What do you guys think of those who try not to execute Liches or Sisters?

[MqToasty]

6 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

I find your analogy to the Prisoner's dilemma flawed. First and foremost, Prisoner's dilemma is a double blind trial, whereas Liches are done right there in public where the other side can pressure you. Secondly, Prisoner Dilemma assumes all players involved are in an equal situation. Not the case in Warframe: you can have player A, an Always-Stabber on his second mission and just jams his Parazon in every lich he sees, player B normally a Not-Stabber who is on his sixth mission ready to test his requiems, and player C, also a Not-Stabber who is on his first mission yet gets his lich to spawn anyway because Murphy's law. I don't feel those situations are equivocal enough to say it's functionally the same as Prisoner Problem

You are entitled to your opinion, but I maintain that the basic structure is identical and the differences mostly superficial.

To address your first point, I would argue that there is more social pressure to Cooperate in Axelrod's original tournament setup because your opponent can identify you and remember every single previous match with you.  So if you Defect on them once, there is a good chance that they will "pay you back" next time and both of you will be stuck in a feud.  In our case, despite any smack talk that may go on in chat (which I have yet to see), no one knows for sure whose lich it is and you may never see the same players again in a PUG, making Defections less consequential.  A more important difference, I think, is the fact that players are presented liches sequentially and somewhat randomly.  So the player whose lich comes up first will have to either stab on good faith, hoping others will return the favor, or not stab and risk everyone else either leaving or not stabbing in return.  Yet not only that, not all players' liches will show up in a game, further muddying the calculus.

As for your second point, you are correct in that it is not quite as clear cut because even the "only stab when it benefits me" group will have to stab eventually and their decision is more complicated.  I've actually been thinking about how one might identify if a community (regional server) is comprised mostly of "always-stabbers" or "only stab when it benefits me" players.  The former is easy -- everyone else is stabbing, so the observed stab rate will be very close to 100%.  But since you are in the latter camp, maybe you can tell me: on average, about how many stab opportunities do you skip and about how many stabs do you take (basically final lich level unless you went over 5 times) for each lich you run through?

Despite these differences, I still maintain that the stab/don't stab decision is essentially a Prisoner's Dilemma problem, because the decision pairing payouts are basically the same:

1. If a Stabber (Cooperator) meets a Stabber (Cooperator), both will leave with the most murmurs.  Yet one or both could end up with a leveled up lich prematurely.
2. If a Stabber (Cooperator) meets a non-Stabber (Defector), the non-Stabber will benefit more from the exchange because their lich will not level up prematurely.
3. If a non-Stabber (Defector) meets a non-Stabber (Defector), then both will leave with the least murmurs, but also no premature lich level ups.

[f0ba]

Stab or don't pub. The time it takes for you to sit there and wait makes the overall run even slower.

[TARINunit9]

18 minutes ago, MqToasty said:

In our case, despite any smack talk that may go on in chat (which I have yet to see), no one knows for sure whose lich it is 

Is your experience so glitchy that every single lich is defaulting to Agor Rok the Kingpin Placeholder? Because it should be obvious in 2 seconds whether a Lich is yours or not yours

18 minutes ago, MqToasty said:

and you may never see the same players again in a PUG, making Defections less consequential.  

Remember this cuts both ways. If I were to cave into the pressure from an Always-Stab, I could end up with a ranked-up Lich and he could leave the squad immediately after. I do not trust people calling me a leecher to not have a "f*ck you got mine" attitude themselves. Especially since this "tournament" you are talking about went a fixed number of rounds for all players regardless of how many times you get betrayed, when Liches do NOT do that: they can die at Rank 1 if you roll perfectly. 

If I could FORCE you to stay in my squad (which I wouldn't do anyway, but just for example) I would go ahead and stab. But since you can (and in my experience, will) just take my ten murmurs and leave? Well from my perspective, you are the defector, not me.

18 minutes ago, MqToasty said:

But since you are in the latter camp, maybe you can tell me: on average, about how many stab opportunities do you skip and about how many stabs do you take

Grineer Liches, I am averaging two skips per Lich. They keep showing up on the third Earth mission, always the third mission like clockwork, and it is NOT possible to have First Unveiled after only two missions (unless like five other players all get failed stabs). After that I usually either have to do another skip on Mars or Saturn. After that I can guarantee I have the Lich's order, and the Lich will guarantee max out at Rank 3 or 4.

Corpus Liches have needed far fewer skips. I might have to do a single skip on Venus, but Hounds give so many murmurs for so little rage that I usually just breeze right to Third Unveiled before I'm done with Phobos

[TARINunit9]

12 minutes ago, f0ba said:

Stab or don't pub. The time it takes for you to sit there and wait makes the overall run even slower.

