DE supposedly only listening to "specific" feedback regarding Liches

[Sunder]

This is an exact transcript of the discussion on Devsteam #134

Spoiler

 

- - -

• Reb: Alright! So for Liches we have a lot of people that have the old blood update that think the flavor of "them killing you" vs "you killing them" is the antithesis of what liches are. So we'll start about, --we'll start the conversation on the framing of liches. So you get your parazon, you have your requiems, you DOWN your lich, you go in for the stab, and the requiem is WRONG then YOU die, but the lich also dies and  goes away and gets stronger. Do we have any plans to change your consequence in that phase.
• Steve: Uhh........*head tilts*....uhh..nnn-...we don't have any plans for that. No. Nope.
• Reb: Alright so right now--
• Sheldon: Surprise question!
• Steve: *Laughs* Surprise question!
• Scott: I'm hip deep in "poo" but lemme talk about this other thing over here and..
• Reb: Well it's live!  So players are talking about-
• Scott: I understand it's live but I...at the moment-
• Steve: I think that...I think that the feedback I saw was uhh....whyyy...uhh... "why isn't it 76 days to kill a Lich?"
• Reb: Yes. That was the TennoCon thing that we-
• Steve: And why, uh, --which is a part of the TennoCon UI, and why uhh..."why can the Lich beat me up so badly?"
• Reb: Yes.
• Steve: And of course....we didn't think that uh...you'd want to wait 76 days to get a Lich Weapon, --Kuva Lich weapon. And so we shortened that loop dramatically...uhh, and it did not work out we thought to have it going on and dragging on and sooo uhh, we tightened that loop! And in terms of why does the Lich Punch you out when you fail? Uhh...one of the things we discovered when we did the finishers for the Liches was it was very interesting or unique for the game that there be someone that would kick your butt for a change,
• Reb: Yeah.
• Steve: 'cause you kill everyone!
• Reb: Yes.
• Steve: and so that's why we did that inversion. Sooo there you go. 
• Scott: That's....not to say that there isn't changes to the system coming. 
• Reb: No. 
• Steve: Yup. 
• Scott: It's just that right now that....is not our focus, obviously, with the giant pile of stuff we just showed? That, --that's our current focus. 
• Reb: Yes
• Scott: Uhm, and probably when we regroup in the new year, it'll be addressing those things...so...
• Reb: And I think one thing that's been pretty popular around the office is just--
• Steve: And more factions so.
• Reb: Yeah, more factions..
• Geoff: I'm just gonna say the, -we're, the system is gonna always, -it's gonna be looked at for a while because of the faction...expansion as well so....
• Reb: Yeah, I mean if we make the corpus liches? Maybe we'll make them last 79 days and then -laughing- maybe then everyone can have their cake and eat it too!

- - -

What this tells me is that not only do they have their plates full with Empyrean, New War, Duviri and balances, new content, and the like coming out eventually, but that DE isn't seeing the issue we have with the Lich System. That generally the feedback Steve only sees is in regards to that the Lich system is too quick and we want it to last 76 days. Aside from that Steve believes we don't like the fact that the Lich can "beat us up so badly". He then goes off on a tangent regarding peoples want for Kuva weapons and the rewards of this system rather than the experience of it all. 

Problems:

1. DE staff is failing to see that WE DON'T MIND ENEMIES THAT CAN BEAT US. We like a challenge.
2. They fail to see that we don't like being beaten UNFAIRLY. We trudge through various forms of RNG without so much as a lore explanation, only to encounter more RNG that is essentially a suicide-roulette where if you guess wrong? There's NOTHING you can do about it. Despite experience, skill, preparation, etc.
3. It shows that DE is releasing content with the knowledge they're going to have to work on this some more after they release other stuff and "when they have the time". 

