Accidental Liches are a Problem

[Dexlmentia]

Twice now I've spawned a lich unintentionally since the excellent and welcomed recent changes which made me want to invest time in liches again.

Depending on one's keybindings it's easier than you think to accidentally tap X in the heat of battle especially when the larvling is still up and cowering in your best escape route.  You can abort production of other things, why not a lich?

I feel like I'm being punished for making a mistake.  Unwanted liches with unwanted weapons have no value at all.  Typos in other situations do and should cost you a game life during regular mission interactions as tapping keys is the functional skill.  Here, the time I wasted should be punishment enough.  The ability to abort avionic repairs and recoup materials was the only thing that kept me going during that little grind.

 

[HomicidalGrouse]

They should just add the dialog that they use for deciding whether you want to kill or recruit a lich... to the larvaling kill. It could zoom to some cinematic angle, show you the weapon they'll have at the top of the screen, and give you a choice of whether you want to spawn lich or cancel.

Then people could stop complaining about their lack of self-control.

[(PSN)Spider_Enigma]

finishers r a separate button from melee.....

[Wakata]

Its kinda DEs doing. The action of "HUAAA I SEE THA PROMT MASH THAT BUTTOOON" is entirely on the player, but its the DEs fault that players are not thinking when playing their game coz the overall design support this mindset so yap, as @HomicidalGrouse said, it will be better if the system would be totaly human proof and there was a dialog cutscene there.

[Educated_Beast]

9 hours ago, Fallen77 said:

How 'bout you use that brain thingy in your head ?

 

Why so rude?  We are all playing the same game and likely have more in common than not.  I hope this doesn't happen to you, but if it did, you would understand what a huge pain in the ass it is.  

I think the cutscene solution is fine as long as they keep the weapon icon over larva head before engaging in cutscene.  This does three things:

- New players will know there is something different about this unit (let's face it, there are no instructions).  

- It starts the same way you finish it, so there is a type of artistic element there I like as well.  

- Guys going after a specific weapon and running capture missions over and over, will not have to engage in cutscene except once maybe every 5-20+ missions wasting very little time (3-5 seconds) compared to the grind to find desired weapon (5 to 60 minutes).  

The risk of failure compared to consequences of accident are huge.  Likely only a small percentage of population complains about the warning you get to verify you want to permanetely delete files from recycle bin.  This is similar.  

Wasting 3-5 seconds every 20 or so missions is nothing compared to wasting 2-6 hours grinding a lich to get rid of a weapon.  It is a good quality of life improvement where code already exists and likely would not require a whole team of developers to implement.  

 

In the meantime, the OP needs to slow down drastically and be careful.  Unfortunately, this does increase grind time of ALL missions for players like OP more than a small cutscene every once in awhile would.  

 

[Fallen77]

Il y a 2 heures, Educated_Beast a dit :

Why so rude?  We are all playing the same game and likely have more in common than not.  I hope this doesn't happen to you, but if it did, you would understand what a huge pain in the ass it is.  

I think the cutscene solution is fine as long as they keep the weapon icon over larva head before engaging in cutscene.  This does three things:

- New players will know there is something different about this unit (let's face it, there are no instructions).  

- It starts the same way you finish it, so there is a type of artistic element there I like as well.  

- Guys going after a specific weapon and running capture missions over and over, will not have to engage in cutscene except once maybe every 5-20+ missions wasting very little time (3-5 seconds) compared to the grind to find desired weapon (5 to 60 minutes).  

The risk of failure compared to consequences of accident are huge.  Likely only a small percentage of population complains about the warning you get to verify you want to permanetely delete files from recycle bin.  This is similar.  

Wasting 3-5 seconds every 20 or so missions is nothing compared to wasting 2-6 hours grinding a lich to get rid of a weapon.  It is a good quality of life improvement where code already exists and likely would not require a whole team of developers to implement.  

 

In the meantime, the OP needs to slow down drastically and be careful.  Unfortunately, this does increase grind time of ALL missions for players like OP more than a small cutscene every once in awhile would.  

 

I mean yeah it would not hurt to implement, nor would it take huge ressources. I'm not against the change in itself, even more seeing how many threads like this actually appeared over time.

