Lich / Sister Cycling Pain

[CrownOfShadows]

So we don't interact with the Lich / Sister too much anymore, but the way you cycle through weapons via candidates has got to be looked at before any more weapons are added.

Right now there are 20 Kuva weapons, for example. Know what that means? That means that you will potentially play up to 20, yes TWENTY missions just to get the right candidate, which is the STARTING point of the lich experience. That's ridiculous. And what if they added 5 more? Then it's potentially 25 missions just to get started.

Spoiler

Yes, I know, RNG blah blah, that's just unlucky, I'm heading this moronic argument off now because there's always someone who brings it up. Just like with the relic system, balancing RNG statistically over a population guarantees misery. One guy gets it their first try? Yay. That does not help the person who gets it their 20th. It does not help them at all. Not one iota. That's like saying cancer isn't a problem because the entire population doesn't get it. Sucks for you but it's okay because someone else didn't get it? Such terrible logic and terrible design. Please stop using this broken record argument to defend a system that doesn't deserve it.

Anyways.... I don't know exactly how to fix this problem really. The only idea I had other than just letting people straight up choose is to give the candidates 3-4 weapons each and the player can choose one of them, or otherwise interact with the candidate to somehow speed up the cycling process - like maybe inform the user somehow of how far away from it they are and then give them some means to skip 5 or 10 or 20 places ahead. IDK, it sucks, it needs to be addressed, and I don't want to start a war about it because we use it so rarely, but I still hope DE spends a little time to fix it up before the next time. Sigh, I'm tired of trying to tell DE what's not fun, but I guess somebody's gotta do it.

I really hate the ephemera farm cycling too, but something tells me they won't budge on that, and I don't mind it as much because that's cosmetic and not mastery related, and you don't need valence fusion for it either, and there are far less ephemeras. It's still miserable because it takes the entire lich process to cycle though. I could wish for improvement.

Spoiler

And yes, I know, you can just buy liches. That doesn't magically make the system better either. SOMEBODY has to go farm that.

Thanks, k bye

[CrownOfShadows]

Oh another idea I had just now was that you could have particular planets for particular weapon type candidates. Like one planet only has candidates that have primaries, another secondaries, another melee, another archguns. You might need to modify the spawn mechanic a little somehow but I think that system could be ok too.

[AntifreezeUnder0]

Well people would like, lets jsut skip garbade weapons,and get to op stuff right away, so later on the road we get to complain about overusage of op weps and nerfs following.

They should re-rewrok back to no skip even possible so people know what real rng struggle is , not jsut now they become even lazy to rotate to wep they want...

Lich/sister system is fine as is, and mostly falls off due to incarnons. 

Doubt they should waste time on things people already getting easier than it was, and complain that grinding game is about grinding...

[Tsukinoki]

You're acting like cycling a lich or sister is some great time sink or something that takes you hours upon hours to get through.

Meanwhile if you run quick missions with them you can cycle through all weapons available very quickly, even if you are unlucky and have to go through all of the available weapons, which at most should take 30-40 minutes.
From most of the players that I interact with it's usually 10-15 minutes and they have the weapon they want and are ready to start actually going after their lich.

And sure, you might go "But sisters are slower!", which is true, but due to the smaller amount of weapons largely takes around the same time even with the extra minute or so (at most, if you do the bare minimum number of kills then slightly less) tacked on to doing the initial rift portion.

 

The part of actually trying to get the weapon you want is the least of the systems timesinks and I don't really see a reason for trying to complain about that with how quickly you can go through every single weapon they have.

And if a 30-40 minute startup time at most (again this is usually quite a bit shorter) is going to be the part that annoys you, I can't see you being able to stand the rest of the system at all.....

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

I don't necessarily disagree with the overall point you are making. 

I would touch on one thing for context though. The idea of the "Starting point for a Lich". I don't think that someone start with Liches, should go on, wanting a specific meta weapon, to be their very first at the exclusion of 19 other weapons. Ideally, even if they have preferences, they should be a little open to getting a few of the weapons, which means they do not have to worry about running the mission over 19 times. Just until they get one of the weapons they might be excited for, and all of them being new. 

