RJ (Lich confrontation) pick direly needs rework

[Morteno]

It has probably been mentioned before, but it bears repeating.

The way RJ is picked when running public is awful.
Mostly I could ignore it as usual, like most do with everything RJ because of the state it is in, but today I did my first lich.

And what a trainwreck clownfest the RJ part of it was. I may be "spoiled" and "too hardcore" when it comes to RJ, if for no other reason than having been proficient and having a well-geared RJ before the plexus and all that was introduced, mostly as pilot but also as gunner/engineer.

But! It was really astounding how people from MR9-MR24 who have no problem beating up even L5 liches piloted so badly. Flew so inadequately geared RJs, to the point where it was clear several of them were still using the default guns it came with.
Taking in the region of 10 minutes to do, not counting the actual failures, what "old guard" owners could clear in two when solo including getting in and out of artillery seat a few times.

Granted, people are nowhere near as good as the NPC gunners for actually gunnery, same as radarcontrolled AA guns beat humans aiming by sight. But it is like they had no clue of how poorly prepared they were. Not even having Sigma MK3 equipment from their clan labs or at least named MK2 variants. Not getting in the artillery seat. Or pilot not providing a workable angle to use it against crewships.

It is overdue that some "magic" is applied to pick the best RJ in the squad.
Or frankly raising the requirements for even being allowed to host/enter that node. Something like: at least full Sigma-mk2 equipment. Seriously! If you are ready to do lich hunting you can be expected to prepare your RJ a little better than default. Mk2 of any kind in every slot seems a reasonable demand for Saturn Prox. Not asking for a multiple-forma plexus with maxed out mods, just basic Mk2 gear (and a sensible pick of guns with range and that don't need target leading).
There is already "blocking" when it comes to doing Fomorian. This would be the same, except looking at RJ instead of whether you have a specific item in the gearwheel.
 

[Drasiel]

The intrinsic limits on railjack nodes are supposed to stop that kind of thing because they assume if you are getting railjack experience you must also be upgrading your railjack forgetting that you only ever need 1 out of 4 peoples railjack for a mission so a lot of people just join as a crew rank up their intrinsics and then can start their own missions with severely under geared railjacks which is far more punishing than the same kind of behaviour occuring in a normal mission where someone brings an underleveled frame because their frame doesn't lower your health and shields as well. I really think there does need to be a minimum gear level requirement for starting/hosting with your own railjack. It's very frustrating the way the system currently works.

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

Just do your Lich Confrontation Solo

 

the possibility of the host having a bad RJ aside, it avoid so many opportunities for Glitches

 

And there's really no incentive to Confronting Liches as a group

-you could make an argument that with Sisters, you share rewards of Hound Parts and Holokeys, but Liches have no such things.

[RazerXPrime]

Not everyone plays Railjack. I'm guessing that some of those players just do Railjack because of the Lich/Sister system. So you're going to end up with people doing the bare minimum. But as other have said, just run this solo. There's 0 reason to group up unless you need help taking down your Lich.

[Drasiel]

16 hours ago, (PSN)haphazardlynamed said:

Just do your Lich Confrontation Solo

 

the possibility of the host having a bad RJ aside, it avoid so many opportunities for Glitches

 

And there's really no incentive to Confronting Liches as a group

-you could make an argument that with Sisters, you share rewards of Hound Parts and Holokeys, but Liches have no such things.

 

55 minutes ago, RazerXPrime said:

Not everyone plays Railjack. I'm guessing that some of those players just do Railjack because of the Lich/Sister system. So you're going to end up with people doing the bare minimum. But as other have said, just run this solo. There's 0 reason to group up unless you need help taking down your Lich.

you two seem to be missing the knowledge that we've run into this problem multiple times in the past with different systems, rather than the solution being everyone plays solo proper gating was put in instead.

