10 bits of Constructive feedback from someone who has "finished" the lich system.

[Klokwerkaos]

By finished I mean I have all weapons forma'd and ephemera.

I feel this is a good time to talk about it since we are now 8 patches deep on 26 and a fair bit of progress has been made.  There is a lot of good stuff here, but it still needs a lot of urgent attention.

1) the current state would have been acceptable at launch.  what launched instead drove players away.
this is a big one.  many people I know and have encountered returned for this update only to leave again saying "let me know when it's worth playing, I'm not doing this nonsense" and similar.  They were right to do so, I'm just crazy for bothering.  At launch this thing was terrible as a user experience by comparison.  I would say it's now in a "doable state" but could still use lots of improvements.

2) murmur gain for helping assassinate a lich needs to return.

Lich missions are still fairly toxic even with all the changes.  adding a little incentive to help each other out, like literally 3-5 murmurs per player would be a drastic improvement and help cut down on the overall grind just a little and incentivise people to engage more with it.  Yes, some people swimming in plat like myself can just buy liches to get what they want; however, most people are not in that boat and will have to grind an obscene amount to get all the weapons and ephemera.   Yes, prices have predictably dropped off for ephemera, but some are still and will likely always be in high demand because nobody wants to farm them because the weapon bonuses are undesirable (pull and chill ephemera).  This is because the system itself has a major problem...

3) the system needs some kind of evergreen reward.
It can't be endo or kuva, we are already getting showered with that stuff.  I might suggest a weapon gained that has a useless bonus can be converted to 5 riven slivers.  this puts the reasonable grind in effect for going through either 2 useless liches per week to get a riven (max one per week is already in effect, so another single source of these shouldn't break that too bad as long as they don't end up like endo is now).  realistically, it's one useless lich per week, because you'll probably get 5 slivers from busting relics.  Barring that, some other kind of resource or item would be needed like some exclusive grineer arcanes or something with a 50-100 drop rate.

4)  Adding 1-2 new weapons here a year and an ephemera should be a thing, and riven dispos need adjusting really bad. 
Without this there's not a great incentive to return to the system.  The increased weapon percents are nice and all, but ultimately the weapons themselves don't measure up to current min/max riven set ups on their plain counterparts.  you know the difference between a +45 and a +60 weapon is to a level 100 nox?  absolutely nothing.  the result is so negligible it makes no reasonable difference in the ttk.  It would if riven dispos were amended, however.  Additionally a new ephemera once a year wouldn't hurt either, otherwise this will quick become a ghost town.  Unless rivens are adjusted these weapons are mr fodder, and that feels bad considering the massive time investment.  speaking of ephemera, they (vengeful) don't work on operators in the dojo, and also they all seem extremely subtle (an ephemera opacity slider would be very welcome).

5) The five forma thing was a huge mistake. 
That's 65 forma, more than half of which is wasted.  these weapons do not need 5 forma even to slot rivens.  most are at about 2-3.  this is a meaningless and tedious waste of resources to squeeze 200 mr per forma.  It comes off as super gimicky and not really respecting the player's time.  That said, cat is out of the bad on this one, you can't really undo it without causes huge issues to the people that did this tedious grind and wasted all those resources, I'd just recommend against this approach in the future.  #feelsbadman

6) Parazon/Murmur ui needs to be fixed.
Parazon needs to include current known and prior attempts.  you can stick it on the right side, or slide the art over to the right and put it on the left.  this is bad ux design and is unnecessarily fiddly.  we also need to be able to see murmur progress on the progress screen (p).

7) Please don't stop fixing bugs.
There are tons and I'm not sure that this should pass console cert atm, I know they are eager, but they are eager because they don't know the mess the system is.  Right now it's in about the shape you'd expect for launch day.  it's not ready for prime time yet.  All in all this system is "really great" in concept, but execution has left a lot to be desired and frankly, I'm severely burned out on this atm because of all the problems with the system and relentless bugs (mainly the former).

8 ) this system needs higher gating.
I'm not saying that to be elitist, I'm saying because mr 5-15 players really have no business messing with R5 liches.  All this does is slow their progression to a crawl and make the game not so enjoyable.  having all the murmurs means nothing if you can't down the lich to begin with.  Yes, players can invite clan mates for help, but the game is also meant to be played by solo folks as well, and this is sure to be less "fun" and more "stress inducing" for such players, possibly encouraging them to quit.  I would strongly suggest this be gated behind 30 min of arbitration surv.  people that are mr 8 can still do arbs if and only if they have spent a mountain plat to clear everything up to that point, and they can be carried easily for 30, but it sets the expectation that they can't do this before then, and if they have someone carry them that whole way the reasonable notion of the system will be "you did this to yourself" and if they aren't prepared, that's really on them.

