Red items (or Archeotech Relics)

[Flawless]

@Shining_Darkness

Making it so players can just increase their weapon base stats invalidates the existence of the vendor in the way it currently works because all you have to do is buy the gun you want a couple times in order to get a good blessing and perk combination start point then upgrade it to max.

No it would not.
And i already explained it, but i will again.

You want all stats at 90 or 100.
Vendor can’t do better than 380 base, 80 as max per modifier.
So you buy until you get as close to 380 as you can.

Then you upgrade for plasteel, hoping to get good perks/blessings.

Depending on how much gold/plasteel/diamantine you have, you balance your purchases of greys and the amount of consecration attempts.
Preferably, you spend only gold and plasteel to get to a high modifier weapon that already has good perks and blessings.
On the way there, you hopefully get all of the blessings that you would want for the weapon, so that you do not have to buy them with diamantine.

Then, you take the best weapon you got and upgrade it to perfection by spending your diamantine.

Because diamantine would be so valuable since it would be the only way to remove locks and to upgrade modifiers past 80, you would want to save as much diamantine as possuible, by first spending your dockets and plasteel, to get as close as you can.

Brunt would still be relevant.
Melk would be as relevant as now (probably even more so).

If you do not have a lot of ressources stockpiled, you could invest your dockets and plasteel in multiple different weapons and focus your diamantine expenses into one or two items. Or maybe spend your diamantine to reach specific breakpoints or to get certain perk/blessing combinations.
If the modifier upgrades are priced well, you should be able to get 1 upgrade after each mission on diff 4+. Every single completed mission would be rewarding and there would be an actual feeling of progress.

@Shining_Darkness

Now there are way more players so we don’t have that kind of leverage any more.

If FS are smart, they rework the crafting system into something good, before the new influx of players have left again.
Considering that almost everyone seems to have hated the crafting system since release (and that the crafting system is objectively bad), it is not likely that this would suddenly change for new players.

@Shining_Darkness

If you don’t like RNG you are playing the wrong game.

I and most other enjoyers of actually good crafting systems, only ask for what they originally advertised, and which is the polar opposite of the dumpster fire that was delivered.

I am gonna quote the original announcement regarding the crafting system again.

@Fatshark_Hedge

We have learned a lot from our previous choices and gameplay surrounding crafting offered within the Vermintide series. For Darktide we wanted to take those lessons to expand and improve in such a way that crafting would become a central pillar of player progression, while giving more impact and agency to you, the player in your preferred playstyle.

The nature of randomization and repetitive actions sometimes seen within crafting is something that we are steering to avoid in the crafting system within Darktide. Meaningful choices will be made with strategy and goals behind them, as you set your eyes upon that perfect combination of melee and ranged weapons for your class.

As you can see, this is not a simple case of “we wanted to do it the way we announced it, but due to technical difficulties, we had to do it in a slightly different way”.
They straigt up did a 180 on it. There are no excuses for that.

[Enclave]

Literally this
The reds ‘solutions’ he’s preposing is just more rng onto a already insanely scuffed layered rng hellscape.

The game doesn’t need more of a you need to put in hundreds of hours praying for good number generation for desired result

It needs a more straightforward progression with weapons, the main issue right now is weapons progression is like 4 layers of rng right now. It’s absolutely ridiculous. People ask to remove the locks not for extra customisation options but for a more straightforward way to improve their weapons.

Reds aren’t going to make anything better it’s just going exasperate the existing issues with darktide’s gear progression. The whole system needs a complete overhaul something fatshark have said is on the table (only the emperor knows when that will be).

[Shining_Darkness]

Again. I ask that you keep negative comments at least constructive. I don’t need a bunch of peopleonly saying “whaaaa I don’t like this” then what would you like from this topic? How would you do it? Don’t start complaining about RNG in general, don’t start complaining about locks in general, or any other of the myriad problems that I wholeheartedly agree are problems. I don’t like RNG either, at least not the kind we currently have (a certain level of RNG is needed otherwise everyone just gets exactly what they want immediately and while that is enough for myself and probably the other people that have replied thus far I know for certain many players enjoy the chase for the perfect roll and I have seen that taken away in other games in favor of static numbers after complaints only to later see topics pop up about how they don’t feel the urge to play as much because that chase is gone.

