This Man Made His Own Game To Show How The Kuva Liches Should Be Improved

[ant99999]

55 minutes ago, Kaotyke said:

You have to run the missions to gather INTEL, but there doesnt SEEM to have a limitation AKA you can run Captures over and over for quick INTEL, that has to be adressed.

I have the impression that Intel is intended to be farmed just as murmur. In fact it practically is murmur under a new brand. So it's probably supposed to be farmed just as murmur scaling from Thrall kills. And the missions have limited Thrall spawns.

In short, i think, that's not the biggest problem with the system.

[5H4DE]

This looks a lot more like what they advertised than what they delivered. @[DE]Rebecca please, have the guys look at this, this is the system we wanted, this is what you advertised.

[Tinklzs]

9 hours ago, (XB1)Demon Intellect said:

It's the name of the game with free games, sadly.

Only if you allow it to be. No reason for such a grind for a mediocre reward. A grind can be fun, and when the journey isn't fun but the sole purpose is the destination, to do it over again, and again and again, then it obviously needs some fixing. Don't accept mediocre, especially when DE has done better, and thousands of ideas and examples of how to fix it, DE has no excuse. Especially since Empyrean uses TOB as a foundation, so if the grind here isn't fun, then what's to say Empyrean will fair off any better?

[Steel_Rook]

Something like that would mostly just require its own dedicated screen, near as I can tell. Not a bad idea, though I'm personally feeling more than a little lost in the UI. All of the tabs from this game ought to be on the same screen, even if optionally the player can view them in their own dedicated screen with more information. But that's about it, though - this is definitely a neat idea and definitely a step up from the current "Grind Murmurs then kill the Wolf of Saturn Six" design.

Of particular interest to me is this game's Requiem guessing system, largely because I ended up writing my own little Java game about it. I'm of the opinion that this can and should be gamified further. Rather than telling players WHICH of the mods they tried are in the Requiem sequence, I'd rather list HOW MANY of those mods are in the sequence and how many are in the sequence in their correct place. Giving players information specific to a mod removes too much of the deduction, for my taste, whereas giving general information on the number of correct and semi-correct guesses leaves the door open for actual problem-solving. In other words, that suggestion I keep cross-posting.

This does make me wonder, though - why ARE Liches killable in the first place? Imagine a system where your Lich was your personal Shredder - doesn't matter how many times you win, he keeps coming back. You can steal his weapons, you can steal his loot, you can steal his secrets, but he KEEPS. COMING. BACK! Think about it - how many times has Alad V died by this point? And I'm counting in-storyline, not how many times you've run his Assassination mission. Why not let the Lich do the same? After all, this JavaScript game gives us the perfect framework to do something like this, since we can depower the Lich and steal from them just the same as they can depower us and steal from us. No part of the "loot grind" requires the Lich to die and be replaced with a new one.

I mean... I can think of a few reasons. For one, a Lich is a nuisance who steals resources from us, fair enough. This is solvable by replacing the "kill" event with a "hurt grievously" event where the Lich goes away and STAYS away until we go looking for a fight again. At any point, we can take up a recon mission to try and track the Lich down, in which case it turns out that - SURPRISE! The Lich is alive and active again! So the chase resumes at that point.

Or maybe people just want another Lich. Say you got saddled with Bopp Bipp who wears a Shrek The Third powdered wig and is overall just really doofy-looking. Maybe DE implement Corpus counterparts to the Luches, some kind of Zanuka monster who keeps being rebuilt and you want THAT as your archenemy rather than the lich. For this, I'd say let players have their own "Rogues' gallery." Say a player can generate up to three Nemeses at the same time, but only one would be "active" at a time. The other two would be hurt grievously and being rebuilt or otherwise in hiding so they play no part. That way when you go on a recon mission looking for Nemesis activity, maybe you'll discover a Lich... Or maybe you'll discover that Zanuka E1337 Prototype has been put back together and acting against you once more.

Obviously this only pushes the problem back so sure - I do agree with SOME means of killing a Nemesis. However, I'd limit this to happen ONLY when the player's Rogues Gallery is filled up, and only when that spot will immediately be filled by another Nemesis. "You've defeated Bigg Butt. The solar system is calm for the time being. However, no sooner has relief settled in that Ordis receives troubling reports. An Infested Abomination has been terrorising shipping around Eris, and it has recently been heard citing your name." You then get a new ??? Nemesis that you have to do a recon mission for. And from that Recon mission, maybe you'll get that new Nemesis... Or maybe you'll meet Warr Garble, your other Kuva Lich back in action.

