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Dev Workshop - Kuva Lich Changes Coming Soon™ PART 2


[DE]Rebecca

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These improvements are good, but I'm not going to be "OK" with the system until RNG values on weapon drops are removed - all this mess where you can add values together is stepping around the real problem. Same for Railjack, by the way - RNG values on RNG drops are not acceptable - if I wanted to play a KR/CN MMO I would.

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1 hour ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Valence Transfer Infusion

  • First introduced in 26.0.6, Valence Transfer was designed to address owning duplicate Kuva weapons with different unique innate damage bonuses. Giving you the ability to replace a Kuva weapon’s innate damage bonus (plus investments like Forma, Focus Lens etc) with one from another Kuva weapon was a good start, but we can push this even further!

    Valence Transfer now also boosts your Kuva weapons innate damage bonus. Examples:
  • Your Kuva Kohm with 25% damage can be infused into your 40% weapon, to make it 44%
  • Your Kuva Kohm with 40% damage can be infused into your 25% weapon, to make it 44%
  • Your Kuva Kohm with 25% damage can be infused into your 44% weapon, to make it 48.4%

Your Kuva weapon duplicates now offer a gradual progression towards a “perfect” Kuva weapon, which would reflect a 60% damage value, if you choose to pursue this path.

 

@[DE]Rebecca Thankyou for listening. It took longer than it should but we got there. As an addendum to what is proposed here, would it be possible to chose the element we keep for the weapon we are Valencing? Say a Brakk with toxin, is being combined with a Brakk with cold. We can choose to go either toxin or cold as the final combination?

Also, and this might be a fair compromise for DE and the players; there's been a fair few complaints regarding forma to upgrade the weapon mod capacity to max. Would it be possible to upgrade the weapons with each forma added, up to 60%; the reason being compromise as there are people that do buy forma bundles. It would be a win win for DE and players alike. It also gives players options, upgrade through forma, or go for a duplicate if they do not wish to waste a forma on the weapon.

Otherwise, this coming update is a breath of fresh air and a very good step in the right direction.

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2 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

-snip-

2 hours ago, Abraxas said:

C'mon, guys. Please, do something about grinding murmurs. It gets old after managing to do the first Lich...

DE I got to be real. Abraxas has a major point here. Here's what I think should be done about this.

Lich Thralls:
It would be much better if either the rate of getting murmurs would get buff by a multiplier of around 2x - 2.5x the current rate or we are guaranteed to get kuva per thrall kill let alone the lich see next section of this post for details. My intent is to make farming lich thralls worth while and not a total slog to farm like they are right now. My preferred method would make a balance of both if possible if not then maybe make farming thralls more worth while to make up for the time it takes to farm the murmurs.

Kuva Rewards from Thralls and the Kuva Lich:
If we do get guaranteed kuva from thralls and lich how I see it as appropriate for those using kuva for rerolling rivens at a daily basis. To make it worth while 100 kuva per thrall kill guarantee and about 10k kuva per lich vanquish or convert guarantee would make the murmur grind be not as much a slog because kuva is a evergreen reward The kuva would be shared for the entire squad of course. This alone could make the kuva lich system more worth while as a whole.

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vor 1 Stunde schrieb [DE]Rebecca:

2 more Weapons entering the Kuva Fold!

I was done with that terrible system... now you make me go back and suffer more. Great, just great.. months after me completing it you finally realise that its bad and needs a change.🤬

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Here's some ways to actually make the system not be terrible:

