lots of topics deal with red duplicates and what to do about them. Every one I read quickly descended into complaints about that specific proposed solution, or Fatshark, or people voicing their point of view, or whatever else there is someone can complain about.
I would like this thread to be about ideas only - expand on ideas of others or give solutions to perceived issues but stay on topic in a constructive way. If you want to rage, point fingers or demean the opinion of someone else, use one of the various topics that already do that. Telling me this topic is superfluous is superfluous itself, obviously I feel its needed.
With that in mind, here are possible ways to use and/or avoid unused red duplicates.
Upgrading a red item rerolls it into another kind of red item
Put a red item into the existing upgrade slot (the one that upgrades rarity). For 100 scrap or so it can be rerolled in another red item equippable by the current character. Every red item in your possession (regardless of character) can be used.
Dismantling red items grants red dust
Red dust can be used to create red items from a template.
Red items are selected from a customized list
If a red item drops, its from a list the player can customize. E.g. the player selects all weapons and deselects trinkets, charms and amulets. Until the list is changed again, each red item dropped will be a weapon.
I like the idea of this thread a lot! I have lots of ideas that arenāt remotely cohesive or organized on this subject so Iāll just vomit some of them out here.
Red dust
To me this is the most sensible solution because it smoothly works retroactively without any extra work. I have seen suggestions such as 3 red dust = 1 random red, 5 red dust = 1 specific red etc. I like this solution a lot because it means that players (such as myself) who have got dozens of useless jewelry drops can convert the brunt of them into reds that actually matter.
Dupe prevention
The idea being that you canāt receive a red that you already own until you own every single red. This works retroactively, but has some issues in my view. The first issue is how do you determine what constitutes a specific red - exact item, or item type? Exact item would be the intuitive one, but this still means you could theoretically get 15 pieces of jewelry and nothing else back to back and therefore doesnāt entirely solve the issue. If it were based on item type, you encounter the issue of being unable to get dupes for alternate loadouts (primarily important with charms), though I find this is less of an issue because itās not exactly hard to reroll your red when totally necessary
Dailies/Weeklies
This isnāt a fix to dupes, but might fix some of what makes them feel so bad. Being able to earn specific reds from special daily or weekly quests would offset the brunt of the frustration of receiving dupes. In my case, Iāve got literally every single Sienna red except for a mace. That means whenever I receive a red on Sienna that isnāt explicitly the one I want, itās a dupe. This is so frustrating that Iāve just given up on that mace and started opening all of my boxes on other characters. The ability to earn that specific mace at an earlier point would have prevented me from opening all of these unnecessary boxes, and getting that ability now would allow me to actually receive a reward Iāve all but given up on.
Iām sure Iāll have more to write later, but thanks for the thread OP!
3-5 reds = 1 chosen red item sounds like a decent trade-in. This will be fine for the short term. Whether this is done with āred dustā or just straight trading the items doesnāt really matter. Dust would be more in-line with the rest of the crafting system.
With reds being much easier to come by now thereās no real continuous gearing end-game in the long term.
My suggestion would be to add a new rarity of item which can only be made by using āxā amount of reds. Hopefully a very high number. 10-20. These items shouldnāt be overpowered but should add a small increase in certain stats. Or a buff to certain Traits instead. It should be done in a way that not everyone will want to bother putting all the time in, but gives long term players something more to show for all of their time and give them something to aim for.
Red Dust would be used as a currency for red weapon skin graphic changes instead of scrap.
People would be saving illusions from extra reds they get, then salvaging.
Make the cost like 2-3 red dust or greater to keep the value in line with the intended rarity
I think it adds fun factor, everyone wants glowy reds, now they dont have to endlessly reroll stats with green/blue, they can choose to spend some red dust to attain the desired look.
They could also just add a new character āThe Jewelerā so that you can open boxes specifically for necklaces charms and trinkets because as it is now every character and class has the same chance to roll these 3 things which means the probability of you getting one of these 3 items in red is WAAAY higher than anything for the specific classes which is what everyone wantsā¦