Solutions:

1. Players have been asking for more challenge. But we want fair challenges. This ongoing trend that DE has acknowledged themselves along with our constant feedback leaves no excuse for this. 
2. DE needs to remove some aspects of RNG from the Lich system. Most requested it seems is the suicide-roulette that is Requiem Mod guessing. Just give us a fighting chance. Give us a way to encounter Liche's without having to go to our doom to progress. 
3. I don't claim to know the inner workings of the people behind stocks and shares and making the final decision for the direction of the game, but the community has been *quite* vocal about their displeasure with the Lich system. Leaving it to work on other things only lets it stew and fester within the community. Many people keep saying, "We have no problem waiting longer if it means a better finished product". In addition DE is trying to meet a New  Years deadline but honestly, most of the community seems fine with letting them work on things and not have to crunch like crazy to get it out. 

Personal Thoughts:

DE needs to properly acknowledge the community displeasure and anger towards the Lich system. We need that transparency that they've been known for in the past. All we've gotten is blatant statements saying, "Nope. No changes planned. It's staying" despite all our feedback and complaints. This leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the community being simply dismissed as a whole like that. I understand they wanna add to, and work on the Lich system some more as time progresses. That the team worked hard on it and it's been an idea in the works for quite some time. But if DE refuses to change even the base system for it then the complaining and feedback will never stop. 

My personal suggestion?

Ignore the Lich system entirely. Keep providing feedback. And warn new players not to touch it in its current state. 

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

Yeah pretty much. Because they’ve absolutely ignored every suggestion to reduce the RNG and grind in favor of adding things that “lessen the impact” of getting a Kuva weapon you don’t want.

[Sunder]

1 minute ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Yeah pretty much. Because they’ve absolutely ignored every suggestion to reduce the RNG and grind in favor of adding things that “lessen the impact” of getting a Kuva weapon you don’t want.

Which if you recall....DE used to spend multiple Devstreams saying, "We want to reduce the grind." 

They wanted to make our efforts feel validated and rewarded. What happened? 

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

1 minute ago, Sunder said:

Which if you recall....DE used to spend multiple Devstreams saying, "We want to reduce the grind." 

They wanted to make our efforts feel validated and rewarded. What happened? 

Probably the content droughts. Hard to make money off no content, so you have to over compensate for that loss when there’s actually content released.

Edited December 9, 2019 by (XB1)GearsMatrix301

[FoxyKabam]

I was so grossed out by what Steve said watching the steam I didn't really register Scott trying to save the day, sorta.

still have no faith in liches or railjack or anything else on its way after the stream mind you, but seeing the whole conversation in text reels some of those feelings that back.

 

[Sunder]

1 minute ago, FoxyKabam said:

I was so grossed out by what Steve said watching the steam I didn't really register Scott trying to save the day, sorta.

still have no faith in liches or railjack or anything else on its way after the stream mind you, but seeing the whole conversation in text reels some of those feelings that back.

 

Make no mistake, he mentioned "changes to the system" after Steve said, "No plans to change them killing you vs you killing them". Also after the fact Steve said he wants to keep this suicide-roulette cause it's, "interesting and unique". They know we don't like it. But they don't want to change it for some reason. We need the issue properly addressed and not swept under the rug by talking about other aspects people have issue with. Till then I'd keep those feelings of being grossed out alive and well. 

[Tyreaus]

What I find astounding is that Rebecca points out "a lot of people [think that the flavor of "them killing you" vs "you killing them" is the antithesis of what liches are", yet that's a surprise question to everyone else. There's a serious breakdown of communication somewhere in that. That, flat out, should not happen.

_{I'll try to bite my tongue regarding Steve's almost total lack of tact and mobility in his reply....would a "oh I didn't know it was that big of an issue, we'll have to look into it more" been so tragic to one's ego?}

[peterc3]

30 minutes ago, Sunder said:

Ignore the Lich system entirely. Keep providing feedback. And warn new players not to touch it in its current state. 

Make sure nothing can be backed up by any actual data and refuse to believe people might actually like it. If it is so bad, there's no reason to warn off people from trying it.