Building up a Lich's rage takes time, and killing a Rank 5 Lich takes goddam forever, so no it's not faster on the long haul.

[Unagi604]

I didn't actually know people did this. I always just assumed people couldn't remember their lich names and just though it was someone else's lich downed in front of them so they didn't try a stab.

Reading this I get why someone might skip, but I haven't really seen enough of a need where this is as much a meta strategy as this thread makes it sound like.

I blind stab any chance I get and don't really ever go higher than rank 3 lich. Whoever was saying that it's a 1 in 24 guessing game, I disagree. There's still benefit to a blind stab. It's 1 in 24 that the first guess is right, but it's also 3 in 8 chance that you know your missed requiem is not slot 1. At least from my experience usually 1 is known by before the 2nd appearance which drastically improves the odds, and now with oull being a thing? I couldn't have imagined anyone was skipping on purpose and missing out on bonus murmurs and kuva.

[(XBOX)Skippy575]

1 hour ago, Voltage said:

Sorry for the blunt truth. Kuva Liches and Sisters of Parvos are not an "endgame" by player standards, but they are towards the end of the game's progression as far as power offered through their weapons as well as the gear check they impose on the player. A level 1 nemesis and a level 5 nemesis should not dramatically change your Time To Kill (TTK), and your gear should already be accustomed to dealing with these enemies.

"Damage reduction" is not a gear check. It's a cheap tactic to prolong the lich fight, nothing more. 

[(PSN)robotwars7]

stabbing or not stabbing depends one how much the person wants to risk the stab. personally I always go for it as I don't mind fighting them on higher levels if I get the requiems incorrect, but not every player necessarily has the gear/build to trivialize liches, in which case it makes more sense to avoid the stab and wait until all the requiems are unlocked. I suppose issues can be prevented by making the leach disappear by downing them 3 times without stabbing them. 

at the same time though, I nearly always ran Liches and Sister missions solo, and when I didn't, I was with friends. fighting them solo is harder but that's why Specters and well-modded Heavy Archguns are useful things to have, they make the fights a lot easier drawing away agro from the Lich and my toxin Kuva Grattler rinsed just about every one of my Sisters. 

[EmberStar]

6 hours ago, Aquapisces said:

Recently the question has provoked heated discussion in my server and other Warframe forums:Do you accept that your teammate choose not to try to kill the lich or sister in the mission under the circumstance of no murmur is solved?

Sounds unbelievable?Then pls listen to what players who do not accept this will say.

I see opinions like these:

"In a squad made up with random players,our joint goal is to kill the Sister as fast as possible.If we see our sister appearing we will try to parazon her without hesitation,but what if you choose not to do so?you r just wasting our time and trying leeching our 10 point."

"If you choose not to parazon the sister,we see you only selfish and self-centered as you never know to benefit your teammates you just think of you yourself."

"Go to solo if you don't want to pazazon her,and make room for helpers."

"With your sister in the mission ours will not appear.If you do not parazon the time used to finish the mission is extended and our time is wasted."

"The core is that you are too weak.If you have a banshee or nyx that will not be the case."

These are opinions of dissent.However the true situation is never what it seems to be.Sisters tend to appear before the first requium murmur is solved.Then,what should we do?Ignore the true need and waste the chance that the sister appear and let her go to the next sector?

In my server I see many players being aware of this but they choose to ignore the situation of their teammates and still forcing them to parazon their sisters even if no murmur is solved.They do not care and just say it's for the improvment of 4,not you one.

I feel so puzzled----why it seems that seldom do players take care of the need and situation of their teammates?In practice I hardly see players being angry because of that,but the status quo often gives me the illusion that most players hate it.

Let me clearify my opinion.I never mind any one of my teammates choosing not to parazon their sister because their murmur is not solved,but seems that lot of players cannot underatand such a simple reason and easily get outragous. So what you guys think about it?Accept it or not?

I think that if DE didn't want people to have the option to choose NOT to stab them, they would not have specifically CREATED the option to not stab them.  It's a game mechanic, that exists, in the game.  You don't want to be in teams where someone might do so?  Use recruit chat, make your own team of people who promise to always stab no matter what.  If you play in random groups, you are going to get random players behaving randomly.  If you join random PUGs and want total strangers to do what YOU tell them to?  YOU are the problem.

[clxrffdman]

I usually just knock it down 3 times and it goes away if they don't stab.

[NecroPed]

It annoys me because mine wont spawn while they're leaving theirs alive. 

[Tesseract7777]

Just now, NecroPed said:

It annoys me because mine wont spawn while they're leaving theirs alive. 

IMO etiquette is even if you aren't going to stab your lich, you need to help the others in the mission down it three times as fast as possible so it will run off and other liches can still join. 

[TARINunit9]

25 minutes ago, Unagi604 said:

I didn't actually know people did this. I always just assumed people couldn't remember their lich names and just though it was someone else's lich downed in front of them so they didn't try a stab.