Times this has happened before:

• Sorties with rank 0 frames now requires rank 30 or formaed
• Elite sanctuary onslaught same problem same solution as above
• Taxi's to mission nodes unlocking the starmap leading to low rank players flooding higher levels for the best xp but only being capable of leaching. Taxiing no longer unlockes nodes unless there is a direct path there already + Junction requirements.
• Certain later added boss nodes that were too hard for players the first time they are on the planet such as Vay Hek on earth having additional requirements to unlock the nodes. Ropalolyst on Jupiter launched with extra requirements which was a nice change.

[RazerXPrime]

3 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

 

you two seem to be missing the knowledge that we've run into this problem multiple times in the past with different systems, rather than the solution being everyone plays solo proper gating was put in instead.

Times this has happened before:

• Sorties with rank 0 frames now requires rank 30 or formaed
• Elite sanctuary onslaught same problem same solution as above
• Taxi's to mission nodes unlocking the starmap leading to low rank players flooding higher levels for the best xp but only being capable of leaching. Taxiing no longer unlockes nodes unless there is a direct path there already + Junction requirements.
• Certain later added boss nodes that were too hard for players the first time they are on the planet such as Vay Hek on earth having additional requirements to unlock the nodes. Ropalolyst on Jupiter launched with extra requirements which was a nice change.

So what are you saying? That people that don't want to play Railjack, but want to take down a Lich need to thoroughly invest into Railjack before they can do so?

I mean... that's borderline harassment at that point considering the game mode is just not for everyone. You can't compare this to a Rank 0 frame in a Sortie. It's not even sortie level as a comparison. But there's an intrinsics 5 requirement in place. Which doesn't mean a whole lot to be honest, but it's not 0. Maybe they increase that? This should have been an issue before with Railjack, but I don't recall people complaining about it. Veil Proxima has the highest levels and has Intrinsics 7 requirement.

[TheArmchairThinker]

Try being the host by inviting others, that way your RJ will be the one used for your squad and don't expect anything from public.

[Drasiel]

3 hours ago, RazerXPrime said:

So what are you saying? That people that don't want to play Railjack, but want to take down a Lich need to thoroughly invest into Railjack before they can do so?

I mean... that's borderline harassment at that point considering the game mode is just not for everyone. You can't compare this to a Rank 0 frame in a Sortie. It's not even sortie level as a comparison. But there's an intrinsics 5 requirement in place. Which doesn't mean a whole lot to be honest, but it's not 0. Maybe they increase that? This should have been an issue before with Railjack, but I don't recall people complaining about it. Veil Proxima has the highest levels and has Intrinsics 7 requirement.

They don't need to "thoroughly" invest so much as at least have second tier equipment for their railjack by the time they get to Saturn Proxima which should be fairly easy because you can buy it from your clan.

I can absolutely compare this to a rank 0 frame in a sortie because I've played with people that have brought the default railjack to saturn and I'm pretty sure they didn't even have their plexus modded. By god I made sure they made it but that shouldn't be happening in the first place.

People did complain about this before but it was a much smaller complaint because there wasn't something like liches/sisters directing players from the main game more heavily into it. The intrinsics limits mean you won't have useless living crew members but this does nothing to prevent severely under geared Railjacks. I really think putting a railjack gear tier limit on planets would alleviate this and make for a better experience for everyone. Players with under geared railjacks can't be having a good time either. Alternatively maybe railjack needs the equivilent of junctions and their to-do lists to help guide people through upgrading

[TheArmchairThinker]

3 hours ago, RazerXPrime said:

So what are you saying? That people that don't want to play Railjack, but want to take down a Lich need to thoroughly invest into Railjack before they can do so?

Well, that's the consequence of having the "content islands" connected so if you don't invest on all part, expect having hard time to do it.

[RazerXPrime]

5 hours ago, Drasiel said:

They don't need to "thoroughly" invest so much as at least have second tier equipment for their railjack by the time they get to Saturn Proxima which should be fairly easy because you can buy it from your clan.