You don't actually know your position is the majority position and you don't like that fact.

[Sunder]

5 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

-snip-

A, "Serious breakdown of communication" is an understatement when you have a community team as big and as involved as the one working at DE. 

Not to mention the Dev's visit the forums and reddit occasionally and see what the community is talking about. They definitely knew and still know we don't like it. 

[Sunder]

2 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

Make sure nothing can be backed up by any actual data and refuse to believe people might actually like it. If it is so bad, there's no reason to warn off people from trying it.

You don't actually know your position is the majority position and you don't like that fact.

I want Warframe to grow and expand. I love this game. 

But if newer players go through all the trials and missions and get to this, see it for what it is, get frustrated and leave? That's not good for the game as a whole. As such all I can do is warn people off from it. At the very least if they try it they won't have the same expectations I did when I went into this. "Lessen the blow" so to speak. Far as, "You don't actually know your position is the majority position"? It's true. I don't factually know that. But I also don't see those who supposedly enjoy the system in its current state making threads and constructing feedback for why it should stay the same and remain as-is. I'm basing this off my own experience with the community, the forums, and reddit. 

So your mileage may vary. 

[Melanholic7]

Huge post, decent research. Im realy grateful for ur work, ts. Cant add much after post and all those comments. 

[Emolition]

To me dying to the lich is nothing its 1 push of the button to get back and keep going. It won't fail the mission unless some how your lich spawn 4 times in same mission. Reading some post make it seem like ppl got so big egos from never dying in the game "to easy" that now they have to use revives the perfect survival is gone.

[peterc3]

7 minutes ago, Sunder said:

But if newer players go through all the trials and missions and get to this, see it for what it is, get frustrated and leave? That's not good for the game as a whole.

You've started from an assumed conclusion and worked backwards. The update is bad and anyone touching it will think the game is bad. If this is true, then DE not also coming to the same conclusion means they aren't listening.

What if you are wrong? What if the minority of players who are on the forums or reddit aren't actually representative of the game now, or if they were ever representative? Should DE implement their feedback just because, even if their actual numbers say otherwise?

[DrakeWurrum]

57 minutes ago, Sunder said:

Scott: Uhm, and probably when we regroup in the new year, it'll be addressing those things...so...

^this right here is the one thing I'm holding onto for improving the lich system.

Not gonna hold my breath, but Scott put it out there already that they'll "probably" be addressing our complaints, but the way Steve described the reasoning behind it... sounds like it'll be an upward battle for us to get them to understand why an RNG fail mechanic isn't fun.

4 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

What if the minority of players who are on the forums or reddit aren't actually representative of the game now

That's not really an if. It's a known fact that players in ANY game who go to the forum will be going there to complain. If they're not complaining, they're playing the game and having fun. So that's why dev teams really do have to be careful listening to forum feedback. Because most often... feedback is the polite word used for complaining.

We can't say for sure if what's being vocalized is the majority opinion, or just a few bad players. This is why the devs need to take that feedback "into consideration" and take the time to look at it with a larger scope.

I'm sure they have internal tools that allows them to see if players are actually enjoying the liches, or not. Like... do people keep grinding dozens of them? How quickly are the liches downed? How many players get them to rank 5? How many players STOP making liches? etc etc. That's something they have to figure out.

Edited December 9, 2019 by DrakeWurrum

[Sunder]

5 minutes ago, Melanholic7 said:

Huge post, decent research. Im realy grateful for ur work, ts. Cant add much after post and all those comments. 

Cheers big ears

4 minutes ago, Emolition said:

To me dying to the lich is nothing its 1 push of the button to get back and keep going. It won't fail the mission unless some how your lich spawn 4 times in same mission. Reading some post make it seem like ppl got so big egos from never dying in the game "to easy" that now they have to use revives the perfect survival is gone.

