DE, the Lich System is bad and it needs to change.

[DrakeWurrum]

8 hours ago, MirageKnight said:

On Devstream 134 Steve and company said that they're not doing anything else with the Lich system "for now".

Which we all reasonably know means that, like a lot of other systems that feel half-baked and neglected, they're done with it and have already moved on to the Next Big Thing.

This is not true. What they said on the devstream is right now it's not their focus because they're focusing on finishing Empyrean.

THE VERY NEXT THING THEY SAID was that it's a work in progress, a tip of the iceberg, that they absolutely will continue working on, especially because they plan to add the other faction liches.

It looks to me, honestly, like they've suddenly realized the year is nearly over and that they've procrastinated too much, so now they're in crunch time to get out all these big ideas that they really really wanted released this year while it's still technically 2019. I love the work they're doing, and what they showed on the stream is very promising. I love the idea of the liches and look forward to them improving on it in the future. But it's obvious to me, from the outside looking in, that they've been in crunch time for these last few months of the year, which is why some of these new updates are feeling unpolished and messy.

We need to keep hammering them with feedback until they listen; it sucks, but that's what we gotta do.

Edited December 8, 2019 by DrakeWurrum

[Aldain]

11 minutes ago, DrakeWurrum said:

We need to keep hammering them with feedback until they listen, it sucks, but that's what we gotta do.

-Equips Fragor Prime-

Somebody say hammer?

[DoomFruit]

6 hours ago, DrakeWurrum said:

But it's like you said: we already have this system in place. We have Requiem Relics and T5 fissures now. It's harder to get rid of a bad mistake than it is to implement one.

It is here, but the faster it's removed, the less pain there will be. Plus, I don't see there being much backlash at replacing these relics with an actual quest - what are you going to lose, all those filler "rewards" which can be obtained from everywhere else? There's nowhere near enough lore and worldbuilding in this game. I really do miss the original implementation of the Simaris scans, where you got those little stories at the end.

6 hours ago, DrakeWurrum said:

Also, btw: the liches cannot steal the mods/relics you need anymore. That was hotfixed quite a while ago. They've fixed some of the most glaring mistakes of the relics, at least, even if the relics themselves are a terrible implementation.

This is true, but I imagine the way it was done would have been to add several checks and if-statements to the codebase along with a big list of exceptions to check against. That's more code, it'll add more bloat and will have more edge cases which trip up on somewhere, meaning yet more bugs. Doing it as a quest could have Ordis or whatever (perhaps some hidden poet? It sounds like a very Hexis thing to do - more backstory for one of the syndicates) send you the infinite requiem mods as an e-mail message after the missions, thus completely bypassing the end of mission reward loss and not requiring any more special code.

Edited December 8, 2019 by DoomFruit

[(XBOX)Voltren Xytech]

wasn't paying attention while doing my daily, i thought i went to assassinate and enemy to get some health back [playing as inaros so i can zone out while i play], but no i #*!%ed up and parazoned a damn larva, now he's taken over mars and jupiter, i panicked and bought the mod pack from the store [waste of money, big surprise there...] just for me to get 2 ayatan stars and 2 riven shards... so now im completely #*!%ed, and i have no way out, because of this mechanic i am unable to play, and all 5 years of play time have been thrown out...

what the hell am i supposed to do DE, i cant kill these hyper upgraded grineer, even with my full corrosive/ radiation builds, and they shred inaros in just 15-18 seconds.... and i had just started to get everything in order for my clan, but no, i guess im just another worthless casual player that apparently means nothing anymore [despite the fact we make up 60% of the gaming community]

seriously, i feel like i just got kicked in the teeth and thrown to the curb, all because i wanted to relax and try to keep my mind from going into total meltdown over the state of my life

[Klaleara]

On 2019-12-07 at 7:41 PM, DrakeWurrum said:

This is not true. What they said on the devstream is right now it's not their focus because they're focusing on finishing Empyrean.

THE VERY NEXT THING THEY SAID was that it's a work in progress, a tip of the iceberg, that they absolutely will continue working on, especially because they plan to add the other faction liches.

You're not new to this game.  You should know by now that new systems have a fairly high % chance of being forgotten if launched broken.

[(PSN)shadowclasper]

I absolutely love OP's post, but I think it should be combined with this game somebody is making

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/

 

 

 

if we took the lion's share of OPs suggestions, and this system here, we'd have something that was legit fun as heck.