9) Do not attach the lich system to nightwave
Would be a huge mistake for all the reasons.  additionally, please please please, with nightwave, when you have untradeable cosmetic rewards, replace it with a forma blueprint or cred or something for players.  this feels really sucky to get a second liset skin I already have, or wolf armor or whatever.  I don't need or want those things.  essentially that is a wasted slot for all of us that earned those things to begin with.  also both liches and nora need volume control/mute like ordis.  they talk too much and say the same stuff all the time.  

10) Converted liches are useless (and samey)
Unless you're selling them, these are meaningless on the battlefield.  I would propose each converted lich to be slotted for jobs on a mini game board such as:

A) mysterious stranger

B) 10% extractor bonus on grineer tiles 

C) deploy 1 additional extractor in grineer tiles 
D)  Random mission completion:  the grineer lich is sent on a mission with a 1 week duration.  the mission yeilds a known reward, but the weekly mission alert that spawns once per week is random and can result in valuable/rare items such as: 1 kavat dna, an ayatan, a random acolyte mod, a random gold mod, 50 ducats, random prime part (that is not vaulted at present) etc.
E) advanced enemy intel and sabotage: gives a +5% additive damage bonus against grineer on all missions on a single grineer planet

F) advanced kuva extraction: all kuva siphons/floods yeild 10% extra kuva.

these are just some ideas being thrown out there, but the point is, these would be things you could do with your liches that would make them actually engaged with after you convert them that would give them something small, but tangible as a reward.  additionally their traits might make them more or less suited to a particular task offering an additional bonus/detraction, making lich management a thing you could do as a player.

Additionally I said they were "samey".  this mostly comes from the fact that they spout the same 10 lines over and over and all look functionally the same.  To me there are two big missed opportunities here in this system.  1) kuva lich head as shoulder armor needed to be a thing yesterday (maybe a reward for killing R5 lich). 2) if anyone knows about how we went about dealing with the kuva interaction (morality compass) it would be the queens and the liches.  this should come in dialog, the fact that it doesn't seems to be squandering the one time that mechanic really should come up.  It was said to be for rp purposes... so where is it in the rp?  why do they not mention our choices?  that would actually make it feel like our choice had some kind of meaning at all...  adding dialog options for that would actually make liches feel more engaging and real with our player choices for said rp.

in conclusion:
Will I still engage with the system?  Yeah, probably after a long break as this roll out did a number on me (even though I would say the content itself is a step in the right direction by giving us long in the tooth players something to do).  I could use to kill and improve a couple of the weapons to 45+ and the ones that are lower I can just donate to our clan giveaways for newer players that need X weapons and such, and ephemera will probably always be worth a few plat when they roll so I wouldn't mind running 1-2 liches a week after I have a break from it for a while.  That said, i do a lot for clan giveaways and don't represent the typical player.  I would say that most players won't be motivated to continue with it in it's current state, and that would be a shame to have this huge update go to waste as a 1 and done.


 

Edited November 20, 2019 by Klokwerkaos

[(PSN)Aneres_Omega]

Wow, that was good work.

Though after reading it all I agree lich should never be part of NW, the lich being reserved for much higher players as well.

I talked privatly to a few new players who a manged to get to MR 5 & 6 and today created a lich that they wasn't able to kill and haven't been able to get the needed codes due to rng.

They ended up quitting the game and most likey for good.

[Zebiko]

You finished in less than a month for something that should have taken much much longer. That in itself says how badly they implemented the system. DE could have made it longer and more enjoyable to do. Getting the stalker to spawn and his drops takes years without beacons. On that type of popping up in random missions, Liches could take long time to complete, reduced by active investigating and hunting. A truly integrated system.

I think the main design of liches is flawed, and any feedback or requests for tweeks cannot fix it.

[(PSN)Aneres_Omega]

14 minutes ago, Zebiko said:

You finished in less than a month for something that should have taken much much longer. That in itself says how badly they implemented the system. DE could have made it longer and more enjoyable to do. Getting the stalker to spawn and his drops takes years without beacons. On that type of popping up in random missions, Liches could take long time to complete, reduced by active investigating and hunting. A truly integrated system.

