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

[Aerikx]

19 hours ago, Tesla_Reloaded said:

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.

Corpus Railjack was them delivering on the Railjack vision and promise. 

As shown in the Railjack reveal. Which was, players on a ship doing things while others performed a full fledged mission. 

However, the systems didn't mesh how they had envisioned/hoped. The outcome was a hot mess.

20 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. 

This is triggering to read. No offense to you. It's upsetting cause I vividly remember people getting on soapboxes and having full fledged speeches of revolts over...

"Change of Plans. Kill all enemies." - Lotus

This was apparently a universally hated thing, so much so that chat erupted in praise when DE said it's been reduced to be extremely rare. To be a 1 out of every like 30 or 50 capture runs or something chance event. 

So the concept of having more random events/progression required things happen would be a mess. 

I can already sense the Monkey's Finger curling...

Especially with Nightwave requiring some events. Imagine having to clear Kuva Siphons but now they are a random mid-mission event...

(I just whiplashed irl as the memories of  FF14's FATEs came to mind but then the memory of DE's RNG rose up and the two had an abomination of a baby...) 

[Shonfrost]

3 hours ago, Aerikx said:

"Change of Plans. Kill all enemies." - Lotus

This was apparently a universally hated thing, so much so that chat erupted in praise when DE said it's been reduced to be extremely rare. To be a 1 out of every like 30 or 50 capture runs or something chance event. 

Yes, but surely you can understand the difference, right?

Why is the "change of plans" so dreaded?

-It lengthens the mission because it's mandatory. No extermination? No extraction.

-It provides no additional rewards

On the other hand, let's look at Syphons, Fissures, and Thrall spawning in isolation. They are completely separated from the mission objective. You can go and extract without destroying the syphon, without cracking your relic, without killing a single thrall. If you do, congratulations, you have extra rewards that are actually somewhat valuable. They are stand-alone side objective inside another gamemode. 

To be clear, I'm not advocating for them to appear randomly, or not be shown in the navigation screen. They should totally appear like they currently do, but in my opinion the arbitrary exclusiveness of them all should be removed. Fissures should be compatible with nightmare mode and syphons, thrall spawns should be compatible with basically all of the above. Don't want to engage with side objectives? Don't do them. Your teammate wants to but you don't? Expand individual extraction. 

 

[SneakyErvin]

4 hours ago, Shonfrost said:

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.

Yep. It would also reduce the star chart bloat we have now. The only things I'd still prefer as seperates would be SP, Arbis and Fissures, though in a perfect world each of those would just be new star chart settings, so if you toggle say SP-Fissures, everything that is occuring on the normal SC (floods, siphons and invasions) would also occur in the SP-Fissure version, same if you stick to star chart but activate the fissure setting.

4 hours ago, Aerikx said:

This is triggering to read. No offense to you. It's upsetting cause I vividly remember people getting on soapboxes and having full fledged speeches of revolts over...

"Change of Plans. Kill all enemies." - Lotus

This was apparently a universally hated thing, so much so that chat erupted in praise when DE said it's been reduced to be extremely rare. To be a 1 out of every like 30 or 50 capture runs or something chance event. 

So the concept of having more random events/progression required things happen would be a mess. 

I can already sense the Monkey's Finger curling...

Especially with Nightwave requiring some events. Imagine having to clear Kuva Siphons but now they are a random mid-mission event...

(I just whiplashed irl as the memories of  FF14's FATEs came to mind but then the memory of DE's RNG rose up and the two had an abomination of a baby...) 

These would be guaranteed occurances on normal missions, you just wouldnt need to jump into a specific Siphon when a planet is near the fortress. You would just need to run the nodes that are currently "invaded". So if the Fortress is near Venus, Fossa might be a node invaded. Currently that requires you to specifically run a Siphon mission on the Fossa node, but if it is naturally occuring you would simply run Fossa and a Siphon would be part of the mission. The only random occurance would be liches, but those could be based on if you have a lich active or not, and it isnt positively needed that a lich would need to appear, but instead you use the normal star chart missions to find him by hunting thralls.

