(PC) Kuva Liches / Parazon / Kuva Weapons / Etc. Feedback

[(PSN)adrian80]

Thralls and liches should appear in any mission on the node controlled by lich. Fissures, syndicate missions, etc.

It feels counter productive needing to select specific missions to make progress with your lich.

[Xyngrr]

LichFrame
Part 1 – Noobtanking it

I deliberately went in cold, to see how well the experience was presented from the aspect of someone newer to Warframe. It was a deliberate facetanking of the system, and as such took around 3 days of intermittent focus on LichFrame, punctuated by stepping back and writing things as they hit me in the moment, and then resetting and going back for another run. Most of that is not suitable for posting due to scathing fury driven comments and in some cases excessive profanity. Most of it was frankly unuseable and not really constructive as written.
Some bones of that visceral beast remain here, sorry if they're a bit sharp.
For what it's worth, Part 2 is far more constructive as it was not a worst case scenario.
If I were a new player and presented with this first run of Lichs, blind and with no preamble except the awesome video from Tennocon I would likely drop the game fairly quick after a few encounters with the Lich, or quite possibly not even make it more than a few Lich missions into it before quarantining it to an oubliette somewhere.

It boils down to ...
1) making a lich buys you in for FAR more initial setup than it appears
Make a quest that walks you through getting three requiems, and gives you a 'minor' or 'malformed' lich killable with the obtained requiems, which caps at level 2 to get oriented to the system, and outlines the rest of the system so you know what to do when the training wheels come off.
2) once you opt in you have no way out but suffering through it
This is a game, not a real life choice. Allow a player to dismiss a lich, with a minimum 1 week 'Kuva contamination/poisoning' cooldown until they can make another. Consequence, not indenture.
3) the setup you MUST do is based on RNG at a number of points
RNG on 'maybe' getting a relic, then 'maybe' getting the right drop from it. While pushing a parallel relic system when there already is one may be easy time padding or a quick interim hotwiring to run it out, it is lacklustre. Allow us to boil a regular relic in kuva+argon+fieldron+mutagen to create a random requiem relic. Refining with red corruption/requiem whispers/etc focuses the resulting drop to one of the current required requiem, incrementally excluding all other possibilities except a required unowned requiem for your current lich. This could also be used as an additional method for discovering their requiem components.
4) remember how annoying Ordis or Lotus is if you leave a mission unfinished...
...reminding you every single time you use navigation? Now he wears a lich mask and insults you every time you enter or leave nav....
5) ...oh, and now he steals your stuff.
In the larger sense this is less problematic, but if you're going for maximum player alienation this checks another box.
6) The RNG combination on the lich forces no win/scripted death scenarios for a handful to a dozen encounters unless you randomly guess right from ~336 combinations.
There's is no actual thrill of danger here, it's completely binary. Guess the random combination. If you guess wrong, you die. Repeatedly. Maybe you get a hint every once in a while. On first blush emotionally engaged players will either disengage and walk away or it will toxify their feelings for you and the system you've inflicted on them. Deliberately encouraging your players to not care about your game, whilst simultaneously deriding them for attempting to with game elements is a bad combination.
You've solidly missed the mark on balancing the allure and emotional return of the encounter, likely in an attempt to ramp up hype on how evil and powerful the NPC are. The NPC do not actually enjoy your game, which is the mindset you encourage your players to adopt by relegating their agency to an RNG roll.
7) the lich levels up after each of these forced encounters, rapidly capping them at sortie levels which is not fun for newer players unless they're carried...which is also less fun
A good journey or story does require adversity, increasing stakes and odds, and the clear possibility of loss... or victory. Once the shock of the game flat-out devhax cheating to kill you in a stunning televised-wrestling-like scripted reversal wears off, you can't ramp it up much from the initial guaranteed death encounter. The journey has ended, the story is over, what's left is to continue to drown the player out of your game with an ever higher crest of toxic humiliation should they decide to stay logged in. Additionally, as it deserves to be made an explicit point of its' own...
8) removing control from your players then killing them SUCKS.
Don't do it.
Ever.
This way lies madness, broken friendships, Troll DMs and dysfunctionally toxic community relationships
Don't try to say you've never played dice rpg. You knew what you were doing and thought it would be cute to charm your players and throw their shiny emotional attachments into the scorpion pit. Did you think to ask what would happen if they DID detach, and as a follow through how they would view you for the 'experience'?
How about their friends, would they sit into your session?
Would there be a next session.... ever?
*this section was way worse, downright medieval. Sorry for how harsh it is now, but you're welcome for how savage it no longer is.
9) the reward weapons require 5 forma to max, each, making them shiny 'come hither' wallet suckers.
Being able to make forma does not hide deliberately creating a large hole easily filled by paid for consumable plat, and simultaneously cheapening the investment and unique nature of the Paracesis. Having to re-max the weapon in stages using kuva and possibly a requiem as a catalyst would have been far more appropriate.
10) consumable requiems echo the above deliberate integration of a soft sell monetized progression paradigm.
Allow requiems to be recharged using an argon crystal and kuva per usage recharged, and transmutation at 4requiems+credits+kuva for a new random uncharged requiem. Good tools wear and repair, but rarely break.