I can absolutely compare this to a rank 0 frame in a sortie because I've played with people that have brought the default railjack to saturn and I'm pretty sure they didn't even have their plexus modded. By god I made sure they made it but that shouldn't be happening in the first place.

People did complain about this before but it was a much smaller complaint because there wasn't something like liches/sisters directing players from the main game more heavily into it. The intrinsics limits mean you won't have useless living crew members but this does nothing to prevent severely under geared Railjacks. I really think putting a railjack gear tier limit on planets would alleviate this and make for a better experience for everyone. Players with under geared railjacks can't be having a good time either. Alternatively maybe railjack needs the equivilent of junctions and their to-do lists to help guide people through upgrading

No I get it, but you're not talking about skill or level really, you're talking about equipment. There's also no one stopping you from entering a sortie with 0 mods equipped on anything and bringing an MK1 braton. I guess no one does this, but the point is the same. There's no one forcing you to pick the best gear.

I guess there's something to say for the OPs suggestion, but that doesn't work really with the way Warframe currently works I think. The session host's Railjack is used. Session host is assigned randomly when the squad is created. 

I don't play with randos so I don't know how bad it is. But no one is forcing you to play with them. You can simply quit the mission if you don't like the squad right? It's not like the game holds you hostage. Still that doesn't create a good gaming atmosphere either.

I don't know, it's just not a problem I will ever encounter. However, currently there's only the intrinsics requirement. If that requirement isn't sufficient then maybe DE can look into other requirements. Although when someone wants to challenge themselves to play Veil Proxima with MK1 equipment that then also maybe no longer possible. Maybe a warning pop up stating their ship is possibly too weak? Not sure if that really helps. Just thinking out loud.

[Drasiel]

9 hours ago, RazerXPrime said:

No I get it, but you're not talking about skill or level really, you're talking about equipment. There's also no one stopping you from entering a sortie with 0 mods equipped on anything and bringing an MK1 braton. I guess no one does this, but the point is the same. There's no one forcing you to pick the best gear.

I guess there's something to say for the OPs suggestion, but that doesn't work really with the way Warframe currently works I think. The session host's Railjack is used. Session host is assigned randomly when the squad is created. 

I don't play with randos so I don't know how bad it is. But no one is forcing you to play with them. You can simply quit the mission if you don't like the squad right? It's not like the game holds you hostage. Still that doesn't create a good gaming atmosphere either.

I don't know, it's just not a problem I will ever encounter. However, currently there's only the intrinsics requirement. If that requirement isn't sufficient then maybe DE can look into other requirements. Although when someone wants to challenge themselves to play Veil Proxima with MK1 equipment that then also maybe no longer possible. Maybe a warning pop up stating their ship is possibly too weak? Not sure if that really helps. Just thinking out loud.

Yes that is correct I am talking about equipment. While there is nothing stopping someone from going into sorties with no mods and mk1 braton most of the people that would actively handicap themselves like that won't be playing on public to begin with. 

While no one is forcing us to play with them it can be pretty frustrating to have to abort multiple missions at a time because you see they only have 1050 hull (denoting default plating) and fly like their engines are made out of molasses. Because that's 2 loading screens for every abort and depending on your computer/console or internet connection that can be a sizable chunk of time to burn.

The more I think about it I think selecting best railjack and even gear checking might not be the best solution. I think railjack progression simply needs better gameplay cues and direction. It was maybe 5 years ago at this point that the main game used to be nearly as bad at pointing out what you should do to progress. I think the equivalent of railjack junctions to unlock each Proxima region would go a long way because you could make the tasks stuff like:

• build new raijack components
• equip new railjack components
• equip Tier X weapon
• equip tier X component
• identify railjack equipment
• equip x  integrated mods to your plexus
• equip tactical mods to your plexus
• equip Battle mods to your plexus
• etc

That way for a person to be on higher level planets they will have to at least been tangentially exposed to upgrading their railjack and should be better equipped.