Lich system: what's the reason for it being a content island, anyway?

[Shonfrost]

I came back to Warframe after a pretty long break. At first I was startled by the amount of new systems to engage with: Kahl missions, archons, duviri, the circuit, whispers, and all the new shinies you can get from those. After dipping my toes with incarnons and whatnot, I decided to hop on a corpus mission and get a Sister, I never had one of those and wanted to be surprised with a random tenet weapon, since I don't even remember what's on that list anyway.

Once I got a Sister, I suddenly rediscovered why I didn't even bother with the system in the first place. Why do I have to completely go out of my way for 15 to 20 missions, in regular activities with no reward pool worthy of mention, no endless mode, and which are completely ineligible to have fissures, kuva siphons, nightmare mode, or even Steel Path modifiers on them? It's not like there's a mechanical reason for this- the only difference in gameplay is enemy level and thralls spawning every once in a while. 

Why isn't it integrated in regular content? Why can't we have random thrall/lich spawns in every regular starchart mission on controlled territory? We already have Stalker/Syndicate death squads spawning in with no particular disruption to online/group play, why would this be any different? Is it an issue with enemy level being to low for a supposed end game content? Then relegate it to steel path only. Is it because DE is worried we'll get rewards too quickly? Make murmur progress 10% or 20% slower if you really must, but anything would be better than willingly forgo conjoint farming of kuva/relics/relic crakcing/steel/vitus essence/literally anything else just to advance the Lich's glorified password cracking. 

I really can't wrap my head around how such a simple, yet massive, quality of life improvement has gone under the radar for so long. DE themselves acknowledged the existence of too many content islands, something like this would make the Lich system feel infinitely more enjoyable and actually believable, since it would interact with moment to moment gameplay without completely derailing your experience.

EDIT: After some conversation I can wrap my head around Lich spawns being disruptive, but I feel the point can still be made about thralls. Their spawns are already capped to 2 or 3 hounds per mission, maybe 5 to 6 thralls for Kuva Liches, and they spawn among regular enemies, in the way of the mission. Unless you are speedrunning capture fissures with a cracked setup in 35 seconds, in which case you'd also probably run solo, I can't see how it would slow down missions enough to be problematic, especially when it wouldn't necessarily be a constant occurrence

Edited February 21 by Shonfrost

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Because public missions would be a nightmare with people trying to do 6 separate objectives.

Also, the reward is the OP weapon you get after doing those 10 to 15 separate missions. 

Another edit: 

Some people use kuva/tenet as a 1 and done mission, while others constantly farm multiple weapons, so it's in the players hands how they decide to engage with the system.

Edited February 21 by (PSN)Madurai-Prime

[Shonfrost]

Just now, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

Because public missions would be a nightmare with people trying to do 6 separate objectives.

I mean, not really? What is the added objective of killing 2 thralls that spawn in your way anyway? The number already is capped. A lich spawning in would be no different than Stalker, or a death squad.

And let's not kid ourselves, this already exists in the far more time consuming form of Voca/Plume hunting in their respective tilesets, or side objective completion in Duviri. 

Liches basically having their own starchart completely removed from regular play honestly kills the concept entirely. 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

2 minutes ago, Shonfrost said:

I mean, not really? What is the added objective of killing 2 thralls that spawn in your way anyway? The number already is capped. A lich spawning in would be no different than Stalker, or a death squad.

And let's not kid ourselves, this already exists in the far more time consuming form of Voca/Plume hunting in their respective tilesets, or side objective completion in Duviri. 

Liches basically having their own starchart completely removed from regular play honestly kills the concept entirely. 

Some people don't stab liches....it can delay things....

[quxier]

23 minutes ago, Shonfrost said:

Is it an issue with enemy level being to low for a supposed end game content? Then relegate it to steel path only. I

Level 60-100 is much lower than SP level 160-200.

 

25 minutes ago, Shonfrost said:

Make murmur progress 10% or 20% slower if you really must, but anything would be better than willingly forgo conjoint farming of kuva/relics/relic crakcing/steel/vitus essence/literally anything else just to advance the Lich's glorified password cracking. 

