Old-Blood Fix/development Ideas

[Paledomain]

I've just been watching Brozime's video on "Lets Fix Kuva Liches - Warframe Discussion'", and there I've come across some exceptionally good feedback from 2 commenters.

User Lexandritte says:

"I've only played like a dozen hours of Shadow of Mordor, and since Liches are directly influenced by that, comparisons are inevitable.

Orks in SoM have two different levels of dynamism: your actions to them on individual level (finding out info on them, weakening them), and interactions with each other (rivalries, duels, promotions).

Liches in WF are insaaaaanely static. They have one approach with maybe some shortcuts if you are lucky with Requiem guesses and that's that. They have no group interactions (duh), but also no interactions with the world (because influence nodes are their own little islands), and you can't go after the Lich the multitude of ways you can go after an Ork.

I feel like, to begin with, we need variety in the ways you can approach the Lich other than "stab 130 thralls". Examples:

- Do a capture, interception or spy mission to learn Lich weaknesses / resistances, other than being told flat out by UI. Have more extreme weaknesses like "Takes 500% damage from Bows" or even "can be sneak attacked" so you can tailor approach to each Lich more.

- Do a survival / defense / disruption to deliver a blow to Lich empire, diminish their spread of influence, drop down their "hazard level" in some way.

- Have missions with bonus objectives, like "kill 200 enemies under 3 minutes", so that would reaaaally piss the Lich off and they would definitely show up, or "complete all 3 spy vaults undetected", so that you get a bigger bonus on the Lich info / weakness / they can't retaliate.

- If Liches can't interact with other Liches, have them interact with Syndicates. Hire the Syndicate you are buddies with for syndicate rep to deal a blow to the Lich. Have them tell you their weakness. Have them blow up Lich's base of operations. Have a Lich hire a Syndicate that hates YOU to do something to you. New Loka got hired by a Kuva Lich and now Kuva Lich thralls deal additional toxic damage because those hippies sold them deadly neurotoxin. Tie the islands together.

Change the way Thralls and Requiem works. As you've said, have Thralls spawn in missions with other factions, but rather than just a random dude with blue glow, have elite packs, like Grustag Three. Heavy Kuva Grineer groups of 3-5 that WRECK S#&$, and you need to put some work in to bring them down, but you get more out of it. Tie this with the more "mastermind" system of Requiem guesses, get rid of it as Mods entirely, make it's own UI for Parazon and attempt tracking, like you are trying to hack a genome sequence. Make it all spooky. You can even keep the Requiem Tier 5 Relic system, but you would get Requiem "charges" rather than mods. Have it be it's OWN window, with it's OWN info, so it would actually EXPLAIN to you how it works. There's no in-game tutorial, last I checked, for what Requiem mods are, where to get them or how they work, it's all patch notes and word of mouth.

Let us test out Requiems on Thralls squads. Failed Parazon attempts on the Lich themselves? Instead of killing you, the Lich "dies" but comes back, with a possibility of mutation. The more "off" your guess was, the more severe the mutation. Might compelely reshuffle the weaknesses / resistances, give them 200% damage buff or -80% health debuff, make them hiccup every 3 seconds, make them spread toxic gas everywhere. DYNAMISM!

Kuva Liches right now only steal things from you to motivate people who won't be otherwise to go after them and get their stuff back. As it is, stealing does nothing but be about 3-hour inconvenience in getting your stuff back. Have their "influence" be something more... influential and hazardous. When it was a clan-based system, there was suggestion they could #*!% with your research or Dojo. Have Lich send actual hit-squads of elite Thralls after you in regular missions like Syndicates do. Have them lose weaknesses or gain resistances as they level up. Have them get a bodyguard squad when they show up. I keep trying to think of the ways they can #*!% with your progressions or resources or money, but people would hate that in multiplayer grind game... Have Liches become tougher other than becoming bigger bullet sponges, is what I mean.

And finally, Converted Liches. There's NO EXPLANATION in-game for how you convert them, or why, why they work for you suddenly, or what happened, at all. Like, there's a general guess that you've... purged them of the "bad" Kuva?... Like... What? More info, please? It feels so bolted on top just because SoM had an Ork convert option, and that they wanted you to have something to do with them if you didn't want to kill them for their bad weapon roll and get nothing. I'm hoping Kuva Lich RailJack Crew might put at least some of that to better use than "spawn another Specter for 2 minutes when you die". If I have a personal coterie of Liches, let me send them out on missions against other Liches, Assassin Brotherhood style. Let me make THEM do S#&$ for me."

