[RANT] Kuva Lich: The decision to give you a timed choice with no explanation for the outcome is heinous

[Nymheria]

Rant incoming. 

So. I finally managed to gather everything I needed to kill my first ever Kuva Lich. I farmed for all the murmur, I did countless missions to get the damn mods and figured out the order, and I was finally going to kill her. So imagine my surprise when I down her, and I have a choice sprung on me with a very short time limit. No explanation what so ever to what the different outcomes will be. So I, being the paragon player I am, panic and press convert instead of vanquish at the last second. 

Now i'm sitting here, after googling what happens next, with a very empty feeling. I feel so disappointed after doing all that, and nothing to show for it. I really wanted the weapon, so I immediately regretted converting her once I found out what it meant (after googling when the mission ended). 

Now to the important part. I shouldn't have to know beforehand what to do, in order to "make the right choice". You can't just spring a choice on people, with a time limit, without telling them what their choice will mean. I'm incredibly disappointed. You might think I'm overreacting but honestly, this sucks. 

TLDR; PLEASE DON'T SPRING A TIMED CHOICE ON PEOPLE WITHOUT TELLING THEM WHAT THE CHOICE ENTAILS. IT'S HEINOUS. 

Thanks for coming to my TED-talk. 

[Hixlysss]

This is...something of a problem with warframe. Very few things are explained in game. They expect you to read the patch notes, read the wiki, because that is...admittedly what a lot of the player base does.

In the patch notes it explains what vanquish and convert do. The wiki also explains this. It's become standard practice for players to do 1 of 2 things when they download a patch. 1: read the patch notes. 2: ask other players "What the hek is this "Old blood" update?" And proceed to be yelled at to "Read the patch notes."

This is how warframe has been for a long time. Is it good? It functions...could be better, we could use more in game explaination as to rewards for choices, but to be fair the lich was the first to do this. But honestly...you made a mistake and you've learned. One of the high rules of warframe is "The wiki is your friend" and that's no joke. If you're going to get by in warframe, the warframe wiki best be on your favorites tab for you to switch to when needed so you can research things like "What is a Kuva lich?" and...yeah.

[HintOfMalice]

A lot of people are complaining about the Kuva Lich system not being properly explained to players in-game. For the most part, I think it's just people wanting to be spoon-fed. However, you actually raise a very valid point. That's a big decision for you to make without knowing the stakes. This could easily be fixed by adding it to the Tutorial tab in the Kuva Lich menu.

[FLSH_BNG]

The choice was never 'sprung' on the players; the patch notes for the update clearly explain the choice you have after defeating your Kuva Lich.

If you can't bother to look up or ask about a detail for yourself, it hardly does anybody any good to rant about it.

[HintOfMalice]

Just now, FLSH_BNG said:

If you can't bother to look up or ask about a detail for yourself, it hardly does anybody any good to rant about it.

This is the first timed decision in Warframe so far. It's not unreasonable for players to expect some kind of in-game warning.

[DreisterDino]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb Hixlysss:

This is how warframe has been for a long time. Is it good? It functions...could be better, we could use more in game explaination as to rewards for choices, but to be fair the lich was the first to do this. But honestly...you made a mistake and you've learned. One of the high rules of warframe is "The wiki is your friend" and that's no joke. If you're going to get by in warframe, the warframe wiki best be on your favorites tab for you to switch to when needed so you can research things like "What is a Kuva lich?" and...yeah.

 

vor 1 Stunde schrieb FLSH_BNG:

If you can't bother to look up or ask about a detail for yourself, it hardly does anybody any good to rant about it.

 

Some things simply have to be explained Ingame.

Sometimes it feels like DE makes the game confusing on purpose, imo the whole UI team is mislead and doesnt understand what matters.

All they focus on is making the game look good and "orokin'ish", while trying to use the least amount of text possible.

Basic information is missing everywhere in this game.

 

Regarding this issue: Whats the big problem with simply adding ONE MORE LINE below the vanquish/convert that explains it(get weapon/get an ally)?

 

Railjack is a confusing mess aswell. The game itself explains basically anything, i was confused until today what the difference between ordnance and forward artillery is (i didnt know the pilot has a secondary firemode). Then ofc everything needs to have new names, and ofc these names need to sound orokin'ish and cool aswell instead of explaining something. Yes i got through it with the help of clanmembers in the chat and the wiki and reading patch notes, but is this good game-design (UI-Design)? No, its bad game design, its as simple as that and lazy to expect that players find out every single bit of information for themselves.