Something like Axi maybe Neo, Requiem fissures, Vitus mission and few other would be fine for spawning larvings. But spawning Lich/Sister might be too much. They spawn mission in Navigation once a while.

[quxier]

8 minutes ago, Shonfrost said:

18 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

 

I mean, not really? What is the added objective of killing 2 thralls that spawn in your way anyway? The number already is capped. A lich spawning in would be no different than Stalker, or a death squad.

Liches/Sisters can be pain if you are not prepared, especially in defense like modes.

[Circle_of_Psi]

22 minutes ago, Shonfrost said:

And let's not kid ourselves

If you say so!

Drifter time here we go!

[Rawbeard]

the same reason as any other content island: it's a content island. 

[UnstarPrime]

13 minutes ago, Shonfrost said:

I mean, not really? What is the added objective of killing 2 thralls that spawn in your way anyway? The number already is capped. A lich spawning in would be no different than Stalker, or a death squad.

Death squads are just a handful of Eximus, and the Shadow Stalker has a reputation of being an absolute pushover.

But there are some Liches/Sisters that you can roll that are drastically more challenging and destructive, especially as their levels increase.  Setting Liches/Sisters free in levels where players aren't expecting or prepared for them is a recipe for disaster.  It's also something that would immediately be used to grief other players, which is a big no-no.

And beyond all of that, the fact is that you wouldn't even be getting what you want if this was implemented.  You're imagining that you'd comfortably be able to do Lich content and other content at the same time, but forgetting that your matched squadmates didn't sign up for that.  Sure, some would probably be polite and wait or even help.  But you'd experience so many times when your squad has started the extraction timer and your Thall/Lich has spawned and you get pulled out of the mission before you can defeat them.  You're frustrated because what you wanted was pulled out of your grasp, and your teammates are frustrated because you're wasting their time and making their missions more challenging with Liches they didn't sign up to fight.  It just adds needless strife.

The bottom line is that the game is better when players get matched with players who have similar goals.  With the current design, everyone in my Lich mission wants to do Liches and will thus be working towards the same goals.  And that's good for the community and the health of the game because it reduces the potential for goals that are in conflict.

[Loza03]

Presumably, the same reason why people don't much like the ol "Change of Plans, ignore your original objective".

A lot of people don't want disruptions when they're doing simple farms. And whilst I personally really wouldn't be opposed to this idea myself and kind of dislike the 'Warframe's just about the grind' philosophy, that's probably the most egregious way to disrupt someones simple "I just wanna farm without thinking", and we're all in this game together. So, there needs to be compromise, and keeping spaces for easy, low-effort content seperate is a pretty good one.

Edited February 21 by Loza03

[Shonfrost]

21 minutes ago, UnstarPrime said:

And beyond all of that, the fact is that you wouldn't even be getting what you want if this was implemented.  You're imagining that you'd comfortably be able to do Lich content and other content at the same time, but forgetting that your matched squadmates didn't sign up for that.  Sure, some would probably be polite and wait or even help.  But you'd experience so many times when your squad has started the extraction timer and your Thall/Lich has spawned and you get pulled out of the mission before you can defeat them.  You're frustrated because what you wanted was pulled out of your grasp, and your teammates are frustrated because you're wasting their time and making their missions more challenging with Liches they didn't sign up to fight.  It just adds needless strife.

That's fair, but debatable. The point is Lich content should be a side objective you can passively advance while doing other stuff. Not a dull, exclusive murmur grind that completely alienates me from the rest of the game. If I'm in a fissure, I'm interested in the fissure and if the occasional thrall or two spawn in, it's nothing more than a finisher. I wouldn't be frustrated with someone starting the extract timer while I'm searching for a thrall that spawned way farther than he was supposed too, just like I don't except people to be frustrated if I want to extract when they are looking for Voca/Plumes two kilometers away, or if I force start an undercroft timer while Giuseppe is feeding the maw for the tenth time in a Duviri run.

I can concede on Liches. I'm accustomed to melting them like any other enemy but can agree on them being relegated to specific encounter missions to avoid disrupting other players. 

Thralls however? That's pretty inexcusable in my opinion. 

32 minutes ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

If you say so!

Drifter time here we go!