[(PSN)Deathless-Cat]

I like the idea of having murmurs and requiems as well as different combinations of murmurs that switch randomly in order to add difficulty to the game, but I think the idea can be changed or augmented to help players be a little more proactive. I feel like they can make the requiem mods to resemble the Menagerie runes from destiny 2. These runes when combined and completed a menagerie run with would give different weapons and rolls for said weapons according to the combinations, making the requiem mods like this and increasing the reward pool to accommodate the variety of combinations of requiems in order to give things like the weapons, mods, resources and even blueprints would entice the players to actively grind the liches in order to get these rewards. The other thing that can be tweaked is the one shot capability of the liches if you get the wrong combination and how they move and conquer another planet immediately after you are killed and siphon away your plunder after a mission on their planet is too punishing for players.

[Lyricallee]

I know empyrean is the total focus right now, but still hoping its on someones radar screen at DE that some QOL changes are needed.  Once I got beyond my first lich which bugged out for a bit and was un-killable I have gone on to vanquish 8 and convert 1 lich.  As someone who would like to continue playing this mode and collect the weapons, my 2 primary problems are:

• Cant get rid of the lich unless you use the mods:  My latest lich in progress has a weapon I already posses (Drakgoon) with only a 26% bonus.  Most significant issue to me is that I do not want to waste my hard won requiem mods on vanquishing or converting this creature.  I cannot motivate myself to first kill all the murmurs and go through the motions here when the weapon is garbage and I do not want another converted lich.  The lich I already converted is underwhelming to say the least. .My current converted lich shows up randomly for like 10 seconds, shoots the ceiling and confuses my teammates then disappears.
• Need a different model for grouping up:  I would like to be able to do random groups but usually end up doing missions solo because no other like minded lich hunters have the same planets and are selecting the same missions I am.  

If there was some simple mechanic introduced to just get rid of your garbage lich, maybe after completing the first level up so people aren't just spamming lichs to get the weapon they want.  I could even see completing all the murmur killing, but seriously, do not make me use my requiem mods.  My luck at getting the mod I need when I open relics is abysmal.  I radiant the relic I need the mod from and go with a group, but somehow the mod that keeps coming up as a choice at the end of the missions is Khra (I have 5 of these) not the Vome / Netra I need.  

Edited January 12, 2020 by Lyricallee

[OmegaVoid]

6 hours ago, Lyricallee said:

I radiant the relic I need the mod from and go with a group, but somehow the mod that keeps coming up as a choice at the end of the missions is Khra (I have 5 of these) not the Vome / Netra I need.

It's been some weeks since I didn't have a stack of spare Requiems, but when I was in your position I jumped on trade chat and posted "WTT my [Khra] for your [Netra]" and I rarely had to post twice before finding someone to make the trade.

Personally I do Requiem Fissures with Intact Relics in pug squads. The time it takes to farm up Void Traces from normal Fissures to make 'em Radiant, I don't think it's any faster overall to get a Requiem Mod to drop. And this way I'm gaining Traces from my T5 runs to use on my regular Void Relics.

[Ham_Grenabe]

6 hours ago, OmegaVoid said:

It's been some weeks since I didn't have a stack of spare Requiems, but when I was in your position I jumped on trade chat and posted "WTT my [Khra] for your [Netra]" and I rarely had to post twice before finding someone to make the trade.

Personally I do Requiem Fissures with Intact Relics in pug squads. The time it takes to farm up Void Traces from normal Fissures to make 'em Radiant, I don't think it's any faster overall to get a Requiem Mod to drop. And this way I'm gaining Traces from my T5 runs to use on my regular Void Relics.

Yeah, I've done the same - trade for the one you don't have. With clanmates, I've handed one off to them to kill their lich, and then they give it back to kill my lich, and so forth too.

I also just do intact relics in pugs, because it seems a waste of traces to upgrade Requiem relics.

As a final note, if you're a player that still has a use for Endo (I am; despite having a lot of hours, I still have a lot of expensive mods to max out), those Requiem mods cash in at 1,000 Endo a pop if they're full up, scaling down to 500 if they're "defiled." Even if you don't want do ever do another lich, you can benefit from the mods. 