 

I posted a link to a video from a MTG Dev a few days ago which is about lessons learned in gamedesign, and it fits here aswell:

The lesson on the Thumbnail is something the UI-Team should learn:

"Use pre-existing knowledge to frontload information"

 

Modding a Railjack is pretty much like modding a weapon or Warframe, lots of mechanics are the same, but still EVERYTHING needs to have a cool new name and new art although its basically the same as existing mechanics. Instead of "using pre-existing knowledge to frontload information" their approach here is more like "erase everything players have learned over the past years and replace it with new stuff they have to learn again".

 

We all got used to it, but that doesnt mean that they are not doing a poor job of explaining their game

Simply saying "well you didnt read the patch-notes, your fault idiot" is the wrong approach here.

Anyway, the video if someone is interested 😉

 

 

Edited December 30, 2019 by DreisterDino

[Miser_able]

There is a lich tutorial in game. Though I don't remember if it explains the final choice...

[Nymheria]

22 minutes ago, FLSH_BNG said:

The choice was never 'sprung' on the players; the patch notes for the update clearly explain the choice you have after defeating your Kuva Lich.

If you can't bother to look up or ask about a detail for yourself, it hardly does anybody any good to rant about it.

This is the point of my post. I am not asking to be spoonfed, I have over a 1000 hours in this game. I very rarely get upset about stuff they do, but in this case I simply just don't get it. Like @DreisterDino suggested, why not just add a line of text that says "get the weapon or gain an ally"? I don't feel like that's unreasonable at all. Or, like someone else said, some sort of tutorial. 

[(PSN)Hiero_Glyph]

43 minutes ago, FLSH_BNG said:

The choice was never 'sprung' on the players; the patch notes for the update clearly explain the choice you have after defeating your Kuva Lich.

If you can't bother to look up or ask about a detail for yourself, it hardly does anybody any good to rant about it.

How would you know you need to lookup a detail though until you get to it? It's like building the railjack; you don't know what resources you need unless you use an external source since they remain hidden until you unlock that part.

Keep in mind the default UI setting is to hide labels, so obviously someone at DE thinks not having any information is a good thing. Stupid is as stupid does.

[Marvelous_A]

51 minutes ago, FLSH_BNG said:

The choice was never 'sprung' on the players; the patch notes for the update clearly explain the choice you have after defeating your Kuva Lich.

If you can't bother to look up or ask about a detail for yourself, it hardly does anybody any good to rant about it.

Yeah why would you ask a game to explain what a feature does in game? I always study in Wikipedia after I buy a product to learn how to use it. Those who require an user manual to come with a product are like, total losers.

[Sagittarix]

58 minutes ago, FLSH_BNG said:

If you can't bother to look up or ask about a detail for yourself, it hardly does anybody any good to rant about it.

The problem is probably not the lack of will to look it up but rather that there is no time to do so when the point of decision arrives.

That's like saying one should solve a problem before the problem is known.

Edit: Oh well, I am beating a dead horse by now by addressing this answer.

Edited December 29, 2019 by Sagittarix

[Ariae]

https://userinyerface.com/game.html

I know they've had to rush things and they're most likely overworked considering all the technical difficulties they've overcome/taken upon themselves to solve, but proper UX and conventions need to be followed and having a timer for a critical choice that isn't explained isn't "the player being lazy".
And before you call me out on this I am firstly a game designer and I have about 1800 hours in this game and I love it to death but a lot of time goes into learning what every nook and cranny does so I can enjoy the game without things like this.
I feel this rant and I can only imagine being a new player and being bombarded with either too much info (that isn't relevant at 10 hours of gametime) or no info at all and being told by other players "stop being lazy and look it up on the wiki".

[(PSN)robotwars7]

yeah, not a lot is explained, OP will likely know this now but for anyone else unsure:

- Vanquish kills the Lich, permanently. you will obtain their weapon, as well as their Ephemera if they have one.

- Convert turns the Lich to your side as a friendly NPC that can help you, and in future updates will serve as NPC crew members aboard your Railjack. converting them does NOT give the weapon but you will still get an Ephemera if the Lich has one.

if you want the weapon, Vanquish, if not, Convert.

[Ariae]

2 minutes ago, Sagittarix said:

The problem is probably not the lack of will to look it up but rather that there is no time to do so when the point of decision arrives.

That's like saying one should solve a problem before the problem is known.

Edit: Oh well, I am beating a dead horse by now by addressing this answer.

Not every playstyle involves minmaxing or wiki diving - some, me among them, enjoy experiencing things first hand without reading up on stuff and exploring things rather than knowing things inside out before jumping in - this kind of requires a simple text to explain roughly what each choice means

[darkbrick]

il y a une heure, Hixlysss a dit :

This is...something of a problem with warframe. Very few things are explained in game. They expect you to read the patch notes, read the wiki, because that is...admittedly what a lot of the player base does.

even we have to learn about railjack by ourselves..
thanks for nothing, DE.

[Paradoxity]

What irks me is we've already got a system that would work perfectly well for  the 200 or so micro-tutorials this game needs: Quests. 