This has no business being so hilarious, well played

Edited February 21 by Shonfrost

[Pakaku]

In a game where things are designed to pad out your play time so you play longer, multitasking is the antithesis to that

[trst]

Literally how is it not integrated with regular content?

You start the process by running a regular mission (any Grineer for Lich, any Corpus Ship one for Sister) then doing one side objective (kill enemies fast enough for Lich, lowest tier reward from G.Void for Sisters).

You get the Requiem mods via Requiem Fissures (rewards Kuva, Riven Slivers, and the Weapon Exilus Adaptors) which are also the best endless source of Kuva.

The Requiem phase requires a handful of regular missions (not unlike the grind process for other weapons and is even less grindy) which also grant their regular mission rewards.

Then the last fight involves a short Railjack mission.

 

Also the term "Content Island" is literally nothing but a buzz word for those who don't enjoy playing Warframe yet for some reason continue to play it. They literally don't exist in this game and if they did then literally the entire game is a content archipelago at which point there's nothing to even complain about.

[PublikDomain]

9 minutes ago, trst said:

Literally how is it not integrated with regular content?

I mean, this whole part...

9 minutes ago, trst said:

You get the Requiem mods via Requiem Fissures (rewards Kuva, Riven Slivers, and the Weapon Exilus Adaptors) which are also the best endless source of Kuva.

The Requiem phase requires a handful of regular missions (not unlike the grind process for other weapons and is even less grindy) which also grant their regular mission rewards.

Then the last fight involves a short Railjack mission.

... happens in a totally separate area from everything else. It's not like you create a Lich and it's just out there hunting you as you do other things, you have to go specifically to the Lich missions to progress the Lich content, and the only other players you meet are other players doing their Lich. Liches don't show up in the Open World zones to harass you, they don't show up in Railjack missions like in the old previews, they don't send assassins after you, they don't do much of anything unless you actively seek them out. Larvlings are the only part that isn't separated, and that's not a very important component.

11 minutes ago, trst said:

then literally the entire game is a content archipelago

I mean an archipelago is an island chain, so yeah lol. Warframe is a bunch of individual content islands in a loose chain.

[Shonfrost]

13 minutes ago, trst said:

The Requiem phase requires a handful of regular missions (not unlike the grind process for other weapons and is even less grindy) which also grant their regular mission rewards.

"Handful" is a... euphemism, to put it with a euphemism.

You can get maybe a quarter to a third murmur progress per mission, and it's slower for the second and third word. If you don't have a bunch of Oull lying around it's very possible you have to run 15 missions just to find the 3 words, and more each time you need to enrage the Lich to make it spawn and test the code. If it goes very badly you might need to enrage the lich 4 times to test each one.

"Regular mission rewards" when endless missions are not contemplated in controlled territory is also quite the misrepresentation: you are completely excluded from AABC rotation systems which means most relics/palatable rewards are simply not there, which is exactly my point.

There's no reason why Thralls can't spawn in regular missions, in my opinion the same goes for Liches, but in this second case I understand the issues others have pointed out. Being able to farm murmur and enrage while multitasking something worthwhile like relics, steel path, arbitrations, nightmares, syndicates, what have you, would be an incredibly QoL improvement and it would certainly make Lich farming much less of a slog.

[trst]

1 hour ago, PublikDomain said:

... happens in a totally separate area from everything else. It's not like you create a Lich and it's just out there hunting you as you do other things, you have to go specifically to the Lich missions to progress the Lich content, and the only other players you meet are other players doing their Lich. Liches don't show up in the Open World zones to harass you, they don't show up in Railjack missions like in the old previews, they don't send assassins after you, they don't do much of anything unless you actively seek them out. Larvlings are the only part that isn't separated, and that's not a very important component.

If that entire process is "totally separate" from everything else then not a single system in this game is connected to anything else. And if running missions that are granting resources, progress, and specific rewards that're used elsewhere in the game is somehow not connected to the rest of the game then I don't know what one could call connected content.

It's like saying that Kuva is isolated from the Riven system because you can't simultaneously get Veiled Rivens and Kuva at the exact same time.

1 hour ago, PublikDomain said:

I mean an archipelago is an island chain, so yeah lol. Warframe is a bunch of individual content islands in a loose chain.