The takeaway from that is the system needs work even if it's an interim measure to get the Lichs themselves into the game. If it is not at minimum pulled back from the current 'We'll make NPCs devhax cheat while constantly insulting you to prove how little you are worth and by extension wanted in our game' state you will bleed a lot of players ( if you haven't already ). People don't play a game, even a free one, to be transparently insulted ( except niche interests, of course ). This is exactly the toolset you've coded for the Lichs and given the player no options other than opt in and get with the stockholm syndrome for a few weapon options, or to not participate which invalidates ... how many years of your work, and what unknown portion of future plans are soured by a potential prevalent community rejection of the system as currently implemented? ...

In my personal opinion, Lichframe needs to evolve quickly or it creates an axis of failure in an upcoming larger and more cohesive integration scheme you've previously hinted at, sneak peaked, and partially outlined.

*Again, Part 2 is far more constructive as it was not a worst case scenario.

[Xyngrr]

Lichframe

Part 2 – Burn in

As a preface, I'd like to note that I've spouted a few opinions after missions ingame in region – once I noticed the was a DE present and chatting once when I looked up to check chat, and was instantly worried it might be interpreted as trying to put them on the spot instead of just sounding region to see if my reactions were standard or outliers. Sorry about that, two ships passing in the night and all.

 

I took some time, did the equivalent of reading the manual for the Lich system from the wiki, and chose to make another Lich. Having more knowledge I chose the progenitor frame for my desired element bonus, and took run #2 at Lich. This one though still glacially slow by meta standards was much smoother, having a stock of the required requiem mods helped cut the time down immensely as did foreknowledge death was scripted, and thus both unavoidable attrition and inconsequential. It was largely the polar opposite of the first run, in that I really stopped caring whether the frame lived, died, or even excelled in the role the mission and lich system demanded, it was simply a grind for a weapon I wasn't particularly interested in initially. However it also completely removed any sense of danger the encounters offered – they were just normal missions with increased difficulty and an occasional stabby/stabby/respawn thrown in. The resource theft was easily ignored like in the first run, as was the repetitious taunting from an enemy known to possess and use out of bounds tactics to 'win'. Much as the crowing of any cheater is merely a thin whine in an otherwise heroic chorus of healthy competition. Beyond that it was mostly choosing missions of desired types to provide decent encounter areas, reasonable clear times, or more likelihood of pub joins to increase murmur gain or guns on for burning any spawning Lich down. Personally, that it was remarkably viscerally flat the second time around raised a large red flag that significant portions of the system were unimplemented or placeholder hotwired, ostensibly being reliant on other assets not ingame yet and so deliberately limited in scope and regimented for functionality. The only real hitch was that my set of requiem was incomplete, and I had to stop running direct murmur missions and obtain the last requiem required for the third kill. This run I could feel hooks and schisms in the flow of the system, and I'm still not sure which are the result of an imperfect gestalt of prior iterations and which are simply disconnected hooks as mentioned above, though that will likely become clear over the next few Lich. I did in the end vanquish the second Lich for the chakurr it carried, which is actually a decent weapon.
The third and fourth Lich followed the same pattern, each speeding to their deaths with increasing efficiency. Both of the first two Lich went to level 5, the last two to 4 and 1 respectively. I was very lucky on the fourth to have randomly chosen exactly the right combination of the possible 336 to kill it right off the bat, so our first encounter was our last. Both the third and fourth were converted. They are of lower level, and have weapons I'm not really interested in, so why kill when they might come in handy later?
I touched on changes to the systems in part 1, here is a less visceral rundown of it after a few runs through it.