As I've mentioned. I have no problem dying....when it's my fault. Warframe has given us this role of being insanely powerful. We face impossible odds and kill armies. Missions that are 150 against 1. Some people get attached to that role and aspect of the game. Even when we're given ridiculous alerts like an hour of lvl 999 infested, or a mission with nothing but groups of high-ish level manics. We undertake those and play through the challenge. Why? Cause it's fun. Why else would we play? 

But to be given a challenge then told, "You guess wrong and you die. No you can't combat it. No you can't overcome it. We don't care about your time logged, your experience, your preparation, or what friends you bring to help you out. You're dead because I said so." is just....backwards. It's not fun for a lot of people. Players have been conditioned for ages to not like failing. It's what makes games with hard difficulties feel so rewarding when you finally do beat it. With this system that feeling of being rewarded for overcoming something difficult is just gone. 

When a Lich is overcome and finally defeated it's more so, "Finally I guessed right..." instead of, "I finally did it!"

[DrakeWurrum]

14 minutes ago, Emolition said:

To me dying to the lich is nothing its 1 push of the button to get back and keep going. It won't fail the mission unless some how your lich spawn 4 times in same mission. Reading some post make it seem like ppl got so big egos from never dying in the game "to easy" that now they have to use revives the perfect survival is gone.

The problem isn't that we die. The problem is that it's a pass/fail mechanic that no amount of player skill, experience, or gear can account for. Take a lucky guess. Best odds is 1 in 3.

There are 336 permutations of the Requiem mods on your Parazon, so most players are just going to refuse to kill their lich until they at least know exactly which 3 are used, and figure out the order after that.

It doesn't help that we get practically NOTHING for failing the code word, nor anything for ranking up our lich.

Edited December 9, 2019 by DrakeWurrum

[Sunder]

3 minutes ago, DrakeWurrum said:

The problem isn't that we die. The problem is that it's a pass/fail mechanic that no amount of player skill, experience, or gear can account for. Take a lucky guess. Best odds is 1 in 3.

There are 336 permutations of the Requiem mods on your Parazon, so most players are just going to refuse to kill their lich until they at least know exactly which 3 are used, and figure out the order after that.

It doesn't help that we get practically NOTHING for failing the code word, nor anything for ranking up our lich.

And the issue some players see with this is, "Well it's only 1 death. What's the big deal? Just keep playing"

The issue with that is I don't play games to go headfirst into my death and fail. I play games to have fun, be triumphant and overcome challenges and get that sense of satisfaction. And it seems I'm not alone with that. If I do fail? I want it to be my fault. I know it's a cliche at this point but look at Dark Souls. I played through all 3 of those and as hard as some encounters were? I always knew WHY I died. So that when I learned from my mistakes and overcame that challenge? It felt damn good. 

[DrakeWurrum]

9 minutes ago, Sunder said:

And the issue some players see with this is, "Well it's only 1 death. What's the big deal? Just keep playing"

The issue with that is I don't play games to go headfirst into my death and fail. I play games to have fun, be triumphant and overcome challenges and get that sense of satisfaction. And it seems I'm not alone with that. If I do fail? I want it to be my fault. I know it's a cliche at this point but look at Dark Souls. I played through all 3 of those and as hard as some encounters were? I always knew WHY I died. So that when I learned from my mistakes and overcame that challenge? It felt damn good. 

Well said.

I would like to add: a 1 in 336 chance of me killing the lich means there's a 0.2% chance of guessing correctly, and a 99.8% chance of me dying. Why would I go for that, when I could just finish the mission and try later when my chance of guessing correctly is 33.3% instead?
And those odds still aren't very appealing.

Edited December 9, 2019 by DrakeWurrum

[Sunder]

3 hours ago, DrakeWurrum said:

Well said.

I would like to add: a 1 in 336 chance of me killing the lich means there's a 0.2% chance of guessing correctly, and a 99.8% chance of me dying. Why would I go for that, when I could just finish the mission and try later when my chance of guessing correctly is 33.3% instead?
And those odds still aren't very appealing.

