Converted Kuva Lich Usage Suggestions

[Duality52]

Since the Home Stream of March 15th, @[DE]Meganhas confirmed a few concerning matters about the use of Converted Kuva Liches in Empyrean via the Command Intrinsics:

• Command Intrinsics Rank 8 unlocks the use of the Kuva Lich as a crewmember.
• Kuva Lichs are restricted to defending the Railjack; they cannot be ordered to do other tasks on the Railjacks such as Piloting, Forging, etc.

These features are troubling and contradictory, due to the disproportional time-to-reward ratio. Kuva Liches take up a disproportionally longer amount of time to defeat compared to the freshly recruited Syndicate crewmembers from Ticker. The latter is capable of doing what the Tenno can do, while the former cannot do any of these functions.

Here are a few proposals on giving converted Kuva Lichs more functionality:

• Command their own Gokstad Crewship

Converted Kuva Lichs can command their own Gokstad Crewship that act as a wingman to your Railjack. That Gokstad Crewship inherits the mods on the Plexus of the player who commands the Lich. If the Crewship takes critical damage, the Crewship may flee. The Tenno who commands that Lich can request them as backup, while also allowing the user to issue commands to the Lich's Crewship. They will stay for the duration of the mission until the objective is completed. 

• Bodyguard Function

The Kuva Lich can be commanded to teleport to and continuously function as a bodyguard for a specific person by the Lich's user. Think of the Lich as either a Specter or Wukong's Celestial Twin via the Tactical Menu. The Lich will follow the assigned person they're escorting wherever they go, from Points of Interest to boarding other hostile Crewships.

• Mobile Deployment

Think of this system similar to an Extractor. You can send your Lich to a node in the Empyrean Star Chart to gather resources. Certain resources can be drawn from the mission reward drop table and even Caches. This can mean your Lich can savage Riven Silvers, Wreckages, the Spectra Vandal components, etc. If you happen to go the the node the Lich has been deployed to, you can help fight alongside your Lich to finish its objective(s).

Thoughts?

[ShadeOhNiner]

The crewship thing seems over the top, but I do like it. Would help make things feel like a full-on naval battle in space. Though, would that mean only the host has their lich show up or do you end up with four allied crewships if everyone has a lich?

[Dubey]

2 hours ago, ShadeOhNiner said:

do you end up with four allied crewships if everyone has a lich?

I mean, yeah. But make it "escalating engagement" where for each allied crewship that warps in, another 1/2/3 enemy crewships warp in that we have to fight depending on zone.

Imagine the epic battle in Veil Proxima where you have your railjack and four crewships on your side, and the enemy has 18 crewships on their side.

Maybe DE could take it further and bring in a much deadlier capital style ship that you can't blow up with the FA and it exchanges 6 crewships for one of those.

I'd love full on space battles.

 

Actually, take this even further. Raids.

Two tenno in railjacks fighting a fleet of Grineer ships. Eight liches spawn in, the enemy warps in even more crewships and capital ships.

heavenly

[(XBOX)LadyWinterstorm]

They need to do something with Lichs otherwise there's no point in having more than 1.

Some more thoughts

Been able to upgrade their % bonus would be good (makes them untradable)

Adding new Lich mods to let you upgrade them

Being able to give them weapons to use

Being able to do everything the Syndicate Operatives can do

Have their own Fighter to act as an escort for your Rj (Would be upgradable via mods, Fighter type determined by Lich Element) 

 

[Duality52]

10 hours ago, (XBOX)LadyWinterstorm said:

Adding new Lich mods to let you upgrade them

I'm not sure about this suggestion, since the community is suffering a "Forma Fatigue" from Necramechs and Kuva weapons.

10 hours ago, (XBOX)LadyWinterstorm said:

Being able to give them weapons to use

One of the Command Intrinsics allows us to customize the weapons our crewmembers will use. It's speculative whether Kuva Liches will be affected by this. If they are affected, we can definitely boost their effectiveness with our modded weapons.

10 hours ago, (XBOX)LadyWinterstorm said:

Being able to do everything the Syndicate Operatives can do

They definitely should be able to perform these roles. Kuva Liches require far more time to convert than recruiting a Syndicate Operative. It would make sense for someone near equivalent of the Tenno to perform more complex and advanced tactics to aid us.

[ShadeOhNiner]

18 hours ago, Dubey said:

I mean, yeah. But make it "escalating engagement" where for each allied crewship that warps in, another 1/2/3 enemy crewships warp in that we have to fight depending on zone.

Imagine the epic battle in Veil Proxima where you have your railjack and four crewships on your side, and the enemy has 18 crewships on their side.

Maybe DE could take it further and bring in a much deadlier capital style ship that you can't blow up with the FA and it exchanges 6 crewships for one of those.

I'd love full on space battles.

 

Actually, take this even further. Raids.