1. There needs to be a ramp into the Lichframe experience to ease new players or those not following every Warframe news item into the basic rundown of what Lich are and how they fit into day to day play. A starter Lich quest with a lesser Lich that limits influence to only directly controlled nodes, and a lower level cap like level 1 or 2. Left alone, it grows influence at the rate of 1 adjoining node per 3 non-Lich missions done, and does not spread beyond the one or two planets it initially claims. This both establishes it as a creeping menace that must be eventually be dealt with, and guarantees access to lich missions for the duration required to become familiar with the requirements and method of defeating it without forcing that conflict prior to the players ability ( not the frames ability ) to deal with it. Those that bootstrap from outside information sources will speed through it, those that do not are still well able to get up to speed and kill it clearing the field.

2. UI - The Parazon needs to have modding access directly in the navigation lich interface, instead of multiple pointers tunneling through other interfaces. Being able to directly modify the requiem from your stock keeps the prior attempts in full view for direct comparison and streamlines it significantly. Also, the tutorial button present on the lich page in the codex needs to also exist on the navigation interface, as that is the first UI contact with the system it needs to have the information there right from the start and repeatedly accessible to smooth the learning curve*. Additionally, on successfully taking down the Lich with the right mods the convert/vanquish UI elements should be closer to the middle of the screen, as on my non-standard setup they were in peripheral vision and not immediately evident. The 10-15 second pause before they are presented also caused me to wonder if I'd crashed or disconnected and further confused exactly what was needed and when it was time to actually choose. Dramatic pause is nice, overly long dramatic pause and UI elements placed in peripheral vision while trying to ascertain if the sim was still connected and running just provokes issues.

3. Of eight Lich, I've had three repeat weapons. Two of them have been minimum bonus, another a mere 1% above. Your system is not polished, and is currently designed to frustrate.
   - a Kuva Lich will not have the same weapon as an immediately preceding Lich
   - on generation, the system checks which weapon types a player owns, and lumps them equalized into a 15% portion of total chance, with the remaining 85% total chance divided equally amongst unowned weapons. This while not guaranteeing a non- duplicate weapon vastly decreases the chances of an owned type being generated.
   
    

... watched the devstream #134.
Not much point continuing feedback posts on it, and that is a very bad sign.
Railjack looks good, remember to safeguard resources I need for research and construction from pub crews making a bazillion missiles I don't need. Hopefully you up the squadsize to eight so the railjack has a crew of five and a striketeam of three. Didn't see any indication of that, but it'd be a nice upgrade.

On the Lich – Wrong answer, Bad mojo. Eleven months ago you said you were still learning how to do this – you now have 2 concrete example of doing it fundamentally wrong, both in the last six weeks or so and taxing significant goodwill from your community. Thanks for trying to mitigate it a bit after, but flat no is a match in the powderkeg at a crucially inopportune time.
Even if Railjack comes late you need to fix this, and the petty dev angst revenge of the Grendel missions as well. Both sour the game and eclipse what should otherwise be an incredible expansion effort.

*Note 1 - the tutorial button seems to be on the lich UI itself now as well. I either mised it or it was changed, not sure which but was worth mentioning.

Edited December 8, 2019 by Xyngrr
typo, *note1

[(PSN)DragonGamer123]

Yeah I don’t like having to guess which combination to kill my Lich. Also I’ve already pissed of my lunch and I don’t even have enough murmurs to find out the first mod needed to kill him. I’ll just not do missions in Jupiter till the system gets more refined.

[Borg1611]

I continue to just not bother with this system at all. I have thousands of hours in Warframe. This system was purportedly supposed to be for players like me to have more end-game content to do, but I have zero interest in it at all in its current poor state. I don't want to do an obnoxious relic grind that's heavily time-gated (but with a buy your way past option that makes it seem especially disgusting). That entire aspect of the system is extremely off-putting to say the least. Just to get started in the grind, no matter when you get into it, it's always going to be a slow monotonous thing. The longer you don't participate in it, the less likely you'll ever want to start. You could have been doing some siphon missions daily at least all this time, but if you haven't you're less inclined to even want to start it at all.

Whenever you're behind in a time-gated grind, it just feels worse than any other system you could just start whenever you want and do at your own pace because you're always stuck doing this system at a slow pace. This is something game designer really fail to grasp. You want to time-gate your content because you're afraid of people finishing it too quickly, but what you end up doing is making them not want to do it at all. Time-gates are the most off-putting cancerous element of modern game design. It's also why I don't bother with Eidolon hunts. The Earth time-gate is far worse since you have to go there at specific times, but all time-gates are off-putting to some extent since you now would have to schedule your time around the game, making it feel more like a chore than a game. 