And if that's the case then what is the complaint even? That Warframe is Warframe?

 

1 hour ago, Shonfrost said:

"Handful" is a... euphemism, to put it with a euphemism.

You can get maybe a quarter to a third murmur progress per mission, and it's slower for the second and third word. If you don't have a bunch of Oull lying around it's very possible you have to run 15 missions just to find the 3 words, and more each time you need to enrage the Lich to make it spawn and test the code. If it goes very badly you might need to enrage the lich 4 times to test each one.

"Regular mission rewards" when endless missions are not contemplated in controlled territory is also quite the misrepresentation: you are completely excluded from AABC rotation systems which means most relics/palatable rewards are simply not there, which is exactly my point.

There's no reason why Thralls can't spawn in regular missions, in my opinion the same goes for Liches, but in this second case I understand the issues others have pointed out. Being able to farm murmur and enrage while multitasking something worthwhile like relics, steel path, arbitrations, nightmares, syndicates, what have you, would be an incredibly QoL improvement and it would certainly make Lich farming much less of a slog.

It is a handful if you're aware of the correct process. Just like nearly every single farm in the game where doing it "correctly" can shave minutes off each attempt or even hours/days off the entire process.

You're still getting rewards from said missions and endless isn't the only mission type that Liches control. Plus this also includes everything else gained within a mission like resources, Affinity/Focus, and system progress such as Nightwave, Syndicates, and Riven/Incarnon Progress.

They, again, already are spawning in "regular missions". The disconnect here seems to be from your chosen definition of that term. As you're choosing to define "regular" as Fissures, SP, etc when that's not what "regular" actually means.

Also that "slog" as you put it isn't any different from any other gear farm in the game. Some setup time getting required resources followed by an hour or two of grinding for the reward all with actually less RNG than most other farms.

[Ghastly-Ghoul]

Tell me you’re a Kuva addicted without telling me you’re a Kuva addict.

[Aerikx]

Just to add to this...

DE actually did give the Community a taste of integrated content and the community absolutely hates it.

It's called Corpus Railjack. 

Where, now, normal missions and Railjack got blended together, birthing the still festering memes of Railjack being a glorified space Taxi. 

Liches also got blended into Railjack, where you have to face them in a special Assassination node in Railjack. (Which people also hate.) 

(I personally think the problem with Liches is the Requiem system. It needs an absolute overhaul; from acquisition to implementation. Requiems could be used to blend them into gameplay more without making things too intrusive.)

[Shonfrost]

14 hours ago, Ghastly-Ghoul said:

Tell me you’re a Kuva addicted without telling me you’re a Kuva addict.

Not really, the only thing I find duller than Murmur farming is Kuva farming, and that's why I steer clear from rivens and kuva except for those you can obtain fully passively, like with riven slivers from eximus units or the occasional steel/vitus surplus. Having passive progression while doing other stuff is great, hence the suggestion.

[SneakyErvin]

16 hours ago, trst said:

If that entire process is "totally separate" from everything else then not a single system in this game is connected to anything else. And if running missions that are granting resources, progress, and specific rewards that're used elsewhere in the game is somehow not connected to the rest of the game then I don't know what one could call connected content.

It's like saying that Kuva is isolated from the Riven system because you can't simultaneously get Veiled Rivens and Kuva at the exact same time.

I'm pretty much in the same boat. We are in the end using the rest of the game inside lich/sister missions, so them being islands isnt really true, no more than anything else in the game where we also use everything. The one thing that is an island in WF is Kahl, since it adds no progression really, it doesnt follow regular WF gameplay, it has no progression tied to itself, no customization and no benefits from our progression elsewhere etc.

Everything else though is pretty much tied together by the several systems we use and the loot we obtain from everywhere. However, liches and sisters along with invasions, siphons and floods could have been done alot better by being natural occurances in already exsisting missions to make them feel better connected to the game while also not cutting progress short for certain mission types. 

[Tesla_Reloaded]

If you check pre-release demonstration of Liches you'll see that originally they were developed as something bigger and different. The Liches supposed to be a long-lasting content, requiring weeks or even months to be dealt with, probably integrated with the main game content. My guess Liches are supposed to be an advanced version of syndicates - you know, when your enemy syndicate sends a bunch of eximus to you during a regular mission. The Liches were supposed to be that kind of a problem.