I love the Shadow of Mordor Nemesis system, but easily its greatest flaw is the transience of its Nemeses. In that game as in here, a decent player can go through dozens of nemesis in rapid succession, which greatly cheapens the experience. I want a Nemesis system where said Nemeses DO NOT DIE. Ever, no matter what you do. You can humiliate them, you can stomp their teeth out their ass, you can steal their stuff. Like any good villain, they just keep coming back. The ONLY concession, the ONLY way to kill them is to replace them with a new one, and that replacement would carry no benefit beyond theme, look and personality if I have anything to say about it.

Honestly, this JavaScript game is about 3/4 of the way there as it is. Everything I'm proposing here can likely be implemented with minimal additional effort, relative to the creation of the full project.

[Seph-Aldaire]

4 hours ago, Kaotyke said:

You have to run the missions to gather INTEL, but there doesnt SEEM to have a limitation AKA you can run Captures over and over for quick INTEL, that has to be adressed.

 

I at least have an idea to fix that issue. For capture missions on Lich nodes perhaps make use of the Thrall idea of the current system, but redesign them to be actual mini-Liches. Instead of the target running it engages you in a similar style to an assassination, perhaps with it's own goons as well and you must fight the target and defeat it to capture it.

EDIT: this also makes the mission fit in line with gathering Lich intel, kidnapping a high ranking officer.

Edited December 6, 2019 by Oakjaw

[Sitchrea]

2 hours ago, TheRealShade said:

This looks a lot more like what they advertised than what they delivered. @[DE]Rebecca please, have the guys look at this, this is the system we wanted, this is what you advertised.

I'll upvote this three times over. This is what the Tennocon gameplay trailer promised, not the system we got.

[SECURATYYY]

Just wanna throw out that if liches are gonna be a more permanent thing, I'm gonna be a little upset if i get an ugly lich with doofus voice acting. :S

[GruntBlender]

Aaaand the devstream confirmed there will be no changes in the foreseeable future.

[Sitchrea]

1 minute ago, GruntBlender said:

Aaaand the devstream confirmed there will be no changes in the foreseeable future.

Only because they have so much more on their plate.

Just because DE said they aren't looking at anything right now doesn't mean they'll never look again. After what we saw today with all their doing with Empyrean... I can't really blame them.

[GruntBlender]

Just now, Sitchrea said:

Only because they have so much more on their plate.

Just because DE said they aren't looking at anything right now doesn't mean they'll never look again. After what we saw today with all their doing with Empyrean... I can't really blame them.

A lot of the suggestions would have been quick to implement, and fixing live content should take priority over unreleased content since that's what the users are interacting with.

[Sitchrea]

4 minutes ago, GruntBlender said:

A lot of the suggestions would have been quick to implement, and fixing live content should take priority over unreleased content since that's what the users are interacting with.

There's only two work weeks left in the year for DE. They're not going to commit to anything they can't make happen. It's why they said they will think about it next year so they can actually plan their time around it.

[SECURATYYY]

Hopefully in the new year they'll take a priority to revisiting most of the game. Frames, game modes, etc

[Aldain]

They decided to leave the auto death upon mercy.

I decided I don't want to touch the Lich system with a 200 foot Iron Staff Prime.

[Tinklzs]

18 minutes ago, Sitchrea said:

There's only two work weeks left in the year for DE. They're not going to commit to anything they can't make happen. It's why they said they will think about it next year so they can actually plan their time around it.

While I understand where you're coming from, I'm going to throw DE under the bus they set in motion.

They shouldn't be advertising Empyrean when The Old Blood has so much wrong with it that could've been fixed if they didn't laxidasically release TOB. while working on big projects like Railjack/Empyrean. Especially since TOB ties and is the foundation to Empyrean. Yeah, yeah I get it, they need to pump out updates to keep cash flow and interest in the game, doesn't mean that lower quality updates should be allowed because of a 'promise' that it will "get fixed later". That's asking for trouble and disappointments. 

 

26 minutes ago, GruntBlender said:

A lot of the suggestions would have been quick to implement, and fixing live content should take priority over unreleased content since that's what the users are interacting with.

Exactly.

[GruntBlender]

13 minutes ago, Tinklzs said:

a 'promise' that it will "get fixed later".

There wasn't even a vague promise, just an "it's fine as is, it's the players who are wrong" and the instant damage control of "we sometimes rework old content, so it might change eventually".

This isn't a matter of having other things on their plate, this is intended to stay this way despite feedback.