The rewards are mostly recycled weapons with power creep thrown on top of them. So you want me to go through this obnoxious system that's not really remotely challenging, but just time consuming and RNGtastic to re-acquire a weapon I already have with better stats? I feel like this entire system is just discouraging people from playing far more than doing what it's original goal was supposed to be, which was apparently to give long time players something to do. Considering all the upcoming content you're probably focused on, I'm guessing this 50+ pages of feedback isn't going to translate into any meaningful changes for months+ which is pretty disappointing since it's just not in a good place at all. 

I accidentally triggered a Lich once awhile back. It remains on the one planet it's always been on. It says something to me every time I log in, then I go about ignoring it and pretending like it doesn't exist. I thought maybe if they refined the system or made it less of an RNGtastic disaster maybe I'd try it some day, but if not, it will continue being ignored because it's just not a good system and not worth participating in at all. 

[Ham_Grenabe]

Just finished a lich earlier today (miraculously, a new weapon with a moderate bonus instead of low-watt repeats of the 5 I already had). I'm not going to spawn another one, though, until I can at least do that "Palladino dispels a lich per week." I'd prefer a bunch of other updates, but the DevStream pretty much said "we're finished here." 

I guess if we can get rid of a lich a week, that's as good as it's going to get.

[(XBOX)Mcfar53]

I wish I could like it but I don't. It's extremely annoying and aggravating. I never intended to mess with the lich but oops I killed what I shouldn't have in the heat of the battle. That's on me. Now it's spreading fast and soon I'll have all my loot taxed no matter where I go. I simply can't kill the Lich. There needs to be an "opt out."

I just got a 90 day affinity and credit booster along with a 30 day resource booster. I feel like I wasted my money. Had I known I would have put that money into something else.

I've had several accounts, PC, PS4 and Xbox one. I've enjoyed playing Warframe and I didn't mind supporting this awesome game. Now my emotions are running amuck. Honesty, it was hard to pick up the controller and play. I've got about 2000 plat, which may not sound like a lot to you but I scraped to get it, and now I feel like it's wasted. I'm not even remotely as good of a player as a lot out there but this isn't about them. It's about me and how I feel about it. I'm not looking for anything, no empathy, no sympathy and certainly not hater banter. But if there was a way to recover what I threw away I would not pass it up nor would I look back. It's that bad and frustrating for me.

I don't hate the game and I'm not mad but I certainly am disappointed with what DE has imposed on their players. No matter how much you try to spin this it's only going to come out the same way. I've got a lot invested in Warframe, the years of playing, starting over to relive the experience, the money invested and I don't want to lose that. I know somehow, someway I'll try to make the best of it. But, unless this is fixed it's the beginning of the end for me. And that totally sucks.

I didn't expect the game to go in this direction. I didn't sign up for this but alas I'm not in charge and I really don't have a say. I'm just voicing my opinion. Some feel the same way I do. Some have no problem with it. Please Give your players a way out. It really feels forced on them.

I really miss my Warframes. They've gotten me through some rough times.

[Overlorddarkwolf]

Hopefully Palladino dispelling a lich returns what they took, otherwise this is just more content for new players to avoid when done once.

[(PSN)yokai1235]

is funny howa enemy for end game level player have a challenge and a nemesis but know everyone hate it because of that

[GruntBlender]

3 hours ago, (PS4)yokai1235 said:

is funny howa enemy for end game level player have a challenge and a nemesis but know everyone hate it because of that

It's not an enemy or a challenge, it's just another boss with a 2 hour grind. Sure, I like the fight with the lich itself, but the grind is boring, the rewards are lackluster, and the overall mechanics are disappointing, especially since they've been built up as a long term nemesis but they don't survive a day.