Now for other people, who might say, already have 18 weapons, and they only need one or two more specific weapons, or anyone trying to get bonuses or ephemera, then yes, I think, well yeah, its a bit of a long process that can feel draining, boring etc, and ideally there could be solutions or improvements. I don't personally think its too bad though, relatively, especially from before. The last Kuva weapon I got from the original set before the pity mechanic was introduced, took more over 3 hours. I know that because I was listening to a podcast that was around 3 hours and I finished the podcast, even though I was about 10 minutes into doing my runs. Then when the pity mechanic was introduced, now when going for a certain Kuva weapon, my maximum times, are around 25 minutes. Vast difference, huge improvement. 

Does that mean I am against further improvements and solutions? Again, to be clear, no. That would be welcome. I too, would like a better way to acquire Ephemera, because see I actually like hunting Liches, and have done it over 200 times, but I recognise not everyone does, and so eh, I dislike RNG, I think there should be a pity system for Ephemera as well. Same with bonuses. I actually had an idea that could be neat if Liches and Sisters (and eventually INfested Liches) could have a resource or token they might drop in those missions (or maybe their thralls) and then a shop/vendor could exist somewhere, and you could use that currency to get certain items, that would let you fast track different aspects of Lich hunting. From being able to purcahse Oull, or Requiem Judgment beacons (the things that force spawn a Lich), to something that could let you eventually buy Ephemera, or a token that would let you have more choice in a weapon you get from a Lich. That way people who engage in the system, could use more choice if some part of the games RNG is producing bad luck, to overcome it with that. They are still engaging with the system, just bypassing bad RNG). 

Just a suggestion/idea I had, give everyone more agency, I'm not married to the concept. 

Personally I would also (potentially) hate the idea of particular planets for particular weapon types. Cassini for Lich weapons, Hydra for Sister weapons. Fastest most efficient way many people who run these farms, go about them, and why/how you can get through all 20 options in around 20 mins, a farm and method that many have been using since such systems and weapons were introduced and then... changing that and potentially creating more issues? Not all planets met the enemy level requirements, so sure, maybe if some things are adjusted, but ehh... As far as "solutions" that might be "worse" than the "problem", I'd have to know more details. Again though, I acknowledge it could work and be interesting, and be better than current method. Am just skeptical (and to be clear, my own suggestion would require work and could have flaws in it too). 

[quxier]

4 minutes ago, Tsukinoki said:

You're acting like cycling a lich or sister is some great time sink or something that takes you hours upon hours to get through.

The problem is that cycling is just one part of time sink. .

Without buying anything you go:

- requirem farms, void traces

- cycling

- getting enough murmurs (I've once get enough murmurs in 3 missions, with team, solo would be much worse), getting right combinations

 

I honestly don't mind it now. I'll take it more than Archimedea or Circuit. I have requiem mods. I have Oul (so no need for 3rd mod). I can farm few weapons.

Imagine wanting 1 weapon, having no requiems and having bad luck.

Both are extremes.

45 minutes ago, (PSN)slightconfuzzled said:

I would touch on one thing for context though. The idea of the "Starting point for a Lich". I don't think that someone start with Liches, should go on, wanting a specific meta weapon, to be their very first at the exclusion of 19 other weapons. Ideally, even if they have preferences, they should be a little open to getting a few of the weapons, which means they do not have to worry about running the mission over 19 times. Just until they get one of the weapons they might be excited for, and all of them being new. 

Well, for me my most used kuva weapons are Chakkharr & Nukor. I've farmed most but I honestly don't use them at all. So that idea of "you will like part of weapons" works but only for some (potentially big) part of players.

48 minutes ago, (PSN)slightconfuzzled said:

Cassini for Lich weapons, Hydra for Sister weapons

Sister would simple could be divided via Coin rank (3 ranks). Then go to Phobos or your planet of choice.

 

[Gaxxian]

hace 26 minutos, quxier dijo:

- cycling

- getting enough murmurs (I've once get enough murmurs in 3 missions, with team, solo would be much worse), getting right combinations

And don't forget to repeat all those steps again several times because you keep getting 25-28% kuva weapons xD

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

25 minutes ago, quxier said:

Well, for me my most used kuva weapons are Chakkharr & Nukor. I've farmed most but I honestly don't use them at all. So that idea of "you will like part of weapons" works but only for some (potentially big) part of players.