Not much constructivity intended here, just poking fun at a pretty baffling mistake to me.

I mean, the interact key is not something you are likely to spam like you'd do with the melee key. Also, the mindsets between the two phases are very different, you're going through very different motions and all. Did he bullrushed a larvling, after the voiceline, in the mission and with the frame he (most likely) chose specifically for this purpose... thinking he was grinding murmur for the lich he just killed ? That sorta big to me.

But oh well, again, I have seen so many threads about this now, obviously people are asking for it, so have it ! If it's so demanded, I won't oppose such a feather light fix. But you won't stop me making fun of people from time to time ;).

And I'll admit, it didn't sound as arsh when writing it on the moment. Was not entirely called for.

Il y a 2 heures, Educated_Beast a dit :

(let's face it, there are no instructions).  

I'm fairly sure that what larvlings are is explained (briefly for sure) in the tutorial panel you can pull out from the lich screen.

Can't remember for sure if this part is explained, I'd imagine that yes, but my bad if it's not the case.

 

 

[kapn655321]

2 hours ago, Educated_Beast said:

I think the cutscene solution is fine as long as they keep the weapon icon over larva head before engaging in cutscene.

They're going to have to do this.

Just like Baro.. even though they put up methods of knowing how he works (kiosk timer, email, map symbol,) people either still don't care or don't get it.

I'd say DE takes it as far as they possibly can, and back it down from there...

Start off with ambient occlusion darkening everything BUT the Larvaling, to put a spotlight on it.
Enter a long, drawn out cutscene, (nearly a full minute long) where you have several prompts telling you what will happen, how it will happen, and how to cancel it.
At any point during the cutscene, be able to cancel.

Once you have gone through this whole process twice, you can skip this cutscene.

It needs to be almost insultingly Hyper obvious. Be so clear it's demeaning. ...then take it back a notch or two once everyone's had it beaten into their head so deeply that this mistake is Done with.

 

[Grey_Star_Rival_Defender]

25 minutes ago, Fallen77 said:

I'm fairly sure that what larvlings are is explained (briefly for sure) in the tutorial panel you can pull out from the lich screen.

Can't remember for sure if this part is explained, I'd imagine that yes, but my bad if it's not the case.

Problem is the only way to pull up the Lich screen is, wait for it, to create a lich. Larvalings have no Codex entry either last I checked so there’s also that.

[Fallen77]

il y a une heure, Grey_Star_Rival_Defender a dit :

Problem is the only way to pull up the Lich screen is, wait for it, to create a lich. Larvalings have no Codex entry either last I checked so there’s also that.

If it's your first ever larvling, then you can't have a useless roll, this is a non problem

[Grey_Star_Rival_Defender]

7 minutes ago, Fallen77 said:

If it's your first ever larvling, then you can't have a useless roll, this is a non problem

But there’s no explanation for what a larvling is until someone creates their first lich. That’s the whole thing that I quoted you about.

”There’s an explanation for what a larvling is”

”Only after you create a Lich.”

[Dexlmentia]

5 hours ago, Educated_Beast said:

Why so rude?

 

To others, it isn't that I don't get it, use my brain, pay attention or spam the interact button.  All the constructive ideas were appreciated.

Describing in detail how such a thing might happen to anyone if you first choose not to accept the larvling isn't likely to change dismissive attitudes nor is it intended to.

A simple hold-to-X with a little duration would do the job nicely.  If anything in the game should be long-press it's this.   

[sitfesz]

Isn't aborting the mission deletes this progress?

[(PSN)Stealth_Cobra]

The thing is, Larvlings have the same icon as the Thralls, and after you spend six hours killing thralls the second they appear, you get conditioned into killing these guys on sight. Most of the vets I know, myself included, have gotten at least one incident of stabbing the wrong larvling, either through misclick or distraction.

There's tons of systems and menus where you must hold a button to confirm you want to do an action, why can't Larvlings executions be the same ? Also, now that you can choose your larvling anyway, perhaps you could give us the chance to discard our liches anyway, if we don't like them..

Edited March 5, 2020 by (PS4)Stealth_Cobra