[Ikserdok]

getting killed by RNGfrom no knowing order of mods even if we know them all...is stupidiest here

like order of req mods is nonsense here....I fail to see these requiem mods as mods at all....they are mole like just "combo" to finish your lich....which we cant change in mission..why? why these "combos" are as mods at all when they dont give us literally anything which we can get from just mods?

this could be somethinf like in guitar hero maybe? we have alredy equiped discovered mods....now while interracting for stab our lich we need to fast react for fast incoming 1st "mod" by pressing "A", "S" or "D"

on the bottom of screen we will have 3x mod icon on "A, S, D" lanes which is comming 1st, then we will have comming from the top all 3 different our mods at once and here we need to notice on which lane is this our 1st mod showing on bottom and then at the end of comming mods we just need to push button of lane on which this mod was comming and then repeat it with every next additional mod

so it will get rid of biggest nonsense of "hidden", not known stupid order even if knowing every mod for this.....not placing us in russian roulette of nonsense while giving us also more "gameplay" to this as more depending on us, on our skill, reactions to defeat and kill lich instead of "be blessed by purest RNG" or die like naive dumbass without even single chance besides RNGsus which is not an fairly chance

[ArchWu5]

Just now I got my 61st Kuva Lich with the Vengeful Charge ehpemera and it's carrying a Kuva Brakk with a 56% electricity bonus.I want to trade the ephemera to my good friend but if I choose to convert the lich I can't get the weapon which is better than the one that I already have.It's really awkward.Could you make it possible that we can get the kuva weapon when we choose to convert the  lich?I really want this good weapon without upsetting my friend and now I'm really disoriented and don't know what to choose.

This is my 61st lich and this is my 4th ephemera,I've got Trickster, Flame,Toxin and Charge ephemera,I swapped my Trickster ephemera for my friend's Toxin ephemera so now I really want to pay back him with my Charge ephemera,but the high percentage bonus really makes it a hard choice.

Edited December 9, 2019 by ArchWu5

[ArchWu5]

52 minutes ago, ArchWu5 said:

Just now I got my 61st Kuva Lich with the Vengeful Charge ehpemera and it's carrying a Kuva Brakk with a 56% electricity bonus.I want to trade the ephemera to my good friend but if I choose to convert the lich I can't get the weapon which is better than the one that I already have.It's really awkward.Could you make it possible that we can get the kuva weapon when we choose to convert the  lich?I really want this good weapon without upsetting my friend and now I'm really disoriented and don't know what to choose.

This is my 61st lich and this is my 4th ephemera,I've got Trickster, Flame,Toxin and Charge ephemera,I swapped my Trickster ephemera for my friend's Toxin ephemera so now I really want to pay back him with my Charge ephemera,but the high percentage bonus really makes it a hard choice.

After all,both a ephemera and a high-percentage bonus weapon are rare and I want both of them.After all, I can use this ephemera to change for another ephemera from others after converting the lich but I can't get this weapon I want if I choose to do so.Could you guys improve this system and make them both available when choosing to convert the lich?Now I‘m’ really anxious and don't know what to choose and can't go on.

[Gaxxian]

hace 2 horas, ArchWu5 dijo:

After all,both a ephemera and a high-percentage bonus weapon are rare and I want both of them.After all, I can use this ephemera to change for another ephemera from others after converting the lich but I can't get this weapon I want if I choose to do so.Could you guys improve this system and make them both available when choosing to convert the lich?Now I‘m’ really anxious and don't know what to choose and can't go on.

1. Convert lich

2. Sell the lich to your friend

3. Your friend fight the lich, wins and convert him, winning the efemera

4. Your friend sells the lich to you

5. Repeat the grind and kill the lich, you get the weapon

Not ideal, but as a work around can be useful

[C0stanza]

- Reduce the amount of murmurs needed (we Tennos like to grind, but you gotta balance the incentive too so we don't waste time for nothing)

- Give us the possibility to discard the Lich, so we can move on to another one (so we don't have to grind to get rid of one we don't want because weapon isn't wanted or because bonus is too low or because anyway nobody would accept and trade an uninteresting/low/weak Lich/weapon)

- Fix the disparity between the Requiem relics drops (#1 is way too frequent, despite a supposed-to-be equal drop rate)

- Fix the Invasion screen UI, so we don't waste time having to check ourselves the planet to know what the Invasion is all about (happens when more than 3 Invasions are in progress at the same time)

- Change the Kuva weapon bonus scale perspective (25% is way too low, it should be at least 35)

- Make the vanilla Ephemeras equippable on pets too (so the people ripping their hair off to get one of the new "Kuva" Ephemeras could in the meantime use the older ones)

- Don't limit the Lich influence to 4 nodes only on a planet (even he/she is level 1) so we don't need to do missions we hate, make it directly on the whole planet so we have more choices and it feels less like a chore

This won't be read, but at least I feel lighter now.

Edited December 9, 2019 by C0stanza

[(NSW)ToadBlue]

I thought up a little compromise between what I've seen requested and what DE seems firmly stuck on.

