Are we just supposed to trust that we're getting all our "stolen stuff back?

[Tyreaus]

I mean, it would be kind of neat to have a list of what the Lich has stolen on their profile page as a sort of incentive or goal for players. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

But in terms of it being some kind of conspiracy? It's really not that difficult to test it: get a full stack of requiem mods, play through a handful of Liches, mark down what they end up stealing and what you get back.* So DE's grand plan is to cheat players out of items without telling them, at a possible heavy hit to their reputation, to get people to farm a tiny bit more? Often for resources players are practically drowning in? I fail to see the logic here.

_{*Having an in-game list wouldn't help because they could just be editing that, just so you know.}

[schilds]

1 minute ago, Oreades said:

Sooo suspension of disbelief makes the whole literally not getting a reward better....

But wait you say, you get the RNG weapon with t he RNG elemental damage that you can RNG grind your face into a wall to maybe? have a shot at improving? all shackled to the Paracesis mechanic where you don't get your mastery until you pump 5 Forma into it and level it to something probably pretty close to lvl60** No.... I really don't count that as a "reward" as it stands. 

 

** Keep in mind we aren't just leveling it to 40, we're leveling it to 30 and beyond 5 times. So that's gonna be significantly more than it would take to get to 40. and I'm actually kinda curious now what level it would actually be if we followed their projected XP curve to 30 and then extrapolated out, just what level we're actually grinding these to because it ain't 40. 

*You* may be having a conversation about the merits of the Lich system, but *I* am having a conversation about whether DE would secretly nick our stuff.

[-CdG-Zilchy]

27 minutes ago, schilds said:

Per player?

As in averaged out? That could be interesting. 

[Oreades]

1 minute ago, schilds said:

*You* may be having a conversation about the merits of the Lich system, but *I* am having a conversation about whether DE would secretly nick our stuff.

Riiiiiiight so you start that conversation about whether or not DE would secretly nick our stuff by replying to my comment about the merits of the Lich system.... GG I guess?

[schilds]

5 minutes ago, Oreades said:

Riiiiiiight so you start that conversation about whether or not DE would secretly nick our stuff by replying to my comment about the merits of the Lich system.... GG I guess?

I think you're confused. The person who started this thread started the conversation about whether or not DE would secretly nick our stuff. That's the whole context of this thread, and the prism through which each post in this thread is likely to be interpreted. Segueing into other topics (like the merits or otherwise of the Lich system) is only likely to confuse people (so maybe I'm confused too :-P).

 

Btw, if DE *are* secretly nicking our stuff, then they're bigger idiots than the tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists who think they're secretly nicking our stuff :-P

Edited November 13, 2019 by schilds

[Teljaxx]

If this is happening, I doubt its some conspiracy to secretly slow down resource gains. I imagine it would just be a simple mistake. Though, that doesn't make it better. Incompetence is not an acceptable excuse, just because DE is a game developer. You wouldn't excuse any other professional for accidentally screwing something up, so why should game devs get a free pass for their mistakes?

52 minutes ago, -CdG-Zilchy said:

By all means feel free to record every single thing that's stolen, nobody is stopping you. Personally I don't even care if I get it back unless it's a rare mod/riven etc. 

This is why corporations love people like you. Your complacency lets them get away with all kinds of terrible things. Just because it doesn't affect you personally, doesn't make it ok. Just because you didn't get food poisoning this time, doesn't make it ok that other people did. Just because you aren't losing any important items, doesn't make it ok that other people are.

[vomder]

One thing players should always remember, developers will lie and leave important information out of patch notes hoping to trick players. Why do you think datamining is so 'evil'?

[Oreades]

Just now, schilds said:

I think you're confused. The person who started this thread started the conversation about whether or not DE would secretly nick our stuff.

No I'm pretty sure you're confused as to how conversations work, see when responded to my comment you entered into two conversations. Tho still linked by the overarching theme of conspiracy *spoopy noises* It's a wonder I know but multiple things can take place at the same time and in the same place while retaining a sense of relation. 

Now this on the other hand is in point of fact a completely unrelated conversation about a conversation which is in itself somewhat interesting but I digress~

[schilds]

3 minutes ago, Oreades said:

No I'm pretty sure you're confused as to how conversations work, see when responded to my comment you entered into two conversations. Tho still linked by the overarching theme of conspiracy *spoopy noises* It's a wonder I know but multiple things can take place at the same time and in the same place while retaining a sense of relation. 

Now this on the other hand is in point of fact a completely unrelated conversation about a conversation which is in itself somewhat interesting but I digress~

Point is I interpreted your statement in context of DE secretly nicking stuff. Hence I thought I was still in the same conversation as the OP, and didn't realise I segued off into some other conversation.

 

Ok, let's drop this now :-P.

 

6 minutes ago, vomder said:

One thing players should always remember, developers will lie and leave important information out of patch notes hoping to trick players. Why do you think datamining is so 'evil'?