So obviously some tweaks to current systems would be needed to cater to a new setup. Personally I wouldnt mind if finding the liches was a public activity and then your engagement(s) with the lich were personal on seperate "hideout" nodes. Since that would fit the system and personalize it around your own nemesis. I mean, the current showdown setup is a horrible joke in my mind. 4 random tenno banding together and all of a sudden 4 liches share the same dorm roo... uhm galleon? Like WTF. League of Evil Dumbasses. I also wouldnt mind if they remove the larva system from liches and instead simply have us piss of a lich in some other way. Then the weapon we get is of our chosing after we've killed the lich, which we'll get my raiding his armory. RNG % still, but element and weapon would simply be chosen. And if it is a time sink idea around larvas, well just add that sink elsewhere as we chase for the lich hideout, or add some other step to the engagement part of the lich specifically to put more weight on the whole nemesis thing.

I mean it  isnt really fun to chase for a larva with the right weapon for a longer period of time than the rest of the whole lich system takes. Not really engaging either to require a specific frame for the element you want and then just skip using that frame for the rest of the content.

[Aerikx]

17 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

I mean, the current showdown setup is a horrible joke in my mind. 4 random tenno banding together and all of a sudden 4 liches share the same dorm roo... uhm galleon? Like WTF. League of Evil Dumbasses.

I agree on this entirely. I get that it's a gameplay system/necessary evil to "save time" but it's dumb af.

Honestly I was against them adding the Railjack step to begin with. Unlike the bulk of the community back then, I understood that the Lich demo they showed was a "Concept" a work in progress.

Typical a concept changes many times over before it becomes reality. 

I hate the Railjack "showdown" as it's just Corpus Railjack but assassination. 

If it HAS to be a thing then make it a unique Assault style mission. 

Gotta assault shield generators/stations, then activate a station to jam the lich's system, then have a ship to ship Boss battle to disable the Lich ship, now board it and have a unique fight with said Lich. 

22 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

I also wouldnt mind if they remove the larva system from liches and instead simply have us piss of a lich in some other way. Then the weapon we get is of our chosing after we've killed the lich, which we'll get my raiding his armory. RNG % still, but element and weapon would simply be chosen

We agree here. Reduced the grind. 

Personally, I want Requiems redesigned. 

Should be something we "quest" for. IE: Missions that clearing bestow us with the Requiem Mod, then missions that "charge"/"empower" it. 

IE: Make it feel like we're working towards slaying the Lich versus, some random farm where we pull on the slot machine and hope a relic gives us the mod.

[GrayArchon]

On 2024-02-22 at 8:47 AM, PublikDomain said:

I'd like SP to be a personal modifier so SP and non-SP players can still play together.

How could this possibly work? Steel Path is about the enemies. If a player who's not ready for the Steel Path loads into a mission with someone on the Steel Path, do they see Steel Path enemies? If so, they can't inflict a scratch on them and will probably get one-shot. Is there a mix of normal and Steel Path enemies? Okay, same outcome, except they might be able to kill a few normal enemies before getting one-shot by an Acolyte. How would you have Steel Path and non Steel Path players in the same mission without completely invalidating one or both of their experiences?

[SneakyErvin]

20 hours ago, Aerikx said:

I agree on this entirely. I get that it's a gameplay system/necessary evil to "save time" but it's dumb af.

Honestly I was against them adding the Railjack step to begin with. Unlike the bulk of the community back then, I understood that the Lich demo they showed was a "Concept" a work in progress.

Typical a concept changes many times over before it becomes reality. 

I hate the Railjack "showdown" as it's just Corpus Railjack but assassination. 

If it HAS to be a thing then make it a unique Assault style mission. 

Gotta assault shield generators/stations, then activate a station to jam the lich's system, then have a ship to ship Boss battle to disable the Lich ship, now board it and have a unique fight with said Lich. 

We agree here. Reduced the grind. 

Personally, I want Requiems redesigned. 