DE wants the Lich to kill us. Players don't want the Lich to kill them through a bad roll of a slot machine. I see other posters say that the Lich should "die" on a failed attempt, but revive later and taunt you about how they've come back to life stronger thanks you--like actual liches do. I think this is a good idea and absolutely should be done. But, to let DE have their backbreaker animation, here's where the compromise comes in:

If you attempt to kill the Lich without any Requiem mods equipped, or if all the equipped Requiem mods are Defiled, then the Lich is able to counter you and kill you due to the Parazon having no power against them.

This is not a flawless solution, but I think it is an improvement to what we have currently. It means that if the player is not properly equipped (i.e. a single non-Defiled Requiem mod) then they suffer the consequences from attempting to kill the Lich without the necessary tools. But if they do have the tools, they are not punished for attempting to solve the puzzle beyond the Lich leveling up and their Requiem mods being drained. Players get to stop dying like idiots but DE still has an enemy that can crush an unprepared Tenno, which I think is a lot more in line with Warframe as a whole.

Also if DE really wants us dying in a cutscene, they could at least make more than one animation for it.

[ImaNukeYourFace]

Devstream 134 paraphrase: "So you get your parazon and requiems, you down your lich, you go in for the stab but the requiems are wrong and YOU die, but your lich 'dies' or goes away and gets stronger. Do we have any plans to change that?" "No, not really."

Is there any way that we could change yall's mind about this? Specifically the part where the lich instantly kills you in an unavoidable cutscene/animation, and then teleports away instead of dying.

I won't deny that it looks cool, and it's a cool idea to have enemies who can actually best a warframe and survive being killed like we can. But can it happen in a more fair and sensible way? We basically just wrecked the lich, burned through their hp and now they're on the verge of death. And yet, if we guess the password wrong, we get an unavoidable -1 revive as they just teleport out of the mission.

There are ways to implement these ideas without the current equivalent of a boss invulnerability phase. For example, you parazon the lich, and they actually slump over dead. But then, since you got the combo wrong and can't kill them permanently, they rise back up from the dead - what a lich is supposed to be all about! Then, instead of snapping your back in a scripted animation, maybe have them actually fight the player, maybe with some extreme boosts to DR, damage, and speed for a short time, before they exit "berserker mode" and retreat with a promise to return. Have the lich be a big danger factor without removing the players' agency from the situation. They can still snap your back, but let us have some say in it, rather than the current "you got unlucky and failed the hack so zap you're dead and the lich isn't."

 

[JHarlequin]

16 hours ago, Gaxxian said:

1. Convert lich

2. Sell the lich to your friend

3. Your friend fight the lich, wins and convert him, winning the efemera

4. Your friend sells the lich to you

5. Repeat the grind and kill the lich, you get the weapon

Not ideal, but as a work around can be useful

 Pretty sure that a lich that has been traded will not be tradeable again when the new owner kills it.  That was one of the limitations they wanted on it so that an ephemera wouldn't travel around rapidly after one person got it.

 As for the person that has to make the choice of take the weapon or share the ephemera with their friend, currently it is the choice you are stuck with.  They would likely understand if you take the weapon, but the ephemera is kind of rare.  You both will continue killing lichs and have other chances at the weapons and might see just as good or a possibly better bonus on that weapon eventually.  I would say that the ephemera for you and your friend is more important than the bonus for now.

[ZoneDymo]

Well might as well add my list of Feedback:

First and formost I want to state im actually quite dissappointed with how the Kuva Liches turned out at this point.
Let me state why:
Its nothing like we were told it was going to be and we were excited for seeing, it just got worse every major development it seems.
First announced on a devstream as the Kingpin system, it was sold to us as being a clan based sub quest / mission, a mob boss type enemy who had it in for you and your clan.
You and your clan having to fight through challenging missions just for you to progress towards this mob boss, fighting their special soldiers etc, a long term, challenge.
Sounds great, teamwork, a freaking mob crew to bring down, sweet!.

Then the second itteration came, no longer was it a clan objective so in a way, bye bye teamwork, bye bye semi replacement for the old Solar Rail working together with your clan idea.
Ok that is...less cool, BUT, this Kuva Lich is still a personal, long term enemy, who is an "immortal" and every time you kill them, they just come back stronger unless you have figured out eventually what the code is to actually kill them off, they can become so strong they can have their own army and ship even.
On and when you kill them they are supposed to steal one of your powers AND there were suppose to be different classes of Liches, the one in the demo being a tech-class so it had a deep connection with the ship he was on, having to destroy shield generators on the outside of his ship to be able to even hurt him.
Sounds great, personal vendetta, long term goal you have to work towards, challenge, sweet!