Later, as an answer to this comment, user Pifilix XIV adds:

"Plus, make it that you ACTUALLY see the bloody weapon which the kuva lich wields when transformed, like in SoW, the class of the uruk represented their base class (dual axe guy-> becomes a berserker style guy, and so on) and heck, make it more of an affect what kind of kill it was. For example: When you blast the guy with a torid, the guy has a molten face. Or when you grilled the guy with volt, he has electric scarring or a blood shot eye. And so on...

Aswell make it so that the kuva lich actually looks different from the others, for example have them have all kinds of camo, with the kuva fort, kuva lich having kuva guard outfit. Heck, make it a possibility of getting a kuva lich in PoE, with having special designs.

ASWELL make the kuva liches more visually distinctive, for #*!%s sake... make them feel a bit different even personality wise.. Like uruks in SoW, they had different dialog based on Faction and origin. So ? How about some kuva liches just stupid dolts and even straight up crazy, and have them jumble. But others just be sadists who love to kick around anyone who comes across them (HECK have have different reactions, like in SoW, when they see a caragor... instead of merely jumpign ship THEY FLEEE So make it so that you have a chance to run after the lich and pump them with lead) or heck ! Have certain "under branches" of different Kuva liches, with each a slight bit different personality. For example grineer from Ceres act more agressively, and kuva liches from saturn act more reserved, and from neptune act more inteligent."
 

I believe they have very good feedback to offer on the subject. My feedback on the matter is, as I've stated it in Iwolpy's Comments on 'Saryn Nerf, Liches "Die", Empyrean Info w/ delayed systems: "No" Solo, Devstream & More (Warframe)' video:

"they did say they were inspired by shadow of mordor/war, which works very well with this method. if the player chooses an incorrect parazon mod combination, the game enters into a quick-time event where if the players fails, they die and the lich levels up and gets stronger, but if they succeed, the lich escapes. Again on the same vein, If the player has the correct combination, the lich dies and then revives weaker. The player could decide to convert the lich any time when they kill them, but it would have less chance of working out: If the player tires to convert the lich another quick time event comes up (which gets harder to keep up with at every lich level up): If they fail they die and the lich levels up, otherwise the lich is converted."

[Traumtulpe]

Reading your post makes me sad for all the lost potential of the lich system.

At the moment liches are just "press x to get the same Grineer you got the last 20 times, and hope he is shiny / has the weapon you still didn't get - then be disappointed and work for 2 hours just to get rid of him".

[Paledomain]

Agreed. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't be this sad about it if this was a work in progress. But DE gave this to us as a "finished" product, and if I didn't misunderstand it, Steve made it obvious during last devstream that our feedback about this wasn't welcome because "this" was his vision.

[Paledomain]

More feedback from Brozime's video on "Lets Fix Kuva Liches - Warframe Discussion'" by Pifilix XIV:

"Heck, i would love to see them expand the "emotions" For example: Reaction to kubrow is either: Hates kubrows, which causes them to go into a rage and murder the poor dog, and afterwards go after you Scared of them, which causes them to run away and try to flee (like capture targets) and then weak to them, which makes their damage to go down, and receive more damage from them. (like having an alergic reaction to kubrow fur) Same for kavats and children (would make sense for animals, but i guess operator just puts them into a state of horror or mentally fart ?) Heck, have them have similiar reactions to statuses, for example hates being set on fire, so avoid using heat. Or heck, have them have more "detailed" weaknesses and reistances, for example:

Have them have like... "Ballistic padding" Which makes them resistance to inpact and blast damage, but makes them weaker to slash and puncture. or heck, have them have certain passives, which affect their enemies aswell (for example the lich hates cats, so he will shoot the cats and the granny aswell), or for example that if he hates toxin damage, he will attack noxes. Heck, how about have kuva liches which are based on different grineer units ? For example a bombard lich has a jet pack, but has a weakspot as his back to cause extra damage. Or a nox lich which has a protected screen, but when it breaks... it creates an AOE which damages EVERYONE or heck, have it be like that the kuva lich hates other factions aswell, stuff like "Hates corpus", so when he appears in a corpus tileset, he gets angry... but when he for example: "Weak to infested", then his dmg is weakened and he gets dog piled by infested (IF we get kuva liches appear in non grineer tilesets)

Plus, have actually different "Classes" Of kuva liches, for example a technician Kuva lich uses traps and keeps away from the enemy, but a bruiser just rushes in and kicks the hell out of you. Variety is inportant in Randomized games"

and:

"Then have him actually spawn thralls, but they attack everyone ? So its more fair, plus hilarious to watch"

@lexandritte for a large percent of the original ideas here

I'll keep posting creative and fun comments and ideas I come across here. I hope at least some of the devs actually end up noticing this.