Well if DE are lying about secretly nicking our stuff, then I suggest they expend some brain power to find smarter things to lie about, like spawn rates and drop chances :-P.

Edited November 13, 2019 by schilds

[notlamprey]

I just thought it would be nice if there was some way to view our current Lich's little hoard of stolen goodies. You could even frame it as an opportunity for the Lich to gloat about their growing pile of assets.

Pointing out DE's less-than-perfect track record might not play well to the current community demo, so we don't have to pursue that angle. You can all joke about how many layers of foil I'm currently wearing.

Spoiler

It's a lot. My neck is built like a steel girder from the daily effort of supporting my shiny headgear. On good days, I can even pick up secret radio frequencies the lizard people use to gossip about us surface dwellers.

Whatever the angle, I'm sure we can come up with a persuasive case for just showing this stuff in the game.

For the more skeptical among us, it offers a good faith effort at transparency. For the roleplayers, it's another axis along which DE can flesh out the player's self-declared nemesis. For the resource-conscious, it would provide a way to track the cost/benefit calculation of moving in to deal with your Lich now versus waiting a bit longer.

 

[Vox_Preliator]

Spoiler

What gain would there be?  I mean realistic gain, not hypothetical "Oh no, I didn't get all my Rubedo back I guess I should play more" gain.  Important things (rare mods, fancy drops, etc) being lost would be obvious and have to be undone quickly, so the only things that it could happen for and have it last would be the unimportant things, the 20k credits, the couple thousand Rubedo, etc.

There are three major issues with this hypothesis that I notice right off the bat. 

First is that those are unimportant resources because by the time of being able to be taxed they are plentiful.  Barring Alloy Plates for the Kavat Incubator Upgrade Segment, there was never a time in my Warframe career where a common resource limited me once I had access to it.  Uncommon, maybe, I'm just now getting to the point where Plastids and Polymer Bundles aren't scarce, and I still fear the eventual Cryotic farm for the Sibear and the like.  Credits, sure, but a player at that point has access to the Index, a 99% tax on Credits from influenced missions that were lost entirely still wouldn't compare to what dedicated farming or even daily sorties can accumulate.  All of this suggests that doing this would not fulfill the stated goal, as we've established that they could only get away with sneakily discarding unimportant things for any amount of time, thus no amount of lost loot would increase additional play or spending in any measurable way.

Second, it's way too easy to prove, a single spreadsheet with proper documentation and the whole thing is a bust.  Well, not really I suppose, because even then it could just be back to the original design where "most" of your stuff was returned and none of the important stuff goes missing.  The ruse still isn't worth the effort and doesn't achieve anything.

Lastly, there's never a reason to trust literally any given screen at any time.  It's all made-up, and there are so many points where reducing loot could be done without any ruse at all.  Make resource drop amounts biased to roll low, or reduce the rate of resource containers on missions.  Playing the game at all is placing a huge amount of trust in the developers, and (Eh, not really the place for my existential essay about how much trusting in everyone surrounding you regular daily life involves).  I just don't see how this would be the thing that shouldn't be trusted, as opposed to the entire rest of the everything despite the entire game being a manufactured construct over which they have total control.

Frankly, there are easier-to-hide, easier-to-do, and simply actually honest methods that would achieve the same result, yet the result of any of them isn't actually beneficial to anyone, including the developers.

I mean, if this is just about having a running total of everything taxed, sure sounds good, would be neat.  But framing it as a trust issue is full of faults.

Edited November 13, 2019 by Vox_Preliator
The above post

[(PSN)Kakurine2]

Yes, now trust hipno toad!   .....  wab wab wab.......

......... in seriousness even though the amounts stolen are small.  I don't think its a good mechanic.  Especially when they can steal rare mods, rivens,etc.

But hopefully by the time console gets them things will be better.

[Frenotx]

3 hours ago, notlamprey said:

I'm honestly shocked that it wasn't the first thing to cross my mind when we started hearing about the idea of Liches "stealing" stuff. How on earth can we be sure our account manifest is being properly adjusted once we dispose of these Liches?

I ask because we are talking about a game and a company that have had some... let's call them transparency oopsie-daisies, dating all the way back to the days of Latron Prime's initial availability. 

We've been told that various apparent discrepancies are just UI bugs, and to submit a ticket, and any number of other things but... are we really not given any kind of system in the game itself that we can use to track the various things our Liches have swiped?

At the end of the day, the discussion itself is mostly redundant because ultimately we either trust DE or we don't. I just hadn't really seen much in the way of discussion on this question and I'm surprised that I haven't, because myself and the friends of mine who are engaging this Lich system a little more fervently are starting to encounter some weirdness in the way of missing and potentially "eaten" items. 

A sculpture here, a weapon blueprint there and it would all eventually add up to quite a pile if the game was somehow accidentally (or "not accidentally") just letting some of our stuff fall behind the metaphorical fridge.