And now for what we ACTUALLY got.....
An honestly generic enemy with no real weight or personality to it, whom you can easily kill in 1 or 2 days if you kinda dedicate yourself to that goal, you kill them....great....next one...
There are really just 2 versions here, and those are weirdly enough, joking male, or serious female, thats it, they all have the same lines of dialogue and they repeat it over and over again...
Honestly DE, why do you invest time in recording voice lines when you know you will not record enough to keep people from being annoyed with the repetition of the lines?
YOU KNOW THIS ALREADY, you have had years of this with the same feedback every time.... can we shut up the Lotus, can we shut up Ordis, can we shut up Nora Night, can we skip the planning dialogue of the Orb Mother bossfight and soon probably, can we shut up Cy?
Its not that we hate dialogue, we love it all in quests etc, its great, but for this stuff, were you KNOW we are going to hearing the same lines over and over and over again because you made it this way.... why do it?
This is all small potatos compared to what else is wrong with the Kuva Liches but I wanted to adress it.
Either space out the dialogue more, which could have been done very effectively if this actually was a many months pursuit long term enemy, OR make it mostly just texts, have the Lich send us messages via the inbox, DE could even update that with more text as the months go on after release with minor effort....
On that point, I HATE, the joking male character, I want my game to be serious, the silly stuff is there and its fine, floofs, the shawzin, heck Sheldon once said that when they started the game they would have never thought they would add scarfes(syandanas).... a music based frame, that is like fine because that is not on the same level as the stupid lines the male kuva liches spew. The female kinda talks about enslaving the local populous of a planet she took because I failed to kill her, see?! thats great! concequences, world building, a sense of frustration and responsibility while the devs dont actually have to make anything, its just the idea the solar system is now wailing under the thumb of this kuva lich that I made, its my fault, thats great!.

Moving on from that...
Lets look at another core problem, the reward.
Orginally it wasnt said what the reward would be, but being a clan thing, maybe a statue of the uniquely generated mob boss after killing them for your dojo?
Second itteration, You will get a weapon but it wont have mastery because its unique..... ok... mistake but not that badly but ill explain later...
What we got.... a weapon WITH mastery AND random stats where one is just better then the other.... ok this is just completely ill adviced.
On the last devstream Steve said that they did not make the liches a 2 month affair because they thought people did not want to wait that long for their weapons...
Ok 1. its up to DE to make the missions interesting and space them out enough so that people DO want to take that journey, heck like the entire game is honestly.
2. YEAH, WHY DID YOU ADD A WEAPON AS A REWARD IIN THE FIRST PLACE?!?!

That is just short  sighted, it honestly pisses me off, but hear me out.
What I mean is, Steve said on a devstream not long ago that he still believes that players in warframe might want to do some missions... just for the fun of it, not for the reward attached, Steve said that Scott thought that ship had sailed BUT steve still believed it....
Ok and here is such a oppertunity....and you make it all about the damn reward again...
Left 4 Dead in space, that was a rough initial idea for warframe, and you know what? left 4 dead is GREAT, man that is/was a fun game, absolutely NOTHING to unlock, no progession but just map knowledge and getting good at the game and it was glorious, that was a game you played because it was fun to play.

Nobody is going to touch Kuva Liches anymore after they got the weapons, they will be completely burned out because of the grind they are facing now to get those stupid weapons that they need if they want the mastery which is partly goal of the game.
The grind being getting a lich with the weapon you still need, getting the lich killed, then having to level the weapon to 40 to even get that mastery.
How insane is that.... I thought it was actually cool DE did that for the Paracesis, that weapon is special, it has lore significance, you cant even sell it.
But you know...lets throw it on the Kuva weapons as well.. why not right.... jeez.

What the reward should have been after a long long hunt for the lich is imo a Sigil or Emblem with a base similairity for them all but then some special unique design for your lich, thats it, nothing of significance, just a memory for this long term fight.