 

My point is, by the time newer players who have zero Kuva weapons, start to have their preferences and knowledge about the various Kuva weapons, its no longer the starting point of Liches with them, and their increasing familiarity will help them speed up the process around their own preferences. Its a relative issue. 

How many new players will start a Kuva Lich process, insist they get a very specific weapon the first time, and it can only be that weapon, then have to go through 19 other weapons, reject them, and then feel burned out by the process, because they were unwilling to take many of the weapons that popped up before hand? If that does happen, then fair, and even more than that, if someone has already gotten those weapons, and has preferences, then fair and I already addressed that as well. Those aren't new players though (well new to the system). 

Either way, even those players are far far more benefitted now, than in the past, when it could take more than 3 hours trying to get the right candidate, even if you were averaging runs of around 1, 1 and a half minutes. Again though, not saying that as if more improvements can't be had either, I personally would welcome some more, especially since I already done all my grinding (Well I enjoyed it too), but I think its good if other people have more choices/better experiences. 

[Tsukinoki]

1 hour ago, quxier said:

The problem is that cycling is just one part of time sink. .

Without buying anything you go:

- requirem farms, void traces

- cycling

- getting enough murmurs (I've once get enough murmurs in 3 missions, with team, solo would be much worse), getting right combinations

 

I honestly don't mind it now. I'll take it more than Archimedea or Circuit. I have requiem mods. I have Oul (so no need for 3rd mod). I can farm few weapons.

Imagine wanting 1 weapon, having no requiems and having bad luck.

Both are extremes.

And the thing I was getting at is that out of all of that, the cycling is the smallest part of the entire thing....and the thing that if they improved it wouldn't even really affect the total time or the overall grind in any real fashion.

 

The time spent farming for requiem relics (which comes from a very limited mission type that you have to spend actual time waiting for the missions to eventually cycle and if you can't sit in game for hours at a time waiting for the kuva fortress to move then you are literally spending days just farming for relics) and then having to farm for the mods themselves is already many times greater than the 10-30 minutes needed to go through every single weapon that liches have to offer.

 

Honestly out of the entire system the 10-30 minutes of trying to get a specific weapon to actually spawn from a larvaling is the easiest and least noticeable part of the entire affair!

 

The only time that it becomes a noticeable time sink is a player who already has all of the requiem mods, has a stockpile of all 4 of the requiem relics, and is looking to valence fusion up a specific weapon to 60%.
And even in such a situation the dealing with constant low roles on the weapon and having to spend an hour plus on each lich from start to end, the 10-30 minutes again isn't even approaching a quarter of the time spent grinding through such a situation.

 

So to complain about the time sink of the smallest part of the entire system is just missing the forest for the trees.

[CrownOfShadows]

On 2024-05-20 at 7:36 AM, AntifreezeUnder0 said:

Well people would like, lets jsut skip garbade weapons,and get to op stuff right away, so later on the road we get to complain about overusage of op weps and nerfs following.

Ok, and? Like who cares if people skip to what they want, and so what if some weapons are better than others. That's not our fault.

On 2024-05-20 at 7:36 AM, AntifreezeUnder0 said:

They should re-rewrok back to no skip even possible so people know what real rng struggle is , not jsut now they become even lazy to rotate to wep they want...

Lazy excuse for a bad system. Imagine if 5 years from now there are 50 lich weapons. Is 50 missions ok with you? Where's you're line? 30? 40? 100? How about we address the problem?

On 2024-05-20 at 7:36 AM, AntifreezeUnder0 said:

Lich/sister system is fine as is, and mostly falls off due to incarnons.

True, incarnons outshine lich & sister weapons considerably. Is that MORE reason to make getting them MORE miserable?

On 2024-05-20 at 7:36 AM, AntifreezeUnder0 said:

Doubt they should waste time on things people already getting easier than it was, and complain that grinding game is about grinding...

Oh heaven forbid we improve the game

 

[CrownOfShadows]

On 2024-05-20 at 8:04 AM, Tsukinoki said:

You're acting like cycling a lich or sister is some great time sink or something that takes you hours upon hours to get through.