  • Have the guesses run through each Parazon Mod spot even on an initial fail
    • This reduces the grind as a person can see how many of their Parazon mods are incorrect in their current placement.
  • Allow unwanted Kuva weapons to be turned in for "Kuva Points"
    • This would allow players to then spend these points on various items that could be alternatively acquired via RNG from the Liches
      • Have the "Kuva Point Store" contain the various items that the Liches can drop. Have the weapons use their RNG-formula on the stats, with those stats rotating every-so-often, but have the Ephemeras permanent fixtures. This would allow Ephemeras to be available in the manner that fits with the original intention of Ephemeras ("...can only be earned and crafted by the brave").
  • Reduce the amount of forma to max a Kuva weapon.
    • The idea of using forma to repeatedly level a kuva weapon should be something more "special". It can fit for rare-occurence weapons like the Paracesis, but throwing this at all Kuva weapons feels forced and purely to artificially inflate the grind of leveling.
      • Just adjust the forma needed to 2; one forma to allow up to level 35, another forma to get it up to 40.
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Wait, why are we getting rid off the Kuva Lich kill mechanic?

There's no reason for it? It's actually cool to fibally have something in game just show you your place for once, even when it has almost no effect on the mission. One out of four/six revives gone? Whoo boy. 

Also the ephemera chances being higher is another no for me, that would just kill trading even more and while I understand that's a net positive for the company, but I've lost a huge social component out of the game because trading is nowadays nonexistent, prime items are a joke on how inexpensive they are, almost everything can be aquired too easy solo etc.

Other than that, super positive changes on player choice and the converted Lich mechanics. If only requiem mods were infinite uses, leaving Requiem relics for riven/kuva farming.

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So, I imagine nobody is going to like this idea but me, but I like how Kuva Liches function in their missions--as a random, Death Squad-like encounter--but if they're really mad at us, why are they not hunting us down in other missions as well? I think it would really add to how 'connected' Kuva Liches felt to everything else (which if I do recall, was one of the problems with Warframe that you wanted to fix--something about disconnected "islands?") if they had a chance of disrupting a few of your missions. Maybe you could make it so that a Kuva Lich has a higher chance of spawning if there are fewer people in your squad. This would also give you a chance to flesh out some quirks that otherwise go unnoticed/unused like Hatred of Infested/Corpus/Corrupted, because let's be honest here, how many opportunities will I have to exploit my Kuva Lich's hatred for a faction if all s/he's ever seen with are Grineer peons?

Furthermore, although this can likely be put on the relative back-burner until you feel you've solved the current issues with Liches, we certainly need more voices/personalities for our Kuva Liches. Statistics Girl and Comedy Boy are nice, and I love both of my converted Liches so far, but that's just it: why would I convert an exact replica of a Kuva Lich I already have? From that point on, they all feel less and less unique, and more and more like cardboard cutouts with different paint-jobs, although the slight changes to the pitch of each Lich's voice was a nice touch. And, you don't have to get a unique voice actor for every personality or anything, these are clones, but some more variety would spice the process up a bit, is all, at least for me.

Just some ideas.

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There's some good changes, but they only address 1 of what I see as being 3 issues. The remaining two are: Persistence and Island Content syndrome.

Liches were introduced to us as a "persistent" enemy, but in the interest of making them grindable for rewards they've almost completely lost that aspect. A player can easily create, fight, and defeat a Lich within a few hours. My suggestion is that you make it so vanquishing or converting a Lich isn't permanent. When you do so they simply go inactive for a time, and then can return via some mechanic, with new weapons, element, damage %, ephemera chance and a couple of new abilities based on whatever warframe beat them. Eventually, say after 5 defeats, player get the option to permanently kill or convert a Lich. This would allow the lich to still be farmable, while making the character more permanent.

The second problem, much like the Open Worlds and Railjack, is that the whole Lich system feels totally isolated from the rest of the game and I don't think they need to be. The system even now is robust enough to be more integrated into the wider experience. Have non-converted Liches (including the "inactive" ones, see above) spawn as random bosses, level appropriate and with one health bar, in random missions, like Stalker. Make it possible to reclaim stolen resources without going through the whole process of defeating the Lich proper and finally, have Liches spawn at any point in the game. Yes, even before War Within; It's not spoilers, it's foreshadowing, something the narrative of Warframe frankly needs a lot more of anyway. Obviously, pre-TWW players would not be able to actually do Lich missions, but just having this single character, with them for most of the game, randomly showing up to fight them, would be a great experience.