And the entire concept of us killing them but not being able to kill them, why is that completely reversed?
The freaking trailer even still says "im an immortal, just like you"
Yet we dont ever kill them, we DPS check them down, go in with the parazon, whoopsy wrong code because well...you are literally just guessing... you die and they leave.
Great now I have to wait before I can revive and I just have zero control over the outcome.
The previously suggested system is better in just about EVERY way, let me explain:
You kill them, this means a fight and a parazon stab ending, the lich fades away but you hear a sinister laugh or something, you know you failed ot kill them, this is both scary and frustrating (in a good way) because you failed to bring this evil (that you unleashed upon the solar system) down.
This also means you dont have to wait for a revive AND you just have more control and are not punished for getting a completely out of the blue guess wrong.
The entire reviving just kills the flow and makes it that much more jarring to even attempt.

Gameplaywise the kuva liches could have been a cool thing, I was (silly enough) hoping for something dark soulsy, where it wasnt about the damage you were dealing but rather where and how and when that would determine the outcome, make you have to do a dodge roll to avoid a grab, then go in for a melee hit, then jump away again to shoot them somewhere, just some involved gameplay rather then just dps check shoot the crap out of them without dying....

Also just smaller stuff but it does annoy me:
The Kuva Lich is suppose to controll planets, but.... it does not feel like that at all, you go to a kuva lich mission and its just the same grineer units/AI we fight on normal nodes, nothing about it screams these are part of the Lich's army at all.
(sidenote here, this is also a Railjack problem, when you board a crewship its just filled with the same grineer soldiers that we see everywhere, apart from the pilot, where is the actual crew fixing and controlling the craft? soldiers on board makes sense but atleast have some crew actually working on/with the ship)
The Thralls are just grineer glowing blue.... like why is that so cheaply done? why doesnt the lich have some generals, some sub bosses that also look unique and are interesting/fun to take down?
Why when you get the option to get a lich is it just some dude walking around? what makes them special? why are they Kuva Lich viable?
Like why not make some insane berzerker enemy, that is hellbent on becoming a lich, that just suicidally and frantically runs at you desiring death above all else?
You could even repurpose that bomb Ghoul enemy model for this.
I just dont understand that at all from a lore perspective....
Why are there only a handful of elements the Kuva weapons can have? is it because you are saving Blast for example for the Corpus lich equivalent? and if so why? why make that exclusive like that?
Why is it completely preordained what frame gives what element? why is that not random? I get its more practical for those who want something specific, but its not like the weapon or the strength of the weapon is preordained so why not have it be all random to begin with?

 

Edited December 10, 2019 by ZoneDymo

[Gaxxian]

hace 2 horas, JHarlequin dijo:

They would likely understand if you take the weapon, but the ephemera is kind of rare.  You both will continue killing lichs and have other chances at the weapons and might see just as good or a possibly better bonus on that weapon eventually.  I would say that the ephemera for you and your friend is more important than the bonus for now.

I would say that find again that same weapon + good bonus is much rarer than a 10% efemera that appears always for that element type lich.

So, go for the weapon.

[Andrew7811]

Can you make it so that you can search your giant lich collection with keywords such as search by weapon, element, etc?

[Aldain]

18 hours ago, ImaNukeYourFace said:

Devstream 134 paraphrase: "So you get your parazon and requiems, you down your lich, you go in for the stab but the requiems are wrong and YOU die, but your lich 'dies' or goes away and gets stronger. Do we have any plans to change that?" "No, not really."

Is there any way that we could change yall's mind about this? Specifically the part where the lich instantly kills you in an unavoidable cutscene/animation, and then teleports away instead of dying.

Not likely, but I'll keep raising hell until they do...or until the sun explodes.

Whichever comes first.

[Spoop3]

This is prob something that has been beaten to death a million times over,

 

Converted liches are just extremely dissapointing, they don't use any of the abilities that they had as your enemy and hit like wet noodles. I watched mine struggle to damage level 30 enemies for the entire duration of their appearance.

[(PSN)shadowclasper]

Just... this thread here:

On 2019-12-05 at 11:27 AM, Sitchrea said:

Look at this fan-made game and tell me this wouldn't be an incredible system. I would play this far, FAR more willingly than the simple murmer-farm Lich system we have now.

 

 

Edit: For clarity, here is a link to the game: https://kaian-a-coel.github.io/Kuva-Lich-Rework/

 

 

 

The idea presented here would be much better, and if you guys could do a kuva lich 2.0? That'd be fantastic.

[(NSW)ToadBlue]

3 hours ago, (PS4)shadowclasper said:

Just... this thread here:

The idea presented here would be much better, and if you guys could do a kuva lich 2.0? That'd be fantastic.

If they could do it before pushing out their next half-baked mostly-broken expansion, that would be even better. But no, gotta get that Railjack.