Meanwhile if you run quick missions with them you can cycle through all weapons available very quickly, even if you are unlucky and have to go through all of the available weapons, which at most should take 30-40 minutes.
From most of the players that I interact with it's usually 10-15 minutes and they have the weapon they want and are ready to start actually going after their lich.

This is the same broken logic as "it doesn't affect me so it doesn't matter" in disguise.

On 2024-05-20 at 8:04 AM, Tsukinoki said:

And sure, you might go "But sisters are slower!", which is true, but due to the smaller amount of weapons largely takes around the same time even with the extra minute or so (at most, if you do the bare minimum number of kills then slightly less) tacked on to doing the initial rift portion.

Uh, sisters are WAY faster... you have done these right? WAY faster.

On 2024-05-20 at 8:04 AM, Tsukinoki said:

The part of actually trying to get the weapon you want is the least of the systems timesinks and I don't really see a reason for trying to complain about that with how quickly you can go through every single weapon they have.

And if a 30-40 minute startup time at most (again this is usually quite a bit shorter) is going to be the part that annoys you, I can't see you being able to stand the rest of the system at all.....

On 2024-05-20 at 11:08 AM, Tsukinoki said:

And the thing I was getting at is that out of all of that, the cycling is the smallest part of the entire thing....and the thing that if they improved it wouldn't even really affect the total time or the overall grind in any real fashion.

The time spent farming for requiem relics (which comes from a very limited mission type that you have to spend actual time waiting for the missions to eventually cycle and if you can't sit in game for hours at a time waiting for the kuva fortress to move then you are literally spending days just farming for relics) and then having to farm for the mods themselves is already many times greater than the 10-30 minutes needed to go through every single weapon that liches have to offer.

Honestly out of the entire system the 10-30 minutes of trying to get a specific weapon to actually spawn from a larvaling is the easiest and least noticeable part of the entire affair!

The only time that it becomes a noticeable time sink is a player who already has all of the requiem mods, has a stockpile of all 4 of the requiem relics, and is looking to valence fusion up a specific weapon to 60%.
And even in such a situation the dealing with constant low roles on the weapon and having to spend an hour plus on each lich from start to end, the 10-30 minutes again isn't even approaching a quarter of the time spent grinding through such a situation.

So to complain about the time sink of the smallest part of the entire system is just missing the forest for the trees.

Your entire argument here seems to be based around the new player experience. And in that situation I agree, there's not a big problem with cycling, because every weapon you get is one you want, but requiem farm is a serious obstacle. This is legit. I'll stand with you on that, the new players suffer and benefit in these ways.

But liches and sisters have been around for a looooong time now, and the majority of us have farmed them into absolution. In that situation, requiem mods aren't a factor in the slightest. Most of us have big stockpiles of Oull and Ultimatums to boot.

As for the rest of the lich/sister hunting process, it's fine, none of the rest of it bothers me, in fact I enjoy it. Do you have some problem with the rest of the process? What's wrong with it?

The only part of the process that sucks (unless you're a new player) is the cycling. And the recycling of dozens of hounds out of your foundry and then out of your inventory, that's also kinda sucky.

[CrownOfShadows]

On 2024-05-20 at 9:29 AM, quxier said:

Sister would simple could be divided via Coin rank (3 ranks). Then go to Phobos or your planet of choice.

Hmmm actually modes might be better than whole planets.

Like if one node on Pluto was for primaries, another for secondaries, etc.

[Caerith]

I have some thoughts on this:

1. Set the order of weapons in the "pool" to be weighted according to a certain criteria, such as "least to most perfect" (weapons with low element % get priority) or "most to least perfect" (weapons with high element % get priority).  (It's still randomized, but weighted.) 
   1. Allow players to influence the criteria by sacrificing at the Altar of RNG in the Crimson Branch.
   2. Perhaps require that the players defeat a certain number of liches before this unlocks, so new players will have the "experience as it was intended."
2. Allow weapons to be "perfected" and thus removed from the pool. 
   1. To be "perfect" a weapon has to have 60% element, so there's no reason to farm it again.
   2. Perhaps change the valence system so instead of changing elements we unlock elements as options that can be swapped between (like how Incarnon perks can be swapped). 
      1. Maybe require a weapon to have all elements unlocked to be "perfect" (but this would be a pain)
      2. Maybe don't require a weapon to have all elements to be "perfect" but make some cool bonus for putting in the effort to unlock all elements, like Rainbow Gilding that unlocks a prisma skin for it. 
   3. The lore explanation for why a weapon stops showing up is that the lich administrator isn't gonna send a grunt with, for example, a 25% Kuva Hek against "The Legendary Kuva Hek Master" (you). 