The only other thing I would have suggested is removing the opt-in nature of the system entirely, but if that's now tied to selecting weapons, I can't think of a way to do that. Still, it would help a lot if some way could be determined.

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4 minutes ago, Sean said:

The idea of using forma to repeatedly level a kuva weapon should be something more "special". It can fit for rare-occurence weapons like the Paracesis, but throwing this at all Kuva weapons feels forced and purely to artificially inflate the grind of leveling.

  • Just adjust the forma needed to 2; one forma to allow up to level 35, another forma to get it up to 40.

 

This would be great.

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I am the only one that like the fact that they kill us on a wrong attempt? For once we got our a$$ kicked , tbh to me it was a good idea. I feel like some people have too much ego to complain about this death mecanic like really

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Nice changes to improve consistency of lich kill rewards! Can't say I really minded getting my back broken by the lich personally, it was a nice bit of flavour for the lich system, but as a solo player it did usually just mean reviving and moving on basically consequence free. I'm sure it's a lot more frustrating when you're not getting yourself up like that though.

I would like to see the process become a little more beginner friendly though - primarily to do with warning players about the consequences of creating a Kuva Lich in the first place given that they can reach sortie boss levels when they rank up and are best fought after getting your hands on all the requiem mods (for obvious reasons). The worst part of the grind to kill a lich really is getting requiem mods in the first place. They're admittedly in an okay spot though given their 3 uses and part in getting weapons that frankly rival Primes.

Related to the grind of getting requiem mods: Ayatan amber stars being on the common drop table for requiem relics feels like a real kick in the teeth, frankly. It'd be a lot less gutting to farm for those mods if there wasn't a chance to receive something I can literally loot multiple of in a random beginner mission. Even the standard Forma blueprint would be a nice replacement, but getting 3 of those amber stars in a row (earlier this day, no less) from radiant relics felt really bad.

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4 minutes ago, Sailakarm said:

Furthermore, although this can likely be put on the relative back-burner until you feel you've solved the current issues with Liches, we certainly need more voices/personalities for our Kuva Liches. Statistics Girl and Comedy Boy are nice, and I love both of my converted Liches so far, but that's just it: why would I convert an exact replica of a Kuva Lich I already have? From that point on, they all feel less and less unique, and more and more like cardboard cutouts with different paint-jobs, although the slight changes to the pitch of each Lich's voice was a nice touch. And, you don't have to get a unique voice actor for every personality or anything, these are clones, but some more variety would spice the process up a bit, is all, at least for me.

Just some ideas.

I also feel the same that liches should have more personalities, though I'll be honest we should focus on the system itself first before any other stuff like this.

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1 minute ago, Lizux said:

I am the only one that like the fact that they kill us on a wrong attempt? For once we got our a$$ kicked , tbh to me it was a good idea. I feel like some people have too much ego to complain about this death mecanic like really

Personally, I don't really mind that mechanic, but I don't make my Warframes indestructible, either. I'm still killed rather easily if I'm not actively trying not to die, and I like it that way. Sadly, it seems more people dislike it then like it, so that's just the way it's gonna be.

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il y a 3 minutes, (NSW)Conn1496 a dit :

Nice changes to improve consistency of lich kill rewards! Can't say I really minded getting my back broken by the lich personally, it was a nice bit of flavour for the lich system, but as a solo player it did usually just mean reviving and moving on basically consequence free. I'm sure it's a lot more frustrating when you're not getting yourself up like that though.

I would like to see the process become a little more beginner friendly though - primarily to do with warning players about the consequences of creating a Kuva Lich in the first place given that they can reach sortie boss levels when they rank up and are best fought after getting your hands on all the requiem mods (for obvious reasons). The worst part of the grind to kill a lich really is getting requiem mods in the first place. They're admittedly in an okay spot though given their 3 uses and part in getting weapons that frankly rival Primes.

