Kuva Lich: Remove the passive tax and turn it into an active heist!

[ByroSphere]

Altough it may sound fun in theory to chase after a boss that has stolen rewards from you, this implementation of it is little more but cheap and tedious. Instead of it being practically guaranteed that you will lose rewards via some tax that doesn't make sense narratively speaking, it'd be better if the Lich had to actively steal them from you in the middle of the mission for you to lose said rewards. Which is to say, that you can avoid getting robbed in the first place, if you know how to avoid their assault/kill them before they get away with the items.

An idea as for how this could be done, is by having the Kuva Lich hunt the players down after they spawn. But instead of spawning right beside the player like Stalker and co, they could instead spawn somwhere around 100m distance, to give the player enough space to run away, as the Lich will come running full force at them using their kuva powers, while being fully visible on the map during the whole chase scenario. The Lich could be made immortal but stunable during the chase, while the way they will steal your rewards could be shown as them taking off a shiny orb off you (which they should only do after tagging/striking you down), which will then make them mortal as they are the ones who will now try to run away to some designated location, and then a proper boss fight with them could start.

That'd make their appearance more than just tedious, and well, if you actually gained something more but the rewards that you would have already gotten (like maybe, an increased chance to gain rare items + the stuff that was stolen) for beating them, then players might be more incentived to play in areas that these leeches have taken over.

Edited November 3, 2019 by ByroSphere

[(NSW)Sk0rp1on]

This sounds good. There’s a similar mechanic in Grindstone.
 

If you haven’t played it, there’s an enemy that shows up and steals loot using the same mechanics as you do. it gives you a chance to defend against it if you play it right.

[KnossosTNC]

Yup. The appeal of the original system this is based on is interaction with your Nemesis, so I believe that the best and most interesting way of solving the system's current issues is through more interactions with your Lich.

Excellent idea.

Edited November 3, 2019 by KnossosTNC

[Ghvndi]

so what u r saying is that vets just never get stolen stuff 

[ByroSphere]

@The_Dwarf346

So long as they play their cards right, then they shouldn't, no. Not that it will be easy, since the Lich will be made immortal when they are chasing you, and you probably will have to run away from them at the same time as you try to complete your original mission. While back when the Lich becomes killable (which is only if they get to steal that shiny orb loot), you still have to deal with the Parazon mechanic.

The Lich could escape with your loot if you either get killed by them and/or if you don't defeat them within a timelimit, which will start once they had robbed you and ran to the designated area (how does a 3min time limit for when they run to the "boss area" sound?)

Edited November 3, 2019 by ByroSphere
Clarifying the time limit thing.

[vanaukas]

It's a great idea, but as someone said above, this needs to be balaned for vets, because maybe it woukld be pretty easy to avoid beign robbed (and maybe creates a  toxic meta all over again). but I like it, a Mr Shakedown on lich territoy sounds fun

[ByroSphere]

@xHeretic

Think it will become more difficult to avoid getting robed depending on how fast the lich is at catching up, and how many ways they can manuever around the environment. Maybe they could also give the Lich a scaling mechanic that for each encounter, regardless of whether they manage to steal from you or not, the Lich will become quicker and more aggresive (independently from their base stats)?

Also think that even if you can beat the Lich in these encounters, you shouldn't be able to outright assasinate/convert them until after you have farmed enough (and using the correct) requiem mods. With the Lich getting the same general stat boost each time they manage to steal from you, but also increasing the droprate buff for rare items once you defeat them for good.

Edited November 3, 2019 by ByroSphere

[ByroSphere]

Or maybe it'd be better that the Lich became stronger for each time they fail to steal from you, instead of for each time they succeed at stealing.

[vanaukas]

This thread should be on feedback tho, I forgot to mention it.

[ByroSphere]

@xHeretic

Good idea! How do I do that doe?

[vanaukas]

I think a mod could move it, but if they don't this is the subforum of feedback https://forums.warframe.com/forum/1219-feedback/