Too random to feel like true progression or something to work towards.
Crafting functionality is useless until max level.
Distribution of currencies and crafting materials is poorly balanced.
Not fun. The current system is actively harmful to the gameplay loop because we should be playing missions, not waiting for the shop to refresh like a bunch of ticket scalpers.
Here are some suggested changes that I think would strike a balance between Fatshark’s design agenda and something more player friendly:
The Armory:
Make all level-unlocked equipment available at all times. Purchasing an item generates a grey or green quality version within the appropriate item level range, similar to crafting an item in VT2. This way, I can spend earned currency on the weapon types I want at my leisure (e.g buy five thunder hammers, pick my favourite to upgrade, scrap the others). It would also create differentiation between what Sire Melk’s offers and make the weekly currency worth obtaining.
Sire Melk:
Make his selection broader and skewed towards the upper item level limit. Make lower level items significantly less expensive to purchase. Currently, this store is not worth using until max level. The poorly thought out weekly quests are another issue, however.
Hadron:
Make upgrades to low-level items significantly cheaper. This will make it worthwhile for lower level characters to actually use the crafting. Offer an option for specific blessings, even if it is more expensive. If a player wants a Deflector Force Sword, they should be able to work towards a Deflector Force Sword, without just ‘getting lucky’ with the random rotations.
Emperor’s Gifts:
Every mission. Skewed towards higher rarities and item level at higher difficulties. Incentivise and reward playing at higher difficulties. Reduce regular ordo docket rewards if needed to compensate.
Crafting Materials:
Bartering green/blue/purple/orange weapons should award an appropriate amount of crafting materials, including plasteel and diamantine (based on item rarity and level).
Totally agree with having us actually play the game to get something. Also like the changes to the shops. Already written about it myself, just give me reasons to play match after match or higher difficulties instead of logging on once a day after I get enough tokens.
They should give us crafting mats for the destruction of items. That way, gold does not become obsolete because we could buy out the hourly store to destroy the items for mats and the increased gold reward from higher difficulty missions would additionally increase the crafting mats gained that way.
I would also suggest they add special heresy and damnation upgrade tokens, which are guaranteed drops for completing missions on these difficulties, and which can be spammed at an item (in combination with crafting mats) in order to upgrade it without any limitations and without annoying rng involved.
Lets say the heresy (diff 4) tokens could be used to:
increase a basestat of choice by 5-10% up to a max of 80% (unlimited uses per item, until all stats are at 80%)
change a perk to an effect of choice (rng determines rank 2-3) by selecting it from a list of all available effects (NOT limited to just one perk per item)
upgrade a perk slot to rank 3, so that all perks selected for that slot will always be rank 3 (also unlimited, still allows to change the perk)
change a blessing to a blessing of choice (rng determines rank 2-3) by selecting it from a list of all available blessings (NOT limited to just one blessing per item)
upgrade a blessing slot of choice to rank 3, so that all blessings selected for that slot will always be rank 3 (also unlimited, still allows to change the blessing)
And Damnation (diff 5) tokens could be used to:
increase a basestat of choice by 5-10% up to a max of 100% (unlimited uses per item, until all stats are at 100%)
upgrade the value of a perk slot of choice to rank 4 (also unlimited, still allows to change the perk)
upgrade a blessing slot of choice to rank 4 (also unlimited, still allows to change the blessing)
That way, there is no change in gear acquisition for people who play on difficulties 1-3 and they could use the current system as is (although it would be nice to just get a grey variant of a weapon upon unlocking it).
Players will be incentivized to actually play the game at difficulties 4-5 and get rewarded for playing instead of waiting for a slot machine to roll in their favor.
This system would have guaranteed reward for playing missions and allow to try out different blessings and perks as well as granting player agency in regard to gear upgrades, while not just throwing the perfect item at anyone.
After finishing all heresy upgrades, it would still take 9+ missions on Damnation difficulty PER ITEM to maximize all stats and thereby create a ton of content for players who actually care about gear and completion (around 30min per damnation run, 9+ runs per item, 4.5+ hrs minimum just on damnation to max one item, 2 weapons per character, more than 40hrs of damnation content just to get one set of weapons per class maxed, not including the heresy upgrades before that). They could even require to „fully heresy upgrade“ the entire item before allowing any damnation upgrades on it, to stretch out the grind even more.
It would keep me playing for a long time, unlike the current slotmachine system that does not reward anyone for anything except waiting and „being lucky“ with the store.
FS could even throw in shiny skins that you unlock when a weapon is „fully maxed out“.
All good suggestions in my book. I would make two additions, if I may.
When weapon type is unlocked it should also immediately drop, so players can actually try them out while leveling.
Every mission Emperor’s gift - may be a nice evolution to actually have 1-2 item to pick from a proposition of 3-5 items. Where number of items you can choose from increases based on difficulty, secondary objectives and Monster kills during mission for example.
HmHmm for Heresy & damnation missions & from completing all Melks contracts there would be an “requisition token” [similar to that in “Chaos Gate Demonhunters”. Like from normal runs you could get 1-2-5 depending on difficulty from Malice to Damnation & from Melks completion like 100.
& those could be spend to reroll melks shop or to reroll blessings or be exchanged in Melks shoop for plasteal [10 for: 200plasteel/70diamentium]
completing above missions with books +30 plasteel each.Grims +10 requisition , other modifiers .
dunno depending on the difficulty x)
Emperor gifts should always have choice of at least 3 items & you could choose only one.
Later maybe some skins in normal shop could have price not only in dockets but also in “requisition tokens”.
…something like that to add to above ones.
Hate rng systems^