Related to the grind of getting requiem mods: Ayatan amber stars being on the common drop table for requiem relics feels like a real kick in the teeth, frankly. It'd be a lot less gutting to farm for those mods if there wasn't a chance to receive something I can literally loot multiple of in a random beginner mission. Even the standard Forma blueprint would be a nice replacement, but getting 3 of those amber stars in a row (earlier this day, no less) from radiant relics felt really bad.

I really like the ayatan on my side , you get so much Ayatan statue from Arbitration that you need so much of ayatan amber

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I would really like to see the murmur grind be addressed and lessened. I don’t expect it to be doable in 10 minutes. But for something that’s meant to be repeated again and again, it takes too long. It’s especially bad if you are like me and do not want to deal with level 100 lich missions (because frankly, Warframe is not fun to play at level 100), as your progress will be severely slowed by not attempting to stab the lich every time it shows up.

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Thank you for acting on feedback and HUGE props to Steve for admitting the system was rushed! Waiting to see what else includes the radical changes you told us to expect in the last devstream.

Some concerns I still have with the system:

  • Personality variations are limited, making the liches forgettable
  • The name generator was a nice meme for a while, but I don't think anyone can take the chosen champion of the Queens, the warlord of the Old Blood, seriously if their name is BUTT BOPP BIPP BAGG
  • Even though all the fixes will make the system more enjoyable, none of them address how short the gameplay loop is. In the early stages of dev, Liches were supposed to be a long term adversary, and I know that Steve said the loop was dramatically shortened so that the players could get their rewards sooner, but that's not the only way!

 

How to make the loop longer without prolonging the reward interval?

The current loop has only two escalation steps:
1) Kill Thralls for MURMURS(100%)
2) Kill Lich for WEAPON(100%) and EPHEMERA(10%)

Current math is that you have to kill 180 Thralls to unlock the entire REQUIEM, and the guessing game for their positions can take anywhere between 3 to more than 10 attempts. You have 2 steps to do, but they are repetitive/painful and even when you complete them, you still need to rely on luck to kill your Lich. With this in mind, I propose adding another escalation step. The formula would look like this.

1) Going into the KUVA FORTRESS to find out where the influence of your Lich is. This is done by doing high level nodes (level 60-80) on the KUVA FORTRESS set. Stealing info (SPY, MOBILE DEFENSE, etc.) with special transmissions from the QUEEN. By completing a total of 9 missions (3 missions for each Lieutenant), you will unlock 3 random planets where the LIEUTENANTS of your Lich are.

2) Eliminating the LIEUTENANTS. This is where the MURMUR farming loop goes. You will go to influence nodes on a random planet and kill Thralls for Murmurs just like you do in the current system, but the difference is that when you fill up the Murmur bar, a LIEUTENANT will appear, instead of the Lich. He will be a boss with his own abilities, strength level of a level 3 LICH in the current system. When you put him in a vulnerable state, you can use the PARAZON on him to reveal where the LICH is, and see the flaw in his Kuva. Kill the LIEUTENANT to unlock one REQUIEM for your LICH. Do this 3 times to unlock all REQUIEMS. Each LIEUTENANT also drops a Kuva weapon.

3) Once you kill the third LIEUTENANT, a special assassination node will unlock, and the LICH will invite you to face him. The LICH encounter is same as now, but the power level is at level 5 from the start. Defeat his Kuva guard to get to his chambers. 3 health bars, one for each REQUIEM. You choose to either kill him or spare him just as now. He drops guaranteed Ephemera (and/or additional rewards you may consider adding).


This loop would give the player a chance to work for certainty instead of being forced to guess, it would reward the player at the same pace but with less mind numbing repetition. Pair it with a little more range of personality from the liches and they would finally feel worth remembering.

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2 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

 

  • A downed Kuva Larvling will now display an icon of the Kuva weapon that its birthed Kuva Lich will possess!
    • This allows players to decide upfront if they want to pursue that weapon by finishing the downed Kuva Larvling, or to ignore and attempt another Lich.