Reading this I get why someone might skip, but I haven't really seen enough of a need where this is as much a meta strategy as this thread makes it sound like.

I blind stab any chance I get and don't really ever go higher than rank 3 lich. Whoever was saying that it's a 1 in 24 guessing game, I disagree. There's still benefit to a blind stab. It's 1 in 24 that the first guess is right, but it's also 3 in 8 chance that you know your missed requiem is not slot 1. At least from my experience usually 1 is known by before the 2nd appearance which drastically improves the odds, and now with oull being a thing? I couldn't have imagined anyone was skipping on purpose and missing out on bonus murmurs and kuva.

What kind of godly luck have you been getting?

If your Lich shows up when you have Zero Unvieled, a blind guess has a 7 in 8 chance of just completely wasting your time. You were going to get your First Unveiled at the end of the mission anyway, but now your Lich is rank 2 with absolutely no benefit to yourself whatsoever. No, not even times saved, I will get to that.

If you have One Unvieled, that doesn't count as a blind guess anymore, that counts as a "Testing Leftside." Before you ask, yes, I will go ahead and blind guess Center even if Leftside is correct. However on the second planet, it's possible for the Lich to show up again before you have Two Unvieled. At this point, a second blind guess on Center has a 5 in 6 chance of just completely wasting my time. At this point I still don't know my Lich's order, I'm not even close to Third Unvieled, (I might not even have Second Unvieled), and I am at risk of a Rank 5 Lich. A Rank 5 Lich is a complete failure state in my book, they are about as fun and easy as the Steel Path Zealoids

There is this rhetoric that blind guessing makes things go faster. Not really. All the extra missions to build up a Rank 4 Lich's rage is much longer, to say nothing of the wasted time fighting a Rank 5 Lich, which under the new system has to be done TWICE, is much longer. "Skipping" blind guesses will, 90% of the time, cost you an average of three missions. Not per skip, but total. Skipping vs blind guessing is a trade-off: easier Liches vs fewer murmurs, and refreshing your mission selection vs not refreshing your mission selection

Lastly the Kuva. This might be because I think Rivens are more trouble than their worth, but 400 extra Kuva does not sound like an enticing offer. I mean I got more than that from the larvlings I had to farm

[Voltage]

31 minutes ago, (XBOX)Skippy575 said:

"Damage reduction" is not a gear check. It's a cheap tactic to prolong the lich fight, nothing more. 

Given there are ways to optimize around the (terrible) "Adaptive Damage Reduction" added in Sisters of Parvos, yes, it still is a gear check. I did not say whether it was good or bad. It's obviously cheap and needs to be changed, but it's still a gear check.

Everything in Warframe has a level of gear check. The strictness of that check is up to DE to decide. It's healthy for the game when your equipment matters.

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

39 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

What kind of godly luck have you been getting?

Out of the 39 Sisters I've hunted, only 7 have gotten to rank 5 with the stab on sight tactic. 5 of the 7 rank 5 Sisters happened within the first 6 before I got the strategy down. Now I usually kill by rank 3.

[TARINunit9]

32 minutes ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

Out of the 39 Sisters I've hunted, only 7 have gotten to rank 5 with the stab on sight tactic. 5 of the 7 rank 5 Sisters happened within the first 6 before I got the strategy down. Now I usually kill by rank 3.

Yeah, killing by rank 3 is the norm for a Not Stabber too. It's really not any slower, and it eliminates the risk for a Rank 5

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

6 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

Yeah, killing by rank 3 is the norm for a Not Stabber too. It's really not any slower, and it eliminates the risk for a Rank 5

It takes ~9-12 missions with everyone stabbing when I was doing them. How many with not stabbing?

[MinecraftGangsta]

They are 🐱

[Aldain]

I wouldn't know, I solo all of my Liches and Sisters so I can avoid asinine arguments like this entirely.

[Ramzarn]

Considering the fact that I lost about 3 hours of my life chasing my lich because I made the mistake of killing it before the 1st murmur and failing 2 times to find the good combination....

 

Stabing your lich before your first murmur is a huge waste of time. You'll end up using the ultimateum requiem because you've to do 3 combinations and you don't want to waste 1+ hour raising your lich hate meter for each combination

 

The game went full troll on me because I thought "no way I'm using my ultimateum requiem, I'll just raise my lich meter"

The result : It took me 5 missions to make it appear... 

[TARINunit9]

4 hours ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

It takes ~9-12 missions with everyone stabbing when I was doing them. How many with not stabbing?

I'm going to press X to doubt on that, because that sounds like your Lich was spawning at just the right times where you didn't NEED to blind guess. Either the Lich was spawning every 4th mission (you get First Unveiled after 3 and Second Unveiled after 8) or you're undercounting how long it took to spawn your personal Lich.