@Flawless

As you can see, this is not a simple case of “we wanted to do it the way we announced it, but due to technical difficulties, we had to do it in a slightly different way”.
They straigt up did a 180 on it. There are no excuses for that.

I am attempting to work within the bounds of the system that is already in place without demanding too many changes to the system as a whole to make red items happen.

I do not disagree with things like being able to adjust your rolls after you get them. Maybe just allow a max adjustment of 20 points in any one stat that way you can’t take a horrible rolls all the way to 80 or if they decide to let 100 happen to 100. That would become a grind for even more materials. I have loads of ideas on how to improve other aspects of the game but this topic is specifically about reds and I am trying to keep it from spiraling way off topic into general game mechanics.

By all means, start up a new topic about how to change the crafting system for the better. I would love to have that discussion as I do have many ideas on how to implement changes without shaking things up too much and still keeping a certain layer of RNG that hey have unfortunately doubled down on. RNG isn’t bad, just what we have is not a good RNG system.

[Shining_Darkness]

I am, perhaps not wording it correctly. I do most of this posting between shifts or after work so my mind doesn’t always put to word what I am actually thinking. When I am talking about invalidating existing systems that isn’t to say I think the existing systems are good and shouldn’t be invalidated, rather it is to say that I don’t think fixing systems with more systems is the right way to go about it.

The crafting system is in need of a complete overhaul and frankly I think the balance of the game is good enough (not perfect but it will do) that they should shift from fixing things to continuing to give us what they promised from the start like they have done with the talent trees (which was what they had promised, a more robust talent system instead of the dumbed down VT2 feats system we got).

As you said, they had said the crafting would not be so heavily reliant on RNG (though they didn’t say it wouldn’t be a part of it). Clearly they ran out of time and pushed out an unfinished product, but it is FS this would have been expected since this is how VT2 launched to a slightly lesser extent given they didn’t promise as much at launch in that. This obviously needs to change and I do like a lot of what you are suggesting, I just don’t want it lost in this topic, you know? It is too much crafting in-general and I think that deserves its own topic so people know what discussion they are clicking on (including the FS devs and CMs that do, in fact, read these topics, if only occasionally).

[Shining_Darkness]

People are certainly free to continue, and I’ll keep responding, but I think we have had all the progress on this topic we can given the obvious need to have a better crafting system as that keeps coming up.

Until that happens I think we will just keep running in circles trying to work within the bounds of the system we currently have. Clearly in order for reds to com into play in a way that will feel satisfying and not just a middle finger to the current gatcha crafting we currently enjoy. Tomorrow I will probably post a topic of something like “Ideas for Improving/Re-Working Crafting” if someone doesn’t beat me to it.

I like keeping things compartmentalized for ease of reference, this is why I keep asking for things to stay on-topic and not stray to tangentially related matters. With the state of the game systems being what it is I think this is the conclusion of this chapter on how to implement reds/if the game is ready for reds (clearly, it is not ready).

Thank you all (not you, Ol_Jakal. You know why) for this discussion.

[Flawless]

@Shining_Darkness

I am attempting to work within the bounds of the system that is already in place without demanding too many changes to the system as a whole to make red items happen.

So am i.
The entire system that currently exists, could stay as it is (mission rewards, vendors, existing crafting options…) .
As i initially suggested, it would literally only take these four things to fix the system:

• remove diamantine cost from consecration
• add modifier upgrades
• add lock removal
• add option to purchase blessings

[Shining_Darkness]

So the entire system can’t stay as it is. Those are not minor changes as far as additions are concerned. They have made it very clear they want the locks to stay, they had their chance to remove them back when they reworked them but they doubled-down, still two locks like it used to be but you get to pick where they are. Until the whole crafting system is reworked, those locks are staying.

Adding lock removal, modifier upgrading, and direct purchase of blessings to the the current system is trying to fix a system with three additional systems and that is a slippery slope to feature bloat. If they were willing to add that much I would much rather they rework the entire crafting system. Clearly they ARE willing to rework entire systems as is evident by the feat progression to talent tree massive rework in patch 13.

If we are going to make big asks, we may as well swing for the fences and brainstorm what features we want out of a new crafting system because the talent tree was largely brought about by community feedback on what the feat system was lacking.

[Shining_Darkness]

Started that topic I promised concerning crafting and how to make it not suck.