 

Breaking Your Back for Knowledge

  • Your Kuva Lich will no longer kill you when you fail a Requiem guess, nor will they attempt to break your back. The Parazon stabbing animation will play but the UI will show whether it was a success or failure. Upon receiving a Requiem fail, your Kuva Lich will laugh at you and leave, leaving your back and dignity intact! There is no longer a failure loop here for the Requiem flow. 

Other Changes you can expect:

  • 2 more Weapons entering the Kuva Fold!

 

1- Now that is an interesting change, makes the option to trade redundant though.

2- Had no issue with getting thrown around like a rag doll, but I can dig this.

3- Two more MR grinds, can't ask for more.

 

One step closer to MR 30...

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Just now, Lizux said:

I really like the ayatan on my side , you get so much Ayatan statue from Arbitration that you need so much of ayatan amber

I don't really ever have this problem but maybe it's because by the time I get to socketing my Ayatans I've been doing content long enough to have a fat stack of them. I also don't really struggle for Endo at my stage, but I have pretty effectively no-lifed the game since I started playing. lol In general though I definitely don't think amber ayatans stack up to the Riven Silver or Kuva rewards on the same drop table. Requiem relics might even be worth farming common rewards for Riven stuff if there was something better in that third common drop slot, but as it stands, it's sticking out pretty bad.

Maybe it seems kinda inconsequential to some as well, but I really did almost give up on getting the mod I needed when I got hit with amber star after amber star. At least not getting the rare prime part I want during regular relics will net me ducats for Baro, y'know?

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8 minutes ago, Invitare said:

Make it possible to reclaim stolen resources without going through the whole process of defeating the Lich proper and finally, have Liches spawn at any point in the game. Yes, even before War Within; It's not spoilers, it's foreshadowing, something the narrative of Warframe frankly needs a lot more of anyway. Obviously, pre-TWW players would not be able to actually do Lich missions, but just having this single character, with them for most of the game, randomly showing up to fight them, would be a great experience.

That's an amazing idea, if executed properly. And I think, as the system is right now, they could pull it off, as far as Larvling Kills go. None of the dialogue explains what the Kuva Liches are, or how they're coming back to life.

Although, if we're being entirely honest about the state of the story, it feels like they didn't have one until incredibly late into the game's development (probably because they didn't.) Some nice foreshadowing like this would add some good cohesion which would make the story feel more like it's all meant to be (kind of like how in The New Strange we hear the first mention of the "Womb of the Sky" only to learn what that is later in The Second Dream) but really what it needs is more elaboration. We need details, and personalities for the characters, and maybe an actual explanation as to why we're doing the things we're doing, like planet-specific story quests, similar to the Natah Quest, where the implicit final objective was to finish the Uranus Assassination mission. Really, Uranus is my favorite planet, not because of sharkwing, but because of how it was handled. The boss can be taken seriously, and feel important, and the Sabotage mission feels cohesive with the Assassination, which would be nice for all of the missions on all of the planets and more immersive for new players. Maybe generic missions could stay, but the planet-specific mini-quests could just be replayable? That would work. But I'm afraid it might be too late to change all of that.

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Wow this sounds dumb. 

It's like you don't want to make it fun to hunt liches. 

If we were able to ditch the lich we still have to kill, what like 13 individual liches. Aside from that. If every lich would spawn the ephemera at a 100% and only by converting would we get it, it would still mean we would have to do it 26 times in total. 

That's ENOUGH. 

The way Warframe is progressing so far it will load itself up in that railjack slingshot and propel itself into meaninglessniss. 

Same goes for that RNG mess inside Railjack. LET PEOPLE WORK FOR NICE STUFF AND NOT GET LUCKY! OMFG... 

Look at the feedback for the new anomaly shards. 1000% more positive than anything you changed recently with anything. How about you learn from it? That'd be too easy right? 

 

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