Should be something we "quest" for. IE: Missions that clearing bestow us with the Requiem Mod, then missions that "charge"/"empower" it. 

IE: Make it feel like we're working towards slaying the Lich versus, some random farm where we pull on the slot machine and hope a relic gives us the mod.

Yep, same feeling here regarding the whole RJ thing. And when people *@##$ed that "it wasnt like the sneak peek" I thought "thank the #*!%ing gods for that!" since it seemed like a slow mess with how many days they had spent "engaged" with the lich. Could of course have been made up in-game days and not actual days, but still, going by what was shown as nothing else was implied I assumed real life days.

Assault would be great with the spin you mention.

Regarding the charge/empower and working towards it. Yep agreed, that would be a great approach. I've always had this idea of us simply doing missions and bump into thralls to find actual intel, but DE wanted this mystic requiem thing instead, so uhm, have us find those instead on thralls, then use them to lure out the lich or something.

Current system just feels like too many people were working on it and threw in all sorts of concepts each fitting better in a different system.

5 hours ago, GrayArchon said:

How could this possibly work? Steel Path is about the enemies. If a player who's not ready for the Steel Path loads into a mission with someone on the Steel Path, do they see Steel Path enemies? If so, they can't inflict a scratch on them and will probably get one-shot. Is there a mix of normal and Steel Path enemies? Okay, same outcome, except they might be able to kill a few normal enemies before getting one-shot by an Acolyte. How would you have Steel Path and non Steel Path players in the same mission without completely invalidating one or both of their experiences?

It wouldnt work in a proper way. We can already see the mess of mixed groups in missions that have bounty versions aswell. I'd hate to see the mess of dynamic scaling etc. just in order to get everyone to play together. Not to mention SP density already set to 4 players at all times, which in itself could result in issue in groups smaller than 4 if normal and SP players get mixed.

Plus we have things like Duviri with further scaling tied to the SP modifier that would impact the whole session and not consider that some would be set to non-SP.

Edited February 24 by SneakyErvin

[PublikDomain]

8 hours ago, GrayArchon said:

How could this possibly work? Steel Path is about the enemies. If a player who's not ready for the Steel Path loads into a mission with someone on the Steel Path, do they see Steel Path enemies? If so, they can't inflict a scratch on them and will probably get one-shot. Is there a mix of normal and Steel Path enemies? Okay, same outcome, except they might be able to kill a few normal enemies before getting one-shot by an Acolyte. How would you have Steel Path and non Steel Path players in the same mission without completely invalidating one or both of their experiences?

Make it a personal modifier, like I said.

What does SP actually do? It decreases the time it takes for an enemy to kill a player by increasing the starting level for a higher point on the damage curve, and it increases the time it takes to kill an enemy by increasing the starting level and also by using multipliers that further increase enemy EHP.

You can also decrease the time it takes for an enemy to kill a player by instead increasing the incoming damage a player takes, and you can increase the time it takes to kill an enemy by instead reducing the damage a player deals. Like Dragon Keys.

SP also increases enemy spawn rates, but if you're fighting two Lancers that's pretty similar to fighting one Lancer that's just twice as strong. The game's engine has also been showing its limitations over the past few years, most recently with how console hosts in cross-play physically can't spawn as many enemies as PC hosts. So instead of relying on enemy spawn density which we know has a limit we're already hitting against, just make the enemies even harder. This is what Railjack already does.

So a non-SP player just plays the mission normally. An SP player has the damage they deal to things reduced and the damage they take from things increased in return for SP-specific drops and the other reward buffs. Acolytes show just like normal if an SP player is in the party, and if the Acolyte is defeated the non-SP players just don't get the SP-specific drops since they haven't opted in. The non-SP players can either help out or ignore them, their choice. Alternatively, Acolytes could just not take damage from non-SP players. Whatever works.

In return for scaling a little bit differently, we'd get a playerbase that isn't quite as fragmented and you could play SP in every single mode in the game. SP Invasions, SP Liches, SP Railjack, SP Kuva Siphons, SP Nihil (I joke), etc.