 

But as usual DE had great ambitions and not enough resources to implement them. So they've cut as much content from the liches as they could and just shoved them into the game as this pathetic excuse to farm new weapon.

 

44 минуты назад, Aerikx сказал:

DE actually did give the Community a taste of integrated content and the community absolutely hates it.

It's called Corpus Railjack. 

I disagree. They weren't event trying this time.

Grineer Railjack was their best attempt to make integrated content. But they saw they didn't have enough resources to make it into something bigger and better, so as usual they've gave up and went with low-effort way of cutting everything they could to make something minimally playable and call it a new content.

[PublikDomain]

18 hours ago, trst said:

And if that's the case then what is the complaint even? That Warframe is Warframe?

The complaint is "I'd like to do more of this stuff together instead of doing it all separately".

I'd like to fly my Railjack over the Vallis and shoot Corpus vehicles. I'd like my Lich to actually hunt me down across the System as a proper nemesis should. I'd like mission modifiers like Nightmare/Fissure/Siphon/Invasion to not segregate the playerbase into tiny groups that can't interact. I'd like SP to be a personal modifier so SP and non-SP players can still play together. I'd like Invasions to be more engaging and impactful on the game world. I'd like to use my K-Drive and Necramech and Kaithe inside regular missions. I'd like to have Archwing segments inside ground missions. I'd like to have ground segments inside Archwing missions. Etc.

Mix that S#&$ up.

And it's not like this "isn't Warframe". Like with Lich and Railjack integration, which is stuff DE planned, built, and showed but never delivered.

 

Edited February 22 by PublikDomain

[PR1D3]

11 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

The complaint is "I'd like to do more of this stuff together instead of doing it all separately".

I'd like to fly my Railjack over the Vallis and shoot Corpus vehicles. I'd like my Lich to actually hunt me down across the System as a proper nemesis should. I'd like mission modifiers like Nightmare/Fissure/Siphon/Invasion to not segregate the playerbase into tiny groups that can't interact. I'd like SP to be a personal modifier so SP and non-SP players can still play together. I'd like Invasions to be more engaging and impactful on the game world. I'd like to use my K-Drive and Necramech and Kaithe inside regular missions. I'd like to have Archwing segments inside ground missions. I'd like to have ground segments inside Archwing missions. Etc.

Mix that S#&$ up.

And it's not like this "isn't Warframe". Like with Lich and Railjack integration, which is stuff DE planned, built, and showed but never delivered.

 

My god this is so painful to watch. I'm one of those crazies who actually liked Railjack. Even before they lobotomized it and removed all the team aspects to it. What I would do to have this. I even miss those incursions in OWs. They could have been better. Made it where they wouldn't just trigger immediately upon entering, and instead using the Op Link to check and trigger would had been a huge improvement. And those Railjack play spaces are so criminally under utilized. So much can fit in there but we have to be limited to the single objective/mission status quo cause that's apparently what most people want. Every mission a speed run, so we can quickly farm what we want to stop playing WF sooner. Actual levels and spectacle? Nah, #*!% that. We deal only in extremes. If we can't do it in less than 4 mins or be in it for 5 hours and get drops every second its not worth.

[Dairaion]

On 2024-02-21 at 12:08 PM, Shonfrost said:

I came back to Warframe after a pretty long break. At first I was startled by the amount of new systems to engage with: Kahl missions, archons, duviri, the circuit, whispers, and all the new shinies you can get from those. After dipping my toes with incarnons and whatnot, I decided to hop on a corpus mission and get a Sister, I never had one of those and wanted to be surprised with a random tenet weapon, since I don't even remember what's on that list anyway.

Once I got a Sister, I suddenly rediscovered why I didn't even bother with the system in the first place. Why do I have to completely go out of my way for 15 to 20 missions, in regular activities with no reward pool worthy of mention, no endless mode, and which are completely ineligible to have fissures, kuva siphons, nightmare mode, or even Steel Path modifiers on them? It's not like there's a mechanical reason for this- the only difference in gameplay is enemy level and thralls spawning every once in a while. 