 

There's just Too much RNG:

• Running level 20+ missions to get a Kuva Larva
• The weapon your Lich spawns with
• The % elemental bonus said weapon has
• Whether or not they have an Ephemera
• Farming Kuva Siphons in hopes of a relic
• Running fissures and hoping the relic has a requiem mod
• Hoping it's the RIGHT requiem mod
• How many thralls spawn on a node
• How soon your Lich will spawn in-mission if their anger towards you isn't maxed
• Hoping it's YOUR Lich that spawns
• The order of the Requiem
• The order the Requiem is revealed in

We have to go through all this and the only way to find out the order is to what? Commit suicide and test it. Failure is a negative reinforcement and now suddenly we're expected to just throw ourselves at these enemies in hopes that we guessed right. Which as you stated, chances are NOT good. And for those trying to brute force it? They sometimes find the tedious results that the final murmur to be revealed is the first one in the sequence. Meaning they end up trying every bloody method before getting it right. For many this is not an enjoyable experience. Even worse is for the completionists who want 1 of everything and end up going crazy/burning themselves out cause RNG just isn't blessing them this day. 

There's so much just simply out of our control with no way to influence it, that we're just playing a gambling system over and over with gameplay tacked on. 

It's like a loot-box given form. And that form is repetitive gameplay that kills you over and over due to RNG.

[(XBOX)KamikaZSquirrel]

I don't think it's them being selective in feedback or ignoring anything to be fair... There isn't a button mash struggle QTE or anything in this game so it makes perfect sense as to why we die. You grab the lich and inject essentially an anti kuva into it, it doesn't work so he grabs you, breaks your warframe in retaliation because your in its face! 

The grind also has nothing to do with money.. I mentioned it on another topic but basically is this -

Triple A title: EVERYONE = Buy it for $80.

EVERYONE: $80 for 60 hours gaming = Yes please, take my money!

Warframe: EVERYONE = play for free, earn it all free, get free expansions, pay to support if you want.

EVERYONE: Free? Look at that market... look at the release of new skins for 300 plat etc. I've played for 1,000s of hours... triple A titles are better! = I'm not paying for ANYTHING because all you do is want money!.

This community can be quite annoying most of the time..... I saw the stream and thought that despite showing us what they have actually been doing when you all think its terrible is amazing! as well as Empyrean they created hotfixes to make a jury rigged expansion work in the CURRENT game when they didn't have to... I tell you now that studios like EA and Activision don't do this and the latest CoD game cost people $80 for an unfinished game, so too did that joke known as Anthem.... plus you'll wait for an expansion..... that will cost you another $20-$30 with 3 months of no communication outside "We're listening"

[DeMonkey]

8 minutes ago, (XB1)KamikaZSquirrel said:

~snip~

Ah, the inevitable "it's free so DE are above criticism" post.

[(XBOX)KamikaZSquirrel]

1 minute ago, DeMonkey said:

Ah, the inevitable "it's free so DE are above criticism" post.

It's not they're above criticism, it's certain criticism is unwarranted... This game has a lot of flaws but from what I read people are annoyed because Lich changes aren't being made further because the one major update promised since August is taking all their time... looks amazing and as I have tried programming and development of software I know it's not as easy as made out to be. So instead of being amazed or even positive it's been the opposite over a system that in the same stream straight up said it wasn't meant to even be there yet... 

I'm mostly saying that rather than continue being hung up on it and think they only pick and choose what to pay attention to we should be praising what they did show and that all that effort and time has gone into delivering on a promise made last year?? 

It just seems ungrateful and as most posts have at least 2-5 posts about how money hungry they are it just doesn't feel right to not defend it... I don't defend the game saying it's perfect but I can say it's better than nearly EVERYTHING in today's standards for a 0 cost to consumer experience 😃 and that's with it's flaws..