Edited January 13, 2020 by Ham_Grenabe

[(PSN)Black-Cat-Jinx]

I kinda wish that they had made the weapon you get dependent on like what weapon you use or something.... There's really only two weapons I... "Want"... The Brakk and the grenade launcher thing i cant remember it's name. maybe Ogris. the rest i will max and maybe keep but those are the two i actually want to use...so far I've gotten the ugly hammer, the kohm, which honestly im enjoying on wisp, and the karak, which i will never, ever use. but none of the ones i want have dropped so far.. if they were going to make element dependent on frame couldn't they have done something about weapon too?

[(NSW)Aila]

Just a quick note that your perception of liches as undead creatures with their souls bound to objects is literally just from d&d.

 

I'd also point out that "sent" is doing a lot of work in your claim that loot transfers to your orbiter in a manner that can't be interfered with - and that criticisms of gameplay and writing should be kept separate, because there are a dozen ways I can explain this using fiction but I think you have a problem with the mechanic, not the immersion. 

[MirageKnight]

4 hours ago, (NSW)Aila said:

Just a quick note that your perception of liches as undead creatures with their souls bound to objects is literally just from d&d.

Wrong. My perception is taken from fantasy literature, although DnD is heavily based on said literature and is only one of several fantasy games that have Liches. See link below.

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

4 hours ago, (NSW)Aila said:

and that criticisms of gameplay and writing should be kept separate

Why? We as players experience it all together so talking about how the two do and don't work together is fair.

4 hours ago, (NSW)Aila said:

I think you have a problem with the mechanic, not the immersion. 

You "think" but you're wrong. I have a problem with both.

Edited February 3, 2020 by MirageKnight

[Aldain]

Since this topic is back I say it is a cause for (even minor) celebration that at least the auto-death issue is solved.

How anyone got that through DE's skull is a mystery for the ages, but not an unwelcome one.

So pop out the champagne lads and lassies, we did...something at least!

[MirageKnight]

With the Lich Nemesis system undergoing an overhaul...I think it's time to revisit this topic. That said, some updated suggestions are in order.

Lich Creation:

Get rid of Larvalings completely. Change Lich candidates to Grineer command-level units (Commanders, Captains, etc). Any single commander unit or special unit killed in combat has a 25% chance per mission of becoming a Lich Nemesis. Additionally, the player does not know that it has created a Lich Nemesis until the Lich Nemesis seeks out the player for revenge.

 

Lich Nemesis Enemies:

The Lich is now an active hunter. Instead of spreading influence through nodes, it will actively pursue the player that created it with an entourage and have a chance of spawning in a mission. The more you temporarily kill it, the more enraged it gets and the higher the chances that it will show up in a mission.

When the Lich Nemesis first spawns, it spawns at a power level where it's capable of defeating the player by fair means - with say the EHP equivalent of a Level 40 commander. Turn it into a more "Nox-like" enemy, with weak points that can be exploited for extra damage so that players can be rewarded for using skill instead of cheese.

If a player is downed by the Lich, during the bleedout phase it will advance on the downed player. If the player isn't revived quickly enough, the Lich will grab the downed played and inflict a back-break and then level up and disappear. Additionally, it only takes the rewards and pickups that the targeted player gathered before it beat the player. This way, Steve gets to have his "back-break" in a way that makes sense and is fair.

A  Lich will level up in much the same way that Warframes do, by gaining increased health and unlocking / ranking up abilities by killing enemies.

Now It's good that an unsuccessful stab with the Parazon will be changed so that it only causes the Lich to flee and rewards the player with a clue towards permanently killing it or turning it into an Ally and a bit of Kuva as well. However, in addition, the Lich should have a chance of outright dropping the weapon it's currently equipped with. When it drops the weapon, the Lich will be equipped with a different weapon the next time the player faces it. This means you can "farm" a single Lich for multiple weapons while you try to figure out how to convert or perma-kill it.

A successful stab with the full, correct sequence will give you the option of either converting it to an ally or permanently killing it, where it will drop the weapon it was equipped with as well. Any resources and drops that the player lost to the Lich will be restored as well.

 

Lich Allies:

Allow Lich Allies to be summoned via a deployable and buildable beacon. Once summoned, the Lich Ally will remain in the mission as long as it is active. A Lich Ally can be revived when downed and can also revive the player that summoned it. Lich Allies will spawn with the weapon they were equipped with when you converted it. In addition, they will start with the HP and abilities they had when you converted them. Lich Allies can also gain XP, allowing them to further unlock and improve their abilities and increase their health, up to a maximum level of 30.