Why isn't it integrated in regular content? Why can't we have random thrall/lich spawns in every regular starchart mission on controlled territory? We already have Stalker/Syndicate death squads spawning in with no particular disruption to online/group play, why would this be any different? Is it an issue with enemy level being to low for a supposed end game content? Then relegate it to steel path only. Is it because DE is worried we'll get rewards too quickly? Make murmur progress 10% or 20% slower if you really must, but anything would be better than willingly forgo conjoint farming of kuva/relics/relic crakcing/steel/vitus essence/literally anything else just to advance the Lich's glorified password cracking. 

I really can't wrap my head around how such a simple, yet massive, quality of life improvement has gone under the radar for so long. DE themselves acknowledged the existence of too many content islands, something like this would make the Lich system feel infinitely more enjoyable and actually believable, since it would interact with moment to moment gameplay without completely derailing your experience.

EDIT: After some conversation I can wrap my head around Lich spawns being disruptive, but I feel the point can still be made about thralls. Their spawns are already capped to 2 or 3 hounds per mission, maybe 5 to 6 thralls for Kuva Liches, and they spawn among regular enemies, in the way of the mission. Unless you are speedrunning capture fissures with a cracked setup in 35 seconds, in which case you'd also probably run solo, I can't see how it would slow down missions enough to be problematic, especially when it wouldn't necessarily be a constant occurrence

Hi, Welcome Back, so at this point there's 3 Eras of warframe content currently at war with each other.

Firstly you have the original star chart style content and event missions, now, event missions are almost no existent and they all give the same rewards which shows how little content there is in this section, however by this point a good chunk of normal missions reference things FROM event missions, for instance, ive played this game for half a decade and only recently actually fought a "Tubeman".

Secondly is the enrichment content, which was supposed to act like spices onto what already existed this is the Lich System, Steel Path, Open Worlds, and Railjack. all of them just represent detached separate experiences based off of the original content and despite that don't interact which ends up removing the exponential growth of immersion, You are here. Yes it would be neat if you could do more with liches and sisters, like build a team with them for single player or use them in railjack. it would be nice if there were new places between the planets to explore with railjack or if they did more with the open world aspect. It would be nice if steel path allowed you to get better railjack parts, instead of rarer gear and if the liches and sisters you acquired from it were stronger than normal. Or if Steel Path had special Wraith Grineer that drop suped up grineer variants or Mara, Vandal, and Carmine Corpus units located on specific worlds that do the same.  However all that interplay had to be left behind because...

Thirdly is the new era of content which are these grandiose mystery box stories filled with characters you have to obsessively read in game notes to learn the lore about like this is resident evil, the difference is that resident evil is a immersive experience, you can imagine living in that world, warframe is a fast paced zoomerlootershooter pseudo-mmo that feels less lived in than Phantasy Star Online from like two decades ago.

As of yet for returning players i suggest you play the New War, and the Zariman missions maybe check out some other things that seem neat then uninstall, there are more enjoyable experiences and to be honest the general gameplay has been on a decline for a while.

[Shonfrost]

19 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

However, liches and sisters along with invasions, siphons and floods could have been done alot better by being natural occurances in already exsisting missions to make them feel better connected to the game while also not cutting progress short for certain mission types. 

That's my point exactly, though. There are many standalone mission types which very much feel just like modifiers that could be integrated inside regular missions to tie everything together neatly. I get that some people just want to be done with a mission in 30s and extract, but if for some reason the price for that is being segregated in doing one minuscule thing at a time, I'd advocate for the system to change. Especially when the "nuisance" of having different objectives already exists in many aspects of the game, such as every open world segment and crucially the Duviri Experience.

It's not like the technology or the solutions aren't there: solo extraction exists, limited to some mission types, but it exists. An expansion on that concept (maybe with an instant extraction button like in Zariman) and allowing an ensemble of mission modifiers to be active in the same node (syphons, fissure, nightmare, controlled territory, steel path) with each player choosing what side objective to engage with would make some farms feel much less of a chore. Because at least, even if you got actively screwed over by rng, you'd also be passively progressing in other areas of the game.