lich system is still incomplete (maybe it was meant to be part of the railjack missions), I would like to propose some changes to make it more worthwhile. And to get to the point, here is my contribution:

 

Parazon Mods

Ditch the RNG needed to acquire them and make them rechargeable. Grinding it's the core of the game and needed to keep the people playing, but the amount of rng over rng over rng makes it unfun for many people.

You could introduce the words for killing a Lich on a short mission: Starts like a capture mission, then inform the player the unit is a special unit from the grineer and change it to kill the larvling instead of capture, then open a new path to a single vault spy mission where we get the requiem mods (uncharged) (this only for new players).

To charge the mods we still would need the requiem relics to get charges, but instead of 4 relics, we just have 2, like this:

 

Requiem I Relic (Intact)			Requiem II Relic (Intact)
Exilus Weapon Adapter Blueprint	Rare (2.00%)		Exilus Weapon Adapter Blueprint	Rare (2.00%)
1200x Kuva	Uncommon (11.00%)		2400x KUVA	Uncommon (11.00%)
Parazon Charge 3x	Uncommon (11.00%)		Parazon Charge 5x	Uncommon (11.00%)
Forma Blueprint	Uncommon (25.33%)		Forma Blueprint	Uncommon (25.33%)
Riven Sliver	Uncommon (25.33%)		Riven Sliver	Uncommon (25.33%)
Parazon Charge 1x	Uncommon (25.33%)		Parazon Charge 3x	Uncommon (25.33%)

 

Requiem Relic I would drop from kuva siphons (same drop rate) and thralls (lower drop rate, to encourage people to play siphons).

Requiem Relic II would drop only from kuva floods.

(Yes, one charge on relic I, that would make it almost the same as the current system, except you can run (at worst) 3 relics on pub and get at least 1 charge for ANY word you need to kill the lich).

Still a grind on the relic stuff, yes, but reduced time to get the stuff we need to get the fun part, hunting the lich.

 

Murmurs / Thrall hunt

I’m OK with the murmur grind, as it makes higher level missions available and people to play on them with mostly high ranks too (until we get a difficulty slider for normal missions). Last patch as of writing this text is Hotfix 26.0.5, and the murmur hunt is more bearable. But making the requiem mods rechargeable would need the drop rate of relics from thralls be lowered to like 2-3% chance, but added 200 kuva on 5% chance, so as to make thralls hunt worthwhile (affected by resource boosters).

Now, thrall hunt levels should be always at least the same as sortie phase 3. This is a content that should be aimed for “endgame” players, and something they can get some fun from without waiting a full day (sortie) and doable at any time of the day.

 

Lich Hunt

One of the main complaints on the lich hunt is the randomness on the order of the mods (rng over rng). I propose to keep the same system (guessing the order to kill the lich, for those who want to do it that way or cannot do by the other way proposed), but add a new way to reveal the words order to speed up the process, add a spy mission on a random planet that will give us the right order, but with 3 conditions:

- No fails allowed (sortie style).

- Operator only (your frame cannot leave the starting zone, and if you are worried about the lore stuff, remember the grineer queen was able to sever the transference link).

- Solo only.

This adds a way to those who have spent time upgrading their operator, and eliminates the random guessing for those who have the skills to complete it. 

That could also be used to opt out from a lich (operator only spy) with a cooldown of 1 hour before being able to get a new lich, unless there is a way to get rid of the lich using some clan feature planned for later (call it using the operator to sever the link between a frame and its lich). Opt out mission should be allowed as a group.

Another complaint is about users not killing their lich with the parazon, blocking the teammates from getting their own lich spawned. I propose the following changes:

- Using the parazon to kill a lich with the wrong mods order still kills you (risk-reward), but instead of instant level up it gains experience (or anger meter) by 50% current max level. Also it should give 25% max exp on murmurs for the one attempting the kill and 10% for teammates within affinity range to incentivize co-op play.

- Failing to kill a lich or letting it get downed 3 times without using the parazon makes the lich retreat but it gets an instant level up (to deter people from not interacting with the lich).

- Killing the lich with the right mods and order during a thrall mission makes the lich retreat and opens up a new assassination node (what? More steps to kill the bastard? Yes, bear with me, read on next step).

- To allow for more chances to get a lich (and murmur exp), it should be able to spawn on normal missions (invasions, syndicates).

 

Lich Assassination

Once the lich has been killed once with the correct mods during a thrall mission (uses a charge for each mod), the lich protection is weakened, and its time to raid their "fortress", so we get a new assassination mission on a sabotage node on a planet close to the Kuva Fortress. Now, this would seem like an unnecessary step and more grind over the current one, but it aims for solving some complaints about the game and current system: endgame missions and rng on kuva weapons.