[dota_Icarus]

THIS NEEDS MORE VIEWS!

[Sitchrea]

23 minutes ago, GruntBlender said:

There wasn't even a vague promise, just an "it's fine as is, it's the players who are wrong" and the instant damage control of "we sometimes rework old content, so it might change eventually".

This isn't a matter of having other things on their plate, this is intended to stay this way despite feedback.

When put that way, I think I actually agree with you. They didn't really address the mountain of feedback, did they?

[Awazx]

What the author has shown is that DE urgently needs a new management team.

[Kaotyke]

6 hours ago, Oakjaw said:

I at least have an idea to fix that issue. For capture missions on Lich nodes perhaps make use of the Thrall idea of the current system, but redesign them to be actual mini-Liches. Instead of the target running it engages you in a similar style to an assassination, perhaps with it's own goons as well and you must fight the target and defeat it to capture it.

EDIT: this also makes the mission fit in line with gathering Lich intel, kidnapping a high ranking officer.

Still doesnt fix it. Its just a beffier capture target that instead of running a bit then turning to shoot you, it will just shoot you.

And this doesnt fix the "Spam mission for quick intel" that I mentioned. THAT is the real problem in the idea.

[DOOMPATRIOT]

Dayum, this is dope af, let's make DE take a Look at It.

[Kaadu]

I don't think the demo game is perfect, but it seems to be a more engaging system than current. It actually has different ways to interact with the Lich besides pure rng.

[Kaian-a-coel]

Hey, that's my game! I'm really glad it's getting this much attention. As many people said, it's not perfect, but it's an improvement.

Yes, you can kill your lich extremely quickly and minmax the game still. I started with the assumption that there was no real way for me to prevent a determined tenno from efficiently offing their lich in a short time. Rather, I tried to create incentives not to.

You get Intel and kuva weapon progression (cheaper unlock cost. Currently 10% per encounter, will probably rebalance) just for playing in occupied nodes. Fissures, syndicates, nightmare, arbitrations, doesn't matter. Lich presence means you get thralls and lich spawns. So there's less reasons to turbo-farm liches at the exclusion of everything else.

Then, you get kuva weapons and rewards without permakilling your lich, and they get better the longer the lich is alive, so you shouldn't rush to kill the lich.

Of course now I have run into the opposite problem, where there is no more reason to actually finish off the lich, so this will be the next thing I solve... My current thinking is that syndicates (including ostrons and solaris) would put a growing bounty on the lich's head, to be collected upon permakill. So while you won't want to kill it fast, there still will be a time where you go "okay, time to collect now."

I am open to feedback, suggestions, and bug reports. Thank you so much for caring. The kuva liches have a great potential, and I truly hope that DE realises it.

[GruntBlender]

10 hours ago, Kaotyke said:

And this doesnt fix the "Spam mission for quick intel" that I mentioned. THAT is the real problem in the idea.

Have the mission availability on cooldown like the siphons, or dependent on affinity gain in game so it pops up if you play other parts.

[Sitchrea]

11 hours ago, Kaian-a-coel said:

Hey, that's my game! I'm really glad it's getting this much attention. As many people said, it's not perfect, but it's an improvement.

Yes, you can kill your lich extremely quickly and minmax the game still. I started with the assumption that there was no real way for me to prevent a determined tenno from efficiently offing their lich in a short time. Rather, I tried to create incentives not to.

You get Intel and kuva weapon progression (cheaper unlock cost. Currently 10% per encounter, will probably rebalance) just for playing in occupied nodes. Fissures, syndicates, nightmare, arbitrations, doesn't matter. Lich presence means you get thralls and lich spawns. So there's less reasons to turbo-farm liches at the exclusion of everything else.

Then, you get kuva weapons and rewards without permakilling your lich, and they get better the longer the lich is alive, so you shouldn't rush to kill the lich.

Of course now I have run into the opposite problem, where there is no more reason to actually finish off the lich, so this will be the next thing I solve... My current thinking is that syndicates (including ostrons and solaris) would put a growing bounty on the lich's head, to be collected upon permakill. So while you won't want to kill it fast, there still will be a time where you go "okay, time to collect now."

I am open to feedback, suggestions, and bug reports. Thank you so much for caring. The kuva liches have a great potential, and I truly hope that DE realises it.

Props to you, man. Let's hope DE sees this and doesn't just shrug off our mountains of feedback like they did this last devstream.

[dota_Icarus]

My daily reply until DE finally see and adress this