The current system, I assume, was created after this conversation.
“Hey! Do you remember back before the internet when you walked to your local music & movie store, asked for a specific CD or DVD & they did not have it in stock but they told you to come back at the end of the month & see if they have it then? Yeah, you remember? That was great. Let’s make that a game mechanic.” “You’re a genius Bob.” The End
Jokes aside. A basic old system where you level weapons by using them to unlock perk & blessing slots would have been better than the current system. You would craft & upgrade perks & blessings. Also allowing us to pick a weapon’s special ability. Flashlight. Bayonet. Push. Force strike. Etc. The different Mk of a weapon type would be options when crafting the weapon.
It’s not a great system but I would at least then be able to set out my own goals & work towards them. Instead of hoping that one day I’ll find a decent weapon in one of the shops when I’m playing.
Loot & crafting needs a complete rework because the current system is soul draining. How it even passed the drawing board is beyond me. If this is the best you could come up with, you desperately need fresh eyes in the team.
The problem isn’t that they couldn’t come up with something else but that they hired a new guy that did come up with something else.
I’ve said it multiple times already but anyways:
I can understand that you don’t want to just copy what you’ve already done, especially as a creative, but coming up with something that is worse in every single aspect than what you’ve done before just reeks of “we were too nice before, weren’t we?”
Not a single change from VT2s crafting to DTs crafting benefits the player and it’s not coincidence that it’s that way. Well, except the part where you can directly chose the perks and blessings (provided you have them) but that’s not worth the trade offs now is it?
DTs current system only benefits FS’ true costumers and it makes me sick at how anti player it is.
It’s a system that feels like it was crimped from a mobile game, one that generates frustration that can be relieved by paying money, except it’s not actually monetized…it just generates frustration without an outlet.
Characters continue to gain XP beyond 30, it all goes to waste. It could be used to earn blessings/perks/stat upgrades/etc all sorts of stuff.
But the entire fundamental gear design seems to have been built around a deeply multilayered and highly complex RNG concept with RNG stats, RNG perks, RNG blessings, RNG levels of each, RNG availability, etc, all built around gambling addiction and frustration mechanics that don’t actually have an outlet, and that painfully disincentivizes trying out new gear and builds.
I do not remember where I got this from but somewhen, somewhere, someone had some better insight into the plan that this was supposed to be monetized.
Thanks (insert your deity of choice here) that that never came to pass.
Still baffling that it was kept in without the profit incentive when it was crystal clear from the beginning that it’s a trade off between goodwill and retention graphics.
Edit:
Evidently someone made the decision that this system will hurt their reputation less than what benefits come out of the prettier graphics that they can show off. While they might be right on that, it is still a very scummy thing to do and it speaks volumes about the person that made that decision.
“Short term profit > community goodwill” might be the correct business move and you can’t fault someone for pursuing that strategy…
However, you will be known as a scumbag for doing that and there have been plenty of examples that you do not need to value short term profit over goodwill. Look at Larian studios. look at CDPR. The one time they values short term profits over community goodwill, it blew up in their face.
Me, as a consumer of the products that FS sells, I don’t like the Idea that scumbags work at that company
it’s that simple.
I wonder how they would have monetized this mess? It’s not like a gacha where you have a 2% chance or whatever to draw your favorite anime girl on a mobile game banner and then you can just buy more rolls with tokens. It’d be like if the anime girl was behind 4 or 5 banners that you have to hit the mark on where failing one of them meant starting over. No one would pay for that.
I’ve shared my theory before, but it’s been awhile.
The reason we don’t have red weapons is because they were supposed to be monetized. You’d buy a fancy weapon skin and it would come with a red weapon with maxed stats and no locks. They can weasel out of “selling gameplay performance” by saying that technically these red items can be achieved through RNG and so they aren’t strictly better. They’re just selling you the convenience.
I really think this was the plan. It might still be.
I recall, vaguely, some sort of datamined framework for monetizing their awful itemization.
I imagine, considering that they’ve so far had nearly an entire year’s worth of “Oh my god, this itemization is absolute garbage” from absolutely everywhere, that they realize they’ll alienate their playerbase immediately if they go through with the plans that were. Let’s hope whatever seasonal plans they have don’t ressurect that problem.
How many layers are to the slots doesn’t change the fact that it’s a slotmachine you have to interact with.