I think this would alleviate a lot of the pain that comes with a growing loot pool while also giving people a reason to stay engaged longer. 

[CrownOfShadows]

8 minutes ago, Caerith said:

I have some thoughts on this:

1. Set the order of weapons in the "pool" to be weighted according to a certain criteria, such as "least to most perfect" (weapons with low element % get priority) or "most to least perfect" (weapons with high element % get priority).  (It's still randomized, but weighted.) 
   1. Allow players to influence the criteria by sacrificing at the Altar of RNG in the Crimson Branch.
   2. Perhaps require that the players defeat a certain number of liches before this unlocks, so new players will have the "experience as it was intended."
2. Allow weapons to be "perfected" and thus removed from the pool. 
   1. To be "perfect" a weapon has to have 60% element, so there's no reason to farm it again.
   2. Perhaps change the valence system so instead of changing elements we unlock elements as options that can be swapped between (like how Incarnon perks can be swapped). 
      1. Maybe require a weapon to have all elements unlocked to be "perfect" (but this would be a pain)
      2. Maybe don't require a weapon to have all elements to be "perfect" but make some cool bonus for putting in the effort to unlock all elements, like Rainbow Gilding that unlocks a prisma skin for it. 
   3. The lore explanation for why a weapon stops showing up is that the lich administrator isn't gonna send a grunt with, for example, a 25% Kuva Hek against "The Legendary Kuva Hek Master" (you). 

I think this would alleviate a lot of the pain that comes with a growing loot pool while also giving people a reason to stay engaged longer. 

Hmm interesting. I quite like the stuff in point # 1, I think there's some good potential there, that's a system I could get behind. Plus another reason to visit the altar would be welcome.

The only issue I see is removing things from the pool in #2 - there is a possibility that someone might sell their copy or want a fresh copy with a different element (I have 2 nukors and 2 cycrons for example) - people will still need a way to get them again, even after fully valencing them.

[Caerith]

Just now, CrownOfShadows said:

Hmm interesting. I quite like the stuff in point # 1, I think there's some good potential there, that's a system I could get behind. Plus another reason to visit the altar would be welcome.

The only issue I see is removing things from the pool in #2 - there is a possibility that someone might sell their copy or want a fresh copy with a different element (I have 2 nukors and 2 cycrons for example) - people will still need a way to get them again, even after fully valencing them.

It would need to be an optional thing for sure, and reversible.  Because yeah, even if you "perfect" all the weapons some people still like getting more liches to add to their crew or to trade or whatever. 

[AntifreezeUnder0]

8 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Lazy excuse for a bad system. Imagine if 5 years from now there are 50 lich weapons. Is 50 missions ok with you? Where's you're line? 30? 40? 100? How about we address the problem?

On 2024-05-20 at 3:36 PM, AntifreezeUnder0 said:

And? your goal is to play game, want the new shiny thing, you do the grind, deem it S#&$, dont do it. 

Problem is lazy people getting things way easier, and still asking for more braindead game approach, yet they would have no problems rinse and repeat other grind missions thousand times because plat generation off of it be better. 

They are not mandatory,  weapons,  and it doesnt realy matter on casual play how much of an overkill one do. 

We have like 500 weps in game already and maybe 50 could be classified as not mastery fodders, with few niche exceptions. Yet not every weapons needs to be nuke, so it boils back to point. Want it, do the system, too lazy or skill issue , improve  or realise they are not as op as initialy one thought and in the end . 

Its not hard nor bad, just from certain point of view its time consuming, why bother playing game if can go on 100 mission speed runs for relics  and make plat and buy way through the grind and later on complain grind , is grindy, and one needs to missions on repeat.