I think the main design of liches is flawed, and any feedback or requests for tweeks cannot fix it.

They just need to yank the system and rebuild it from the ground up then spend months play testing the system before releasing it live.

[BloodRavenCap]

You know what's the funniest thing about Liches? Even Kuva is a bad evergreen reward, cause there is basically no reason to keep doing Liches anymore, if you get all the weapons from them. And there aren't much reasons to roll for Godly Rivens, because there aren't much hard and rewarding content to use them one.

Unless DE creates something like endless mode with perfect table of rewards, to incentivize endless gaining of power. I would actually love that. 

What I proposed is something, that loops Liches on themselves. Even if you get the weapons, you would still want trinkets and followers, cause there is only so much endo you need for all the good mods. But with my suggestions, you would always want to find something new. Army of Liches to battle everyone else. Just for the sake of it - and rewards are always useful in that regard.

[Nikikin]

Just got back from my first attempt...grind is just unbearable. Guess i'll have to listen to my lich for the rest of time i'm playing this game, cos sure as hell i'm not going back to that grind. Kills / relic grinding should be at least ten times lower for me to have any interest in this system.

[CoefficientOfCool]

agree with pretty much everything. also love the suggestion about the lichdawgs having dialog lines based on our previous decision in the quest. sad thing is, this should have been super obvious from the inception of the lichdawg system. I had completely forgotten about that decision as well until you mentioned it and I'm willing to bet they did as well, thankfully for everyone I dont make video games though. 

 

I'm on my *checks computer* 9th lichdawg at the moment and after the 8th I said F it, from now on I'll buy the weapon I want from tradechat, which is what i did for my 9th lichdawg. finally got a radiation kuva kohm...  had it active for days now and just dont have the motivation to even start the grind again (and all I've wanted was a rad dmg kuva kohm... ,) meanwhile I spend my time doing arbitrations and eido hunts. actively avoiding my lichdawg. I'd say not working as intended.

[Educated_Beast]

I do not understand point #6.  

I do think the UI needs to show names when hover over icons because I do not like reading symbols and some of them look very similar (especially when it shows cross through). 

Overall I agree, especially on MR lock or some type of test.  You did not mention another big complaint and that is dying for guessing wrong order.  

Dying should be a possibility, but we should have an opportunity to evade, if we are quick enough.  

[Klokwerkaos]

4 hours ago, Educated_Beast said:

I do not understand point #6.  

I do think the UI needs to show names when hover over icons because I do not like reading symbols and some of them look very similar (especially when it shows cross through). 

Overall I agree, especially on MR lock or some type of test.  You did not mention another big complaint and that is dying for guessing wrong order.  

Dying should be a possibility, but we should have an opportunity to evade, if we are quick enough.  

I agree with that, I think a QTE would be best here... but I am pretty sure DE is married to this bad decision, otherwise it would, could and should have been fixed/not implemented, so I'm trying to pick my battles. 

My pet theory is they want it to feel like liches are dangerous, and just went about doing it in the most LCD way, when really, a randomized QTE sequence would have been best, and actually made it feel more fun/interesting, especially when you do get crushed for failing.

Point 6 was about implementing the info from the lich screen about parazon mods/attempts into the parazon modding screen itself.

Edited November 21, 2019 by Klokwerkaos

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

11). Requiem mods should not be consumable.

[BloodRavenCap]

1 час назад, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 сказал:

Requiem mods should not be consumable

Consumable Requiems aren't the problem. Requiems themselves are. The fact, that to kill one Lich we have to grind out the three symbols and even then you have to do some guesswork is just plain stupid. Whole system should be discarded entirely. 

Editor cuts out the fat that writer left in his book. DE should find a good editor too, cause there's just too much fat in that steak.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

1 hour ago, BloodRavenCap said:

Consumable Requiems aren't the problem. Requiems themselves are. The fact, that to kill one Lich we have to grind out the three symbols and even then you have to do some guesswork is just plain stupid. Whole system should be discarded entirely. 

Editor cuts out the fat that writer left in his book. DE should find a good editor too, cause there's just too much fat in that steak.

If the mods weren’t consumable that would be a 1 time grind and the only thing that would be left to do is grinding the murmurs and finding the kill code.

That makes the grind much more bearable and streamlined and it means players will actually get to engage with their Lich more because their not going back to get more requiem mods.

[Educated_Beast]

9 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

If the mods weren’t consumable that would be a 1 time grind and the only thing that would be left to do is grinding the murmurs and finding the kill code.