 

Kuva Weapons:

Remove the 5 Forma requirement to achieve Mastery and treat it like every other weapon. For players that already invested Forma, they get a buff to the weapon's elemental status, up to 60%, which is locked in; 7% for each forma invested. If you get a mediocre weapon, you can get 5% for each weapon invested up to 60%. You can choose the element you want to keep up to and then locked at 60%. This would encourage Forma investment for DE in form of Bundles and encourage players to continue to hunt for weapons that risk duplication.

 

Lich Trading system:

Remove it completely. It's no longer needed with these revisions in place. Use the War Room / Crimson Branch for something else, like say tracking down a Lich you want to get rid of instead of having to wait for it to come to you.

 

In addition there should still be a reasonable way to stop a Lich from pursuing players via a "peace offering" option if the player decides it doesn't want to deal with their LIch anymore.

Edited February 4, 2020 by MirageKnight

[MirageKnight]

7 minutes ago, Aldain said:

So pop out the champagne lads and lassies, we did...something at least!

Yes we did 🙂

[Tinklzs]

19 hours ago, MirageKnight said:

Lich Creation:

Get rid of Larvalings completely. Change Lich candidates to Grineer command-level units (Commanders, Captains, etc). Any single commander unit or special unit killed in combat has a 25% chance per mission of becoming a Lich Nemesis. Additionally, the player does not know that it has created a Lich Nemesis until the Lich Nemesis seeks out the player for revenge.

That would then undermine what they have in plans (or just added?) to allow us to choose what kuva weapon drops. And what if you don't want a lich anyways? Commanders are already annoying to fight if you don't know where they are, so then you'd have to ignore them, while getting switch teleported. No thanks.  I'd rather know I pissed someone off, and have the ability to bypass that entirely if I don't want a nemesis.

 

19 hours ago, MirageKnight said:

Kuva Weapons:

Remove the 5 Forma requirement to achieve Mastery and treat it like every other weapon. For players that already invested Forma, they get a buff to the weapon's elemental status, up to 60%, which is locked in; 7% for each forma invested. If you get a mediocre weapon, you can get 5% for each weapon invested up to 60%. You can choose the element you want to keep up to and then locked at 60%. This would encourage Forma investment for DE in form of Bundles and encourage players to continue to hunt for weapons that risk duplication.

I'm all for removing the 5 forma requirement. However something I thought of recently, which is a win - win I think.  Perhaps introduce a new consumable item that allows us to determine how much forma we wish to invest into something, without needing to reset it each time it hits max rank?  So I want to put 7 forma on a weapon, I slap this new consumable on, tell it what polarities I want, how many I want (7) and off to the races we go. Now I can do ESO and get 2-4+ full ranks from it in the session.      25p per (maybe as high as 50).    Gives convenience to the player for a relatively cheap cost, and you won't be using it on every weapon.    

 

19 hours ago, MirageKnight said:

Lich Trading system:

Remove it completely. It's no longer needed with these revisions in place. Use the War Room / Crimson Branch for something else, like say tracking down a Lich you want to get rid of instead of having to wait for it to come to you.

I'd keep it for now, mainly for ephermeras in the future, not sure if the new "show what weapon they drop' system shows ephermeras too. But I think the trading scene could be done better (feels like slave trading) but I don't think it's a bad system to trade between players. I think of it similarly to how you trade prime parts currently. 

19 hours ago, MirageKnight said:

In addition there should still be a reasonable way to stop a Lich from pursuing players via a "peace offering" option if the player decides it doesn't want to deal with their LIch anymore.

 

This is the most irrelevant but also the most important issue. You could kill them and be done with it, and never have them bother you again, but if you cannot kill them - therein lies the rub. The thing is, if you can bribe them to bother someone else, were they truly a nemesis to begin with?   Not 100% sure how to fix this, but that's what came to mind when I read that. 

 

Otherwise, everything else I'm fine with, especially that backbreaking part, because it makes sense. 

[DeMonkey]

2 hours ago, Tinklzs said:

And what if you don't want a lich anyways?

Is that a problem though? I personally think that giving us the option to ignore the system entirely was a bad idea.

They're hardly a personal nemesis when you're choosing whether you want them or not.

In a perfect world (imo) the whole mechanic would be something in the background that you don't have any control over, because having control over your personal nemesis really undermines the whole aspect of it.

[Tinklzs]

57 minutes ago, DeMonkey said:

Is that a problem though? I personally think that giving us the option to ignore the system entirely was a bad idea.

