Addressing Murmur Grind and Mission Variant Bloat

[TrilliumStarbreeze]

Currently, there's a whole lot of mission variants, which in many ways overlap.

• Kuva Lich territory is higher level, replaces enemies, and kinda doesn't drop much until you kill the Lich, except for Requiem Relics.
• Nightmare missions are higher level, have special modifiers, and drop specific mods.
• Derelict Vault runs drop specific mods, and... (though Keys) have special modifiers.
• Invasion missions replace enemies and have special drops (after several runs). Additionally, the last two become kinda obsolete after you got all the mods and Vandal/Wraith weapons, and you only begrudgingly do them for Nightwave.
• Kuva Siphons and Flood add Grineer enemies and have special drops (Kuva and Requiem Relics)
• Syndicate missions have special drops... and that's it.

This is a lot of bloat, especially when you remember Sorties, Arbitrations, and Void Rifts. (I would've loved Sorties to be folded into shared system, but their daily nature kinda precludes that)

Also there's thematic discrepancy. Invasions cause Corpus to panic and hire Tenno, while Lich taking over their turf (or Kuva units coming to siphon Kuva) doesn't?

 

What I want to suggest is gonna address two issues: Invasions/Nightmares will become relevant, aaaand while farming Murmurs you'll also feel like you're accomplishing some smaller short-term goals with minor but nice rewards.

It goes like this:

1) A lot more Invasions, namely Grineer ones. Reward would be generally smaller, picked from a much bigger pool than now (Stuff like Murmur bundles (e.g. x7 Murmurs or something), Requiem Mods, small amounts of Kuva, occasional Riven Slivers, maybe some unique Parazon mods, Syndicate medallions, Debt-Bonds, Cardbides/Diodes/Pustrels/Copernics, Tellurium, small amounts of Ducats, Void Traces, etc)

2) Your Lich simply controls a planet or multiple ones, not concrete nodes. When you do Invasions on a planet your Lich controls, OPPOSING Grineer, it is kinda like current Thrall hunts, you murder Thralls and gain Murmurs. When you're SUPPORTING Grineer, enemy has Intelligence Agents (Corpus) and Data-Eaters (Infested) who drop Murmurs for you. Lich only has chance to spawn when you're opposing the Grineer. A side bonus of this would be the kinda-unique tileset of Galleon/Obelisk boarding would get more exposure. Lich would only get kicked off the planet if all Invasions on that planet are resolved, when it would just move to a different planet.

3) All of this raises a problem - if Invasion level scales with the host the way current Thrall missions do, Invasions become inaccessible to lower level players, who actually need regular rewards. To compensate, Invasions (and Nightmares) might gain random conditions, from the pool of Sortie modifiers, Nightmare modifiers, and certain Disruption effects (like nerfed version of Minefield), combined with moderate level increase. This would curb the power of higher level players just enough to make things somewhat balanced.

4) But what about challenge? Here's where Nightmare missions come in. They become merged with Vaults, pooling Nightmare and Corrupted mods together. They lose "no shields" rule (because its kinda pointless at this point, all it does is disable a few frames, pfft) but require a Dragon Key to enter. In addition to everything, it has an Orokin Vault. If player who opens the Vault has an active Lich, that Lich attacks him to steal the vault artefact. If player has no Lich, Corrupted strikeforce spawns, kinda like it happens in Derelicts right now. This allows the player to take fight directly to their Lich if they so desire, and also lets them fight Murmurs fighting Liches, but with added challenge from Dragon Keys.

5) Grineer mini-Invasions would also happen on any planet that has Kuva Fortress nearby, with some Invasion missions becoming randomly nominated as Kuva Siphons (while retaining all features and modifiers of Invasions), and Nightmare missions becoming Kuva Floods (while retaining all features of new Nightmares). Destroying a Siphon would have an increased chance to make a Lich pop up if anyone in the team has an active one.

6) Syndicate missions could be an extra challenge missions. Each Syndicate would sell (very cheaply) a Dragon Key-like Gear item, which, when equipped, would only match you with people not hated by that Syndicate when doing Invasions and Nightmares. Entering a mission with, let's call it, Eye of Suda, would provide you with Suda operatives, generate d6 Suda medallions on the map, grant Thralls and equivalents a tiny chance to drop said medallions, and guarantee that New Loka or Perrin Sequence assassin squad will come knocking (kinda like a delayed beacon). To compensate for all the bonuses, the item might either grant debuff, like Dragon Key (boring), or force you to perform a Syndicate specific task - e.g. scan 10 creatures or objects for Suda, kill 5 Eximus for Arbiters, etc. Failure to perform the task would take away all Standing gain and Syndicate medallions you would've have received from that mission. This would add some interesting dynamic to missions.

7) What happens to Derelicts? Well, right now they honestly kinda wasted out there. The entrance keys you craft out of coordinates are not a barrier, not even an inconvenience, just a relic of the past. In my opinion, Derelicts should no longer be a separate "planet" on the Star Chart. Add a few to Eris as regular missions. Add a few to other planets as Dark Sectors. Have Infested Invasions be sometimes set on Derelict tileset, as a reference to Infestation redirecting derelicts onto collision course with planets in Arlo's Nightwave.

7a) This leaves us with 4 Infested bosses (Mutalist Alad V, Jordas, Lephantis and Prelate) all stuck on Eris though. Now here ship coordinates could really prove useful. Remake current infested boss keys into sort of Locators that Grendel uses, to challenge the Infested bosses on random Dark Sectors (one may need to stay on Eris though so the planet has its own final boss).

 

As a result, you'd only have to choose between "regular mission" and "Invasion mission" in most cases, severely reducing bloat, Murmur farm would be sweetened by additional goals and intermediate rewards, modes that generally become obsolete by mid-game would become relevant, and underrated tilesets would get more exposure. The game would become more... coherent.

Edited January 18, 2020 by TrilliumStarbreeze