Edited February 24 by PublikDomain

[GrayArchon]

14 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

So a non-SP player just plays the mission normally. An SP player has the damage they deal to things reduced and the damage they take from things increased in return for SP-specific drops and the other reward buffs.

I see. I think a change like this would be difficult to implement (completely changing the math and mechanics on how Steel Path actually applies, even if you somehow make it so the time to kill and other endpoints are identical), but more importantly, unpopular. Warframe players like seeing big numbers and, in my anecdotal experience, don't play Steel Path primarily for the rewards. Having them opt in to a game mode where they deal less damage is not going to be much utilised, I think. After all, you can achieve the same effect by simply unequipping some mods, and few players do that.

[PublikDomain]

On 2024-02-24 at 11:24 PM, GrayArchon said:

I see. I think a change like this would be difficult to implement (completely changing the math and mechanics on how Steel Path actually applies, even if you somehow make it so the time to kill and other endpoints are identical), but more importantly, unpopular. Warframe players like seeing big numbers and, in my anecdotal experience, don't play Steel Path primarily for the rewards. Having them opt in to a game mode where they deal less damage is not going to be much utilised, I think. After all, you can achieve the same effect by simply unequipping some mods, and few players do that.

I dunno, it should be pretty trivial to implement. Dragon Keys already do this and are already personal modifiers. Regarding this change being unpopular, in SP you'll already see smaller numbers simply because some enemies have more Armor. Given that so many players already opt in to SP despite some Armored enemies already showing smaller numbers, I don't really see why players would suddenly decide to opt out. Isn't it a given that stronger enemies take less damage? But if that perception is really such a big issue, it can simply be faked. If your damage is reduced 10x, just multiply the number shown by 10x. It'd show the same number as it does now, it'd just seem like the enemies have way more EHP for players who have opted in - which is again what SP already does. And while it's true that players can already achieve this effect by simply unequipping some mods, there is no reason for them to do so. SP achieves the same thing and offers a reward for doing it, which is one of the reasons players play that mode.

[(XBOX)Big Roy 324]

It's all fun and games until a Radiation Lich/Sister shows up.

That one entity alone would destroy the game for a lot of people if it were implemented into "regular content"

[Aevire]

I think it'd be fine if Kuva Siphons randomly showed up in missions as an optional side objective. Same with Lich stuff. But the problem is that unless everyone in the squad is on the same page, something like that will create conflict, with some people just wanting to leave and some people not. So if they do anything like that it should only be for missions like defense or survival where you can fully extract on your own without having to wait for anyone else.

[PR1D3]

11 hours ago, Aevire said:

I think it'd be fine if Kuva Siphons randomly showed up in missions as an optional side objective. Same with Lich stuff. But the problem is that unless everyone in the squad is on the same page, something like that will create conflict, with some people just wanting to leave and some people not. So if they do anything like that it should only be for missions like defense or survival where you can fully extract on your own without having to wait for anyone else.

Speaking of Siphons, that's how they originally worked. Then people complained about the rng of it and then DE made the static spawns that we know today, but then they also removed the random events that would happen. In retrospect that was dumb. Both could had existed. Hell, this is making me think about Remnant and how they do their injectables. They also have randomly generated tilesets but what makes them interesting are the rotating world boss along with the small events, along with secrets sprinkled throughout. The Siphons could had been start of such a thing. Hell, it would be nice if we saw wider implementation of medallions throughout the game. It's been super nice in the Zariman and Labs, and would be nice to find the other syndicates in the wild. The random syndicate member as a bonus rescue target would be neat. I could just go on.

As for conflict there is a possibility of slowly creating a gameplay shift that has sizable parts of the player base involve themselves with the bonuses. I've personally noticed that when it comes to medallion hunting over time more people have become involved in it. I'm almost never alone in searching when when running through a mission that has it. There's always going to be that speedrunning drug head trying to dictate how everyone moves through the mission, but I don't particularly like the idea of not only having day to day gameplay or even development for that matter acquiescing to the stupid whims of those people.