DE's trustworthiness has taken enough hits in my mind that I would like to see some attempt to surface this little "stolen items" ledger for the players to see in game.

Do you trust that you're actually being given the stuff your regular mission summary screens say you're getting, or do you go into your inventory and manually check your resource totals? If you trust the regular mission rewards screens, why would you NOT trust the kuva litch stolen goods refund? Hell, DE could be siphoning a little off the top of your account between sessions. Do you keep an independent inventory record to confirm your totals each time you log in?

[Tiltskillet]

What I want to know is, when my lich steals an ammo drum, and then I kill the lich and get an ammo drum back...

...how can I be certain it's the same ammo drum???

[YUNoJump]

41 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

What I want to know is, when my lich steals an ammo drum, and then I kill the lich and get an ammo drum back...

...how can I be certain it's the same ammo drum???

They should add a system where a few bottom-tier mods get sent back in the "Flawed" condition, with an intercepted inbox message from a Thrall saying something like "oh no we broke this mod while we were stealing it from the Tenno, I hope Mr Lich doesn't notice".

[(PSN)NeunDrachen]

One word...NANOMACHINES SON!

[More-L]

Well you have the ability to check all your items and resources before you do a mission, you get shown a visual of exactly what a lich steals from a mission and you get a visual when you defeat the lich. So if you simply choose to just trust the system, then that is a choice you made. DE isn't stopping you from writing down and recording all your resources and items in any way.

So to answer your question, no, you're not supposed to "just trust it" but if you cant be bothered to manually record stuff that is your problem. It tells you exactly what is taken and returned.

[AzureTerra]

File paperwork for section 7b correctly and CrossRef to department Tennoskum Acquisitions and make sure you don't submit on a tuesday after 3pm or the Drakks will eat it.

[SerphV]

Yah,

Actually I had a similar experience with OP... 

I did remember that my first lich had stolen my Riven from sortie (back then when Requiem Relics could still be stolen). Cause when that happened I had a mental note "Ok hope this doesnt happen too often or else once I get back my Rivens my capacity will burst."

So i wrote into support after killing my lich and did not get back my Riven, but they told me there was no Riven stolen... 

Although I didnt make much of a fuss as it was only 1 Riven (who knows that Riven might be some high plat Riven but what can I do now), it kinda does get me thinking if what they have at the back was accurate also.

[Thando]

Since there has been multiple reports of missing rewards when a lich was killed, I'm sure we can say already that it is happening. 

In this case however I do think there's no malicious intent by DE but merely oversight/incompetence. 

That being said, it seems to me that "obviously" the codex entry for liches should, at the very least, include a list for the current active lich showing stolen rewards. 

[Drachnyn]

The stolen rewards are probably already added to your account but not available to use. For example if you got a mod for the first time but a lich stole it, you could still see it in your mod station until they fixed that.

[notlamprey]

I just vanquished a Lich who had "stolen" a 250 Endo cache reward, and I didn't get that 250 Endo back.

This system is such a trainwreck and I'll be so happy to have all the weapons so I can forget about it, hopefully forever. 

[White_Matter]

On 2019-11-13 at 4:38 AM, notlamprey said:

I'm honestly shocked that it wasn't the first thing to cross my mind when we started hearing about the idea of Liches "stealing" stuff. How on earth can we be sure our account manifest is being properly adjusted once we dispose of these Liches?

I ask because we are talking about a game and a company that have had some... let's call them transparency oopsie-daisies, dating all the way back to the days of Latron Prime's initial availability. 

We've been told that various apparent discrepancies are just UI bugs, and to submit a ticket, and any number of other things but... are we really not given any kind of system in the game itself that we can use to track the various things our Liches have swiped?

At the end of the day, the discussion itself is mostly redundant because ultimately we either trust DE or we don't. I just hadn't really seen much in the way of discussion on this question and I'm surprised that I haven't, because myself and the friends of mine who are engaging this Lich system a little more fervently are starting to encounter some weirdness in the way of missing and potentially "eaten" items. 

A sculpture here, a weapon blueprint there and it would all eventually add up to quite a pile if the game was somehow accidentally (or "not accidentally") just letting some of our stuff fall behind the metaphorical fridge.

DE's trustworthiness has taken enough hits in my mind that I would like to see some attempt to surface this little "stolen items" ledger for the players to see in game.

That was the first thing I thought of after killing my first lich, but then nothing noteworthy was stolen to begin with so I didn't pay any attention to what was retrieved.

And for some reason every time I get back what's stolen, I'm like "didn't the lich stole more credits than just 17k" or something. 

So yeah, someone needs to look into it. 

Not gonna be me because Lich gameplay is obnoxious enough. I don't want to deal with any additional chores.

 

[Guest]

Why don't you go and test it yourself before making any accusations? Record everything the lich steals from you, defeat them and see if you got everything back.

Programming the stealing and returning of items should be pretty straightforward so I don't see how it would be even possible to have a bug that causes some items to be omitted.

[JackHargreav]

What even...