About the mission, matchmaking should be available for the players who have a lich ready to be vanquished for good.:

It should be similar to a sabotage/assault mission, depending on what planet the sabotage mission is based on, with the following features:

- Enemies level 100-120.

- No ciphers.

- Infinite enemies spawn, with levels increasing every 3 minutes (growth and spawn rate similar as Elite Sanctuary Onslaught).

- Focus earned capped at 100k.

- Only max ranked equipment/warframes.

- Death system similar to arbitrations, but players have to PICK UP revive tokens and fill a meter on the player dying place (to reduce risk of host rage quitting when dying), with the player dying permanently if not revived within 1 minute.

- Dead players cannot claim rewards (to avoid people afk’ing through death, they have to be alive to kill their lich).

- Mission cannot start until a console is activated (like on survival).

- Gear use is limited to 20 pads and no specters.

- Enemies drop only health/energy orbs.

 

For the boss fight:

- Liches cannot be affected by octavia mallet, limbo rift, energy vampire, reave, cc effects are reduced.

- Enemies spawn on the boss room, so wer are able to get energy/heatlh drops from them (also tokens to revive downed teammates). Their level stops growing, and stays at the same level they were as soon as all the players started the boss fight,

- Liches have the same level as the mobs.

-The fight can be done on 2 ways:

* The lich from each player spawns as the same time as the ones from other players, meaning 4 liches at the same time on a full group, 1 lich from a solo player. This depends on the technical restrictions of the game, if it cannot spawn the 4 (bugs, AI, performance) then the next option.

* The group has to fight the lich of each player, one at a time, but with increased lich level.

 

To make things challenging, the lich assassination should have a hard mode, with increased rewards but also risks, this mode should be activated the same way the Gantulyst and Hydrolist are summoned, by using a token on an altar located on the starting room (that way people can check if the host is not laggy before venturing farther).  Hard mode will activate the following:

- Disabled operator (focus passives still active).

- Increased enemy level (+10-20)

- Activated a sortie like condition (radiation hazard, electromagnetic anomalies, dense fog, low gravity, extreme cold, augmented enemy armor/shield (depending on faction)).

- Always Eximus Stronghold.

- Aborting/disconnecting blocks the player from doing lich assassination by 2 hours (only if the game code allows to detect who disconnected the game by themselves on a host migration and who was forcedfully disconnected by the game, otherwise bad idea).

 

Once all 4 liches are destroyed (no parazon charges used on the final kill), the players get a reward screen, where the players can choose one of the lich weapons from their own lich or the other players, while also getting kuva (something endgame players will always need for upgrading their builds) and a chance for another reward. That allows for people to get a weapon they may want or in case of a duplicate, to allow them to have one they can use to upgrade another one (once the system is in place (still not there on 26.0.5), drop table as following:

14k kuva Normal mode	21k kuva Hard mode
6k Endo	12k endo	Common
4 riven sliver	8 riven sliver
3 forma bp	3 forma	Uncommon
3 radiant relics	5 radiant relics
Arcane?	Arcane?	Rare

 

Normal mode should reward 14k kuva (enough for 2 rerolls) and 21k on hard mode, guaranteed. Arcanes should be same as gantulyst/hydrolist (don’t worry, running the eidolons should still be a faster way to get those, that’s just for giving other people alternate ways to get them or else, new arcanes on par with the eidolon ones).

Now, about ephemeras, they should be earned, and for that, hard mode should always drop one from one of the liches at random, and only if the lich is at max level (5 at the moment). This could also be expanded with more weapons/cosmetics later on.

 

Converted Lich

Converted liches are mostly useless on battle (not counting the random chance for them to spawn), so I propose to give them a purpose. Using the above system, we can set up a second option for assassination, Sparring mode, by using one of the converted liches to play the same type of missions, but without getting the weapons from the lich and reduced rewards, so people can play the mission type without having to do the entire murmur farm to get there, the table rewards as follows (note: rewards are low because the mode is meant to be fun/personal challenge and not as a mode meant to farm stuff):.

 

1000 kuva	1500 kuva
Normal mode	Hard mode
500 endo	1000 endo	Common
500 kuva	1000 kuva
Forma blueprint	Forma blueprint	Uncommon
100 void traces	300 void traces
1 relic	1 radiant relic	Rare

 

And that’s all folks!. All in all, i meant to reduce (not eliminate) the grind because being a free to play means we have to keep playing for some time. The idea is to get to the challenging/fun content by spending less time on the less fun part (the resource grind).

Of course, what fun and challenging means would be different for each player, but I want to contribute my ideas so the devs can deliver better content on time.

 

If you read the whole text, thanks for taking your time. Hope we can all contribute to make the game better.