Three Unveiled after 12 missions, I totally believe. Three Unveiled after 9 missions if you "thrall farm" I also believe. But a dead Rank 3 Lich after only 12 missions? That's an extremely lucky second stab followed by an extremely early third spawn

[MqToasty]

8 hours ago, TARINunit9 said:

Is your experience so glitchy that every single lich is defaulting to Agor Rok the Kingpin Placeholder? Because it should be obvious in 2 seconds whether a Lich is yours or not yours

Nope.  But lich names are comprised of two made-up words, and early on, I did not get into the habit of double-checking / memorizing my current lich's name before starting a lich mission.  I really did not know if it was my lich until she was downed and I approached her.

8 hours ago, TARINunit9 said:

Remember this cuts both ways. If I were to cave into the pressure from an Always-Stab, I could end up with a ranked-up Lich and he could leave the squad immediately after. I do not trust people calling me a leecher to not have a "f*ck you got mine" attitude themselves. Especially since this "tournament" you are talking about went a fixed number of rounds for all players regardless of how many times you get betrayed, when Liches do NOT do that: they can die at Rank 1 if you roll perfectly. 

If I could FORCE you to stay in my squad (which I wouldn't do anyway, but just for example) I would go ahead and stab. But since you can (and in my experience, will) just take my ten murmurs and leave? Well from my perspective, you are the defector, not me.

Why would anyone leave a squad mid-mission?  They would get zero murmurs if they did that, would they not?  Look, I don't know who hurt you this bad for you to have so little trust in other players not to sabotage themselves just to grief you.  But at least that is not my experience with PUGs in this game.  If you have not already, I still recommend playing Nicky Case's game about the Prisoner's Dilemma.  It is called "The Evolution Trust" for a reason, afterall.

8 hours ago, TARINunit9 said:

Grineer Liches, I am averaging two skips per Lich. They keep showing up on the third Earth mission, always the third mission like clockwork, and it is NOT possible to have First Unveiled after only two missions (unless like five other players all get failed stabs). After that I usually either have to do another skip on Mars or Saturn. After that I can guarantee I have the Lich's order, and the Lich will guarantee max out at Rank 3 or 4.

Corpus Liches have needed far fewer skips. I might have to do a single skip on Venus, but Hounds give so many murmurs for so little rage that I usually just breeze right to Third Unveiled before I'm done with Phobos

Okay, so 2 skips out of 3 or 4 stabs.  So that would mean anywhere between 1/3 to 2/5 of the stabbing opportunities are skipped.  So even on a server full of "only stab if I benefit" folks like you, we should still see a stab rate of around 60% to 67%.  A little bit better than the 50% I was assuming, honestly.

Out of curiosity, what is the average rank of your Corpus Liches (Sisters)?  As an always-stabber who has never used Oull yet, my mean Vanquished lich Rank is just 3.22 (mode and median are both 3) across 9 liches.  Not a single one reached Rank 5 (my only Rank 5 Corpus Lich is one I drove up to Convert).  There is no guarantee that my liches will max out at 4, but the odds are in my favor.

[Uan91]

I don't accept it as it waste time 

[Danielw8]

9 hours ago, (XBOX)Hyperion Rexx said:

If I'm not ready to stab my lich, I won't.  I will knock it down 3 times though so it disappears.  I dont really care if anyone is upset that I didn't stab it.  I'll then help kill the next one that spawns and its up to that player if they then want to stab theirs.  Again, I don't care if they do or not either.

I've played this game too darn long to care about what others in the squad think, say or do.  I will help, pull my weight (often far more than my weight) and make sure the mission is completed.  I'm not gonna play the game to suit others and don't expect others to play the game to suit me.

Your best option should be warframe single player since you dont care anything. About this post, what i allways do i kill his lich fast and if the dude is afk or he not want kill his kich at least we have higher chance to spawn another lich, and somehow works great im not even need to say anything. Many time players stay looking the lich like 'what i do?' And my answer is do whatever your lich will despawn in the next 20 seconds. Doing this i finished with sisters and im almost finishing new weapons from kuva lich.

[NecroPed]

6 hours ago, TARINunit9 said:

Yeah, killing by rank 3 is the norm for a Not Stabber too. It's really not any slower, and it eliminates the risk for a Rank 5

Personally don't think you should be able to eliminate the risk of a rank 5 entirely. Seems almost exploitative..

[Aldain]

4 minutes ago, NecroPed said:

Personally don't think you should be able to eliminate the risk of a rank 5 entirely. Seems almost exploitative..

The only reason why rank 5 doesn't happen often is because you can narrow the requiems down logically.

Outside of making it entirely random with no means to reveal them there is no way to make it impossible or less likely to kill at rank 3 or less.