I mean, yeah, they  take a while, but think about it: A quest chain that introduces liches, introduces what  they can do (And how you deal with them)  and explains things along the way would have gone a little ways, at least, towards curing some of the ill will about the system. We should have had a quest that went "Hey, looks like you created an immortal grineer jagoff, here's what to do next, here's what it does, here's what it gives at the end" and walked you through every step of a lich... and  then handed the keys to you after that.  

Ditto railjack: Why does Cy, who is so Lazer-focused on creating a competent combat team with the railjack, not demand to see that we at least grasp the basics of railjack operation a la mastery tests from the lotus? Nah, he's totally all about "We don't have time for waiting around because the sentients grow ever closer, but don't worry about how to actually operate it or what anything aboard does, I'm sure you can suss that out as we go" 

 

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

I’m honestly surprised you didn’t kill them out of sheer spite for your experience. That’s what I’ve seen most people do.

[(PSN)calvin_0]

1 hour ago, (PS4)robotwars7 said:

- Convert turns the Lich to your side as a friendly NPC that can help you, and in future updates will serve as NPC crew members aboard your Railjack. converting them does NOT give the weapon but you will still get an Ephemera if the Lich has one.

soo, after you convert a Lich, how do you use them in mission? do you equip them like companion or summon them like a specter?

[(PSN)robotwars7]

15 minutes ago, (PS4)calvin_0 said:

soo, after you convert a Lich, how do you use them in mission? do you equip them like companion or summon them like a specter?

not sure, I'm after weapons so all mine are killed. I think it's like a Specter though, as people I've seen using theirs don't start a game with them, they just appear.

[Hypernaut1]

Hmmm.....I kind of liked that. I wasn't sure either. I like a game to put me on the spot every now and then

[(XBOX)Erudite Prime]

37 minutes ago, (PS4)calvin_0 said:

soo, after you convert a Lich, how do you use them in mission? do you equip them like companion or summon them like a specter?

 

20 minutes ago, (PS4)robotwars7 said:

not sure, I'm after weapons so all mine are killed. I think it's like a Specter though, as people I've seen using theirs don't start a game with them, they just appear.

You guys could always read the wiki instead of asking questions like this. You cannot equip them or summon them, they choose to appear at random.

[PookieNumnums]

Its been out long enough for you to have learned what they do just by hearing people talk about it. At the very least id guess you knew there was a choice. To not know youd have to been ignoring region AND trade chat, and any form of clan or alliance chat. 

There is plenty of time to decide what to do. 

For the future.. just run random requiem relics. Take whatever mods show up and then trade them for the ones you need. Much faster that way. 

Also, on topic, you ARE totally right though. 

How hard is it to put (and take weapon) or (and make a friend) below the options to convert or vanquish. 

Im sorry that you lost the option for the weapon. I know that must really feel like a kick in the jibblies after the amount of work (even when done in the most efficienty way) it takes to do finish one. 

 

[PookieNumnums]

Also, imagine if converting them actually converted them into 20 or 50k kuva. 

[Paradoxity]

1 hour ago, PookieNumnums said:

Its been out long enough for you to have learned what they do just by hearing people talk about it. At the very least id guess you knew there was a choice. To not know youd have to been ignoring region AND trade chat, and any form of clan or alliance chat. 

To be fair, here, I know I'm not the only one in a solo guild who's got region and trade chat shut off. Just saying, this isn't exactly outside of the realm of possibility. 

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

4 hours ago, FLSH_BNG said:

The choice was never 'sprung' on the players; the patch notes for the update clearly explain the choice you have after defeating your Kuva Lich.

If you can't bother to look up or ask about a detail for yourself, it hardly does anybody any good to rant about it.

I've never understood how people excuse behavior like this.  "The information is available outside the game, you have no right to complain about the game not explaining what's going on in-game."  How hard is it to explain what's going on the first time you run through a new system like literally any competent developer would do?  

Instead of them putting in the work on any form of a proper tutorial for anything, DE does one of two things:  Very poorly explain what is going on to the player via scripted voice overs that are inaccurate and don't actually mesh with what's going on and continue to speak even if you get past where the talking head thinks you are throwing them out of sync, like for Eidolon hunts and Kuva Siphons, or they literally explain NOTHING in the game itself and just expect you to wiki it, like with Liches.  I AM a wiki guy so I read up before my first Terry hunt.  I panicked when I had done everything the wiki said to do for a capture and Onko was still telling me I wasn't doing it right.  Turns out Onko is just a #*!%ing moron.  They have zero excuse to be as big as they are and for warframe to be as big as it is and for them to still be relying on the player base to explain things to themselves.  Especially in newly released content.  How they managed to work on Liches and Railjack for as long as they did and still have both come out in the state they did is beyond me.