That makes the grind much more bearable and streamlined and it means players will actually get to engage with their Lich more because their not going back to get more requiem mods.

I have not spent a lot of time getting mods.  At this point I have a ton of relics and my traces are full again.  I can run a rad mission or two and get mods fast.  

I'd prefer the murmor grind further reduced and a way to taunt the lich to anger him.  It pisses me off after I find kill code I have to complete 2-4 more missions before he spawns again.  Because the dam rage meter resets.  

Here is my suggestions:

1.) Slow down rage meter but it never resets

2.) Allow a taunt lich method once per day.  He obviously can communicate with us, we should be able to talk to him as well about his momma (queen?) and get him pissed off to attack.  This should increase rage equivalent to 3 missions. 

I do not want to run the same old missions I've ran countless times in the past for (likely) a duplicate weapon just to increase rage.  Give us other options!

3.) Allow an appease method once per day.  This would decrease rage.  You could tell him how powerful he is and offer say 10K credits reducing his probability to spawn by 3 missions.

4.) Allow your lich to spawn in other people's lich territory.  If I am helping a clan mate kill his lich, I may get some murmors, but my lich rage doesn't increase and he cannot spawn!  I want him to spawn, I want to try and guess as many times as possible.  This fills up murmors very fast.  Give some incentive to play coop.

5.) Give us 3-5 murmors for dispatching another players lich.  Give us more incentive to play coop.

 

[PatternistSlave]

On 2019-11-20 at 3:11 PM, Zebiko said:

You finished in less than a month for something that should have taken much much longer. That in itself says how badly they implemented the system.

No, it just shows how easy it is to skip content should you so desire.

[Klokwerkaos]

15 hours ago, BloodRavenCap said:

Consumable Requiems aren't the problem. Requiems themselves are. The fact, that to kill one Lich we have to grind out the three symbols and even then you have to do some guesswork is just plain stupid. Whole system should be discarded entirely. 

Editor cuts out the fat that writer left in his book. DE should find a good editor too, cause there's just too much fat in that steak.

so like, i see the commenter below and agree with them, the requiems are designed to be an extra layer of padding, and that's not necessarily bad for the sake of chase items.

But I also agree with you that the system could and probably should be something entirely different.  do you have a suggestion as to what that might look like?

I honestly think it should be something "better" but I also don't know what that would be.

 

I also understand that these items aren't chase items in their current state.  this is because with rivens base weapons are better (even though this should not be the case) but I am hoping de recognzes this and buffs the dispos appropriately so that there is a reason to want these items above getting mr, since that's a weaksauce excuse for how hard they are to obtain in comparison to other weapons.

Edited November 21, 2019 by Klokwerkaos

[Zebiko]

52 minutes ago, PatternistSlave said:

No, it just shows how easy it is to skip content should you so desire.

You don't have to do it, but that wasn't the point of what I wrote... Unless skip is the wrong wording you used? 

[Klokwerkaos]

23 minutes ago, Zebiko said:

You don't have to do it, but that wasn't the point of what I wrote... Unless skip is the wrong wording you used? 

speaking as someone who does skip grind I think that since that's integral to de's business model since all of it is around pay to skip or cosmetics, this is entirely reasonable, given that plat can be earned in game.

when you compare it to other good games like path of exile that are strictly cosmetic only (maybe with an exception to stash tabs, which are roughly equivalent to warframe slots except they can't be earned in game) you end up with cosmetics that are $30 a pop rather than $6.  I have found that to be discouraging since I can afford the $30, i just don't usually want to for cosmetic stuff since it "feels" overpriced, whereas de's cosmetics I'm much more inclined to spend $6 especially since some of that goes to the tennogen creator, and spend it even more than 5X as much because I'm getting more cosmetic value.

I hope that makes sense.

Yes, ideally there would be chase items that are indeed infinite-ish, but the only way to do that would be to make the bonuses random (which they did) but also meaningful (which they didn't) and that's more about the base design flaw.  as i pointed out, the difference between a +45 and +60 in almost all content is so negligiable it doesn't matter vs the time required to grind it, not to mention these items aren't necessarily BIS because of riven dispo.

if on the other hand the bonuses capped at say 120% and had appropriate riven dispos, and there was content that existed where this would matter (Ie high level content where enemies aren't just immune to status procs) people would be far more inclined to grind these mostly forever.  since that isn't the case, and they didn't learn this lesson from poe, we're mostly left with things in their current state.

Edited November 21, 2019 by Klokwerkaos