They're hardly a personal nemesis when you're choosing whether you want them or not.

In a perfect world (imo) the whole mechanic would be something in the background that you don't have any control over, because having control over your personal nemesis really undermines the whole aspect of it.

I definitely understand this perspective, but I think the question that should be answered is, why would a player not want to interact with this system?

Pretty much falls under the same reasons why players didn't like The Wolf. 

Too tanky

Requires high level gear / modding experience

Disrupts normal gameplay, if you're not in the mood it's just a chore to fight them or you need to bail before you originally wanted to.

System for grinding murmurs isn't fun and you must focus on it, rather than it be able to passively increase. 

 

One thing I thought of was areas that the lich controls would give kuva, incentive for players to do those missions (on top of the normal mission rewards). So I'm doing excavation, I get 100 cryotic + 200 kuva.  I do 5 mins defense, I get relic + 450 kuva.   Numbers could be changed obviously, but I think all kuva farming should kind of average out depending on what you're doing, kuva survival being the foundation piece. So if I can make 1000 kuva in 15 minutes w/ kuva survival, should be doing 1.5 or 2x that (1500 - 2000) for lich equivalent if they're rank 5 (because scaling rewards) in the same amount of time.  

#1 Gives a reason for players to do kuva lich missions besides farming murmurs. While doing the mission they can find a handful of thralls that give 2-3x more murmurs (to compensate for lack of numbers, they give more murmurs). 

#2 Kuva should be rewarded, in general amounts and abundance at rank 5, to further incentive players to interact with this system. If they don't want to reward kuva for these missions (in good amounts, 100 isn't good enough) then they shouldn't call them KUVA Liches. 

#3 Gives scaling rewards and 'rewards worth our time" for the effort/stuff we're fighting. Shouldn't be getting credit caches and 80 endo or mod rewards at lvl 100+ enemies. 

#4 Certain mission types should give more murmurs. Spy and Sabotage are obvious ones for solo, defense and interception for group-play.  You'd still get your thralls, but every 2 rotations you get a boost to your murmurs (independent of thralls). Then you'd get a notification from someone (ordis, whoever) that you've collected all you can on the murmurs for that mission. That way players can't cap all 3 ranks of mrumurs in a 20 min mission or something *shrug*.

 

Edit: This gives variation for those wanting to farm kuva, and helps alleviate the "focused farm' for murmurs for those chasing kuva weapons. It helps alleviate burnout while giving incentive to players to try harder content and rewarding them with just rewards for their time/effort. 

 

Edited February 4, 2020 by Tinklzs

[kapn655321]

I think part of the trouble with the Murmurs is there's no positive reason to have your Lich around while you do that. If there were a more appreciable investment in the time your Lich is alive, rather than just taunting you to go through the tedium of killing it, we might not feel so pressed. When the only objective is to get them done as quickly as possible to get your loot, then everything in between is just in the way.

So I propose(d) this: Something to do with your Lich while they're alive, that also influences murmur progress.. giving us both a reason to have a living Lich, and agency over Murmur grind rate.

 

Edited February 4, 2020 by kapn655321

[Fiddlestixxx]

 

On 2019-11-02 at 6:38 PM, Genitive said:

That's a great way to waste the development time and kill the new system entirely.

 

On 2019-11-02 at 6:45 PM, CodeVauban said:

So you're saying its ok when they make us waste our time then?

And furthermore, yeah. Sorry. When a company that makes prepackaged dinners makes a new meal that tastes like crap and their usual clientele tries it and spreads the word, sales plummet, they scrap that recipe development and they sell what's left of that stock to discount grocers and they learn a hard lesson about losing the soul and essence of what they are as a company and how they provide value to their customers.

When a development company makes a system no one asked for to begin with, because they wanted to profit from offering new content, but the new content is just rehashed, uninspired and blatantly designed to be a soulless grind to keep the addicted logged in, but they push it too far and it's now driving away players, yeah they dump the system, redesign it and cut their losses. Or, they double down and watch their player base, and therefore their company, shrink.

If anyone from DE even reads this, sorry if this is harsh. Please focus on story, creativity, engagement and fun. Help us understand why any of this matters to the story. What threat does the lich pose? What are the thralls? What is a parazon and how does it work against liches? How is the grind thwarting our nemesis? Why does it have to be a grind outside of a straight up unimaginative and amoral business practice on your part? We play this game for entertainment; please provide that service and have your new content reflect that. This game could be so incredibly great.