It’s gacha and what currency you have to use to do the spins doesn’t change that it’s a gacha system.
Nobody would spend money on this huh?
Oh sweet summer child, if only it were so. This is not meant to be demeaning but just an expression of disappointment that the world isn’t so nice.
I don’t know a single smoker that isn’t aware of the fact that they are spending money on something that is actively killing them so why would nobody spend money on something that has a less severe consequence to you?
Addiction is not to be rationalized, it’s only meant to be cured. That’s my stance anyways and it should be understandable that I’m not a particularly big fan of the idea that so many systems get put into a “for fun” product that take advantage of addictive tendencies and are filled with psychologically manipulative systems.
My hopeful conspiracy theory is that they will #breakthelocks when they raise the base item level cap/make 100% in categories possible. Then people will be so happy that the locks are finally gone that they won’t focus on the fact that they have to grind new gear… maybe?
Oh as I’ve stated before those types of systems are ableist as hell. And maybe saying “nobody” would pay for it is too extreme, sure someone would. I’m by no means an addiction expert but I have to think that if you went to a casino, played the one armed bandit, hit the jackpot but then found out that before you could get a payout you have to hit the jackpot 4 more times on other machines… where’s the hit exactly? I think you’d be far more likely to just leave and go some place with regular slot machines.
Well we already known the purpose of the modifier limit is to have Destiny 2 style ‘season kick off’ updates where they raise the power cap on items acquired after that point slightly to get everyone who already grinded 100s of hours back. They just haven’t had the gumption to actually do it yet. This is also why I kinda laugh at the idea that they ruin weapons with changed blessings. Did you not see the planned obsolescence with the 380/500 scores?
Yes, they were there at launch. They drop rates were really low initial, but a few months in they increased the drop rate. Eventually they added an option to let you break down red items into “red dust” that you could use to upgrade other weapons to red status.
But the system wasn’t made for the people that can help themselves and realize that their odds suck and their time is better spent doing anything else, it was made for those that have the right addictive tendencies and take advantage of them.
If you can get someone hooked on the gambling “progression”, they are also far more likely to fall for the FOMO premium shop which leverages the same kind of addictive tendencies.
aaaand boom, you have just cultivated a loyal gambling zombie that will spend their money on the premium shop, where the real margins are at. Look what a pretty graph you can make out of a whole group of those players! Well, “players” is the wrong term. “Players” is an outdated term, now we are referred to as “users”. Completely unrelated, funny coincidence; “user” is a synonym for a drug addicts. Funny, this “coincidence” isn’t it?
Why decide to make money the ethical way when you can get more money, faster, by taking advantage of someones psychological disposition?
Yea it’s an abysmal system. I feel like as a gambling system it’s missing something though. In my limited experience with gambling there’s always this back and forth between winning and losing. I never hit a jackpot but I found that you do win here and there. $5 here, $10 there, get your drink comped. Just enough to keep that dopamine burbling along so vulnerable people won’t leave. As someone who doesn’t have gambling issues I would usually be like hell yea I’m up $10 and bail. For them the $10 loss is just the cost of whale bait basically.
My theory is that Darktide is missing those small little perks in its system to keep the hits coming. Look, I don’t know what the hell my point is here… it’s a gambling system just a bad one? Should it be a better gambling system? Absolutely f*cking not! I guess I just can’t understand why it is the way it is.
Well… You are very unlikely to get the precise item you want. Let’s set this perfect item as the “jackpot”.
Most of the time, you get just complete undesired garbage from the crafting and random drops of any kind. (this would be the equivalent of you dropping the chips on the way to the slotmachine)
Every so often, you find an item with the base stats being decent so you upgrade it. (spinning slots)
You repeat this process until you eventually get a partial jackpot, a 2/5, 3/5 or 4/5 item. (your examples of 5$ and 10$)
The only “difference” is that these partial jackpots of items are good enough to use for general gameplay. Permitting your skilllevel, they might even be good enough for the highest difficulty in DT. (the same way you can spend the 10$ on the drink you’re sipping on while spinning more slots)
But you’re not happy with a 4/5 are you now? After all, you didn’t actually hit the jackpot.
I’m a little “shocked” how well the two align. and by that I mean: I’m not surprised in the slightest. It was made to be this precise way, intentionally