 

[Sunder]

7 minutes ago, (XB1)KamikaZSquirrel said:

It's not they're above criticism, it's certain criticism is unwarranted... This game has a lot of flaws but from what I read people are annoyed because Lich changes aren't being made further because the one major update promised since August is taking all their time... looks amazing and as I have tried programming and development of software I know it's not as easy as made out to be. So instead of being amazed or even positive it's been the opposite over a system that in the same stream straight up said it wasn't meant to even be there yet... 

I'm mostly saying that rather than continue being hung up on it and think they only pick and choose what to pay attention to we should be praising what they did show and that all that effort and time has gone into delivering on a promise made last year?? 

It just seems ungrateful and as most posts have at least 2-5 posts about how money hungry they are it just doesn't feel right to not defend it... I don't defend the game saying it's perfect but I can say it's better than nearly EVERYTHING in today's standards for a 0 cost to consumer experience 😃 and that's with it's flaws..

 

Things might come across as ungrateful now and then but in others eyes it's more-so a type of "tough love". 

I absolutely adore this game. I love it. I loved it since the beginning playing the same few variations of maps over and over again. I loved it enough to buy into the Founders stuff cause I did and still do, want this game to succeed. I talk about it any chance I get when someone brings up videogames. My stories of the characters introduced, how they developed, about our little civil war with the Gradivus Dilemma. All while keeping hush on the insane reveal and emotional rollercoaster that was, "The Second Dream". 

And it's because I love the story and gameplay and community so much that when an update like this comes out, that just feels so....unfinished and stripped? I can't help but feel bothered. Sure I sometimes forget that I'm in love with a creation of a team and feel like I'm in love with the games universe, but that just attests to DE's prowess at world building and pulling me in to their game.

So when something like this is released with all these new weapons and enemies and dialogue and interactions that just is not fun to me? Well I've gotta talk about it. I've got to at least make an effort to find out WHY things are the way they are. How other people feel about it. Get their ideas and bounce them off my own and see how the Dev's react. I created this thread cause I want to draw attention to the lack of polish on the "Old Blood" update. I want to get DE's attention and get Warframe and all its entirety back to being FUN. 

[DeMonkey]

55 minutes ago, (XB1)KamikaZSquirrel said:

It's not they're above criticism, it's certain criticism is unwarranted...

The criticism in the OP isn't. It's one of the best written bits of criticism I've read in a long time.

55 minutes ago, (XB1)KamikaZSquirrel said:

I'm mostly saying that rather than continue being hung up on it and think they only pick and choose what to pay attention to we should be praising what they did show and that all that effort and time has gone into delivering on a promise made last year?? 

I honestly consider that perspective quite gross...

Difficult to articulate properly, but it looks like you're saying that we shouldn't be negative about a current piece of flawed content, and should instead be blindly praising something we don't even have yet?

If that is what you're saying, I implore you to rethink it and perhaps take on a more realistic approach to feedback.

Edited December 9, 2019 by DeMonkey
Saw nothing

[Tyreaus]

59 minutes ago, (XB1)KamikaZSquirrel said:

it makes perfect sense as to why we die. You grab the lich and inject essentially an anti kuva into it, it doesn't work so he grabs you, breaks your warframe in retaliation because your in its face! 

</stares at the alternate command grab when in melee range that is not only avoidable with appropriate distance control but also deals damage and does not necessarily lead to an instant death, no-squad-revival scenario>

Are you sure that's the way it has to go?

38 minutes ago, (XB1)KamikaZSquirrel said:

I'm mostly saying that rather than continue being hung up on it and think they only pick and choose what to pay attention to we should be praising what they did show and that all that effort and time has gone into delivering on a promise made last year?? 

With specific regard to this Russian Roulette mechanic: this was not what they promised last year. And because of that and the follow-up responses to backlash regarding that heel-turn, it's likewise very difficult to praise what they have shown with Empyrean. To put the reason bluntly: we cannot be as certain that's what we'll actually get, even in the longer run.