Two tenno in railjacks fighting a fleet of Grineer ships. Eight liches spawn in, the enemy warps in even more crewships and capital ships.

heavenly

I see "more crewships", but what I am hearing is "more Tunguska". It seems like that would get kinda dull, but I do like the idea of having to deal with capital-class ships (cruisers, carriers, and battleships) while having a small fleet of lich-commanded vessels fighting along side you. Would probably be even more fun/crazy if they could do a 3 way with infested jumping from ship to ship attempting to infest vessels, with infested crewships or larger spawning more infested. Would also possibly incentivize us to help protect allied ships. (Though I also think this sort of thing may be outright too game-breakingly large.... but one can dream.)

[Kald-Wing]

I believe we need to take a bit more subtle approach, these are more entire reworks rather than small changes. But don't take me wrong as it is now Kuva Liches sound a bit underwhelming we can't do almost anything with them yet take hours to even convert. Here's what I think:

Kuva Lich Customization:
Believe it or not, I don't actually mind Kuva Liches wielding their own weapons and not being able to change their appearance. I think it adds to their character that they remain just as you converted them. Plus I reckon it'd cause a bit of problem when it comes to trading or when they appear through normal conversion random mission spawn means.

Kuva Lich Purpose: This, this is a very big one. Kuva Liches are said to be a Defensive Powerhouse that can't do anything at all besides sit on the ship and stop ramsled crews. Problem, anyone can do that and what we've seen from the Stream the crew members can rather easily deal with them on their own without a Kuva Lich present. Though it is important to take into account they were in a low level mission. A second problem is that avoiding ramsleds or outright destroying them is part of an intrinsic in piloting they are doomed to become obsolete. If every crew member will scale with the level of mission or have high stats in competency a crew member can easily pull off what a Kuva Lich's sole purpose is for and more. One of the problems with Kuva Liches that makes them unable to use most of the Railjack amenities is their bulky structure and vastly different skeleton for animations and the like, they'd probably look a bit weird, maybe even stretchy when using the same animations we do. But the idea that Kuva Liches are defensive powerhouses due to their heavy HP pool and damage/ability capabilities is a good starting point. But rather than using them for entirely Defensive purposes, why not use them:

• For more Offensive purposes. Perhaps they can teleport into the objective on enemy ships with you to assist you with the objective.
• For a more Supportive role, have them act as a sort of Left-Hand Lich that can improve the efficiency, stats, or some other aspect of the other crewmates on top of being a Defensive Powerhouse. This would match their old history of their times as an enemy Kuva Lich controlling entire sectors and improving their efficiency (and level!). 

Kuva Lich Numbers: Kuva Liches as far as I am aware can only fit one slot per crew. This hurts the vision some players including myself have had of an elite crew of Liches that fulfilled every role on the ship. As it is the changes I suggested don't really fit a system where you can have a crew of all Liches due to keeping their lack of ability to use Railjack Amenities. However by making them more than just an over glorified Cephalon Cy babysitter and a more valuable member of the team, then being only able to have one Lich would be a good thing!

With all this said, I look forward to seeing Kuva Liches in my Railjack crew and being proud to have them on my squad. Thanks for reading!

[bubbabenali]

Am 17.3.2021 um 19:14 schrieb Duality52:

Since the Home Stream of March 15th, @[DE]Meganhas confirmed a few concerning matters about the use of Converted Kuva Liches in Empyrean via the Command Intrinsics:

• Command Intrinsics Rank 8 unlocks the use of the Kuva Lich as a crewmember.
• Kuva Lichs are restricted to defending the Railjack; they cannot be ordered to do other tasks on the Railjacks such as Piloting, Forging, etc.

These features are troubling and contradictory, due to the disproportional time-to-reward ratio. Kuva Liches take up a disproportionally longer amount of time to defeat compared to the freshly recruited Syndicate crewmembers from Ticker. The latter is capable of doing what the Tenno can do, while the former cannot do any of these functions.

Well, I'd like to have some options for commanding my Lichs, but on the other hand. I doubt I won't use many other tasks than defend for all of the NPC crew.At least I don't belive the ship will hold very long in the Void and Saturn while I am destroing a Base or go on Sentient hunting.

Two activities I am loking forward sine Railjack was launched but in a random Co-Op game is nearly impossible to get anything done.

[Drastic]

My own armchair design suggestions:

1: ideally, being able to use them as regular crew. But if that's not something that's going to happen...

2: have rank 8 in Command unlock the "Unusual Crew Slot" that's in addition to the regular 3. It's just for one lich, who maintains the "ship goalie" current role. Lich assigned to it is always present since it'd be an additional special slot--a full four-player squad, the host would still have their lich stomping around, as a kind of ship mascot. This would provide a little bit of reward just in letting everyone ditch the RJ when called for but know the mascot would be around for any boarders when the squad's away.

3: Liches were experts in "optimizing local workforces" and stealing resources (from you!) in their previous career before you, uh, hire them. An assigned lich to your crew could provide a bonus to railjack or other crew based on various factors. The first time I brought up the idea in passing, another poster mused about  having bonuses based on their elemental type, which I like as a starting point.

Additionally, maybe having a lich on crew would provide a minor boost to amount of resources looted from the mission. They're very good at taking stuff away from people after all!