Weaponmodding and Armormodding
Hey all,
Neritus has requested that I start a forum post to gather some feedback on the weaponmodding and armormodding, so here it is. If you have any particular issues with it in its present form or want to see some tweaks and improvements, perhaps quality of life adjustments, post them here.
I want to start by saying that I love the changes to these two tradeskills, feels like the first bit of actual longterm content that the game has received in a while. Followed sharply on the heels with our asteroid mining content, I am overjoyed to have things to do again. Thank you, Starmourn team.
Now, moving on to my feedback:
Mod Scaling
While I do not have exact numbers at hand, it does feel like getting a mod from level 1 to level 14 in research takes roughly the same amount of research credit as getting it from 14 to 15. This in itself isn't a bad thing, perfecting and finishing a mod off should be a gargantuan amount of effort, to excel at your chosen field. What gets me is that this amount of effort is not reflected in the results.
Crit_Chance:
Lvl 14 = 24.75%
Lvl 15 = 25%
There is a measly 0.25% increase for what is likely months of effort in increasing a mod from level 14 to level 15. I suspect that other mods have the same sort of scaling, where the later stages of development grant minimal improvements.
With the numbers as they are presently, there's just too many downsides to slotting in a level 15 mod, there's really zero reason to push research up to the maximum level. You will get more out of using that 1 level out of your 30 total on a different mod. You may as well just use 3 mod effects at level 10, or split it to 2 at level 8 and 2 at level 7 if you can find four effects that benefit you for your one piece of armour or weapon.
If this final tier of research is going to be such a huge commitment in time and effort, then I do want to see a payoff for it. I have a few ideas, not necessarily picking all of them at once, but balance is ever an issue when I dream up stuff.
1. You can only slot 1 mod of level 15 in on any piece of gear. All mods at level 15 gain additional unique bonuses. An example I gave Neritus was Crit_Chance at level 15 grants 25% crit chance and 10% more damage on a crit. Criticals are PvE only and this won't effect PvP balance, but thinking up useful, relevant boosts for other mod types at 15 may impact PvP and that is obviously a delicate situation. A few ideas for other mods could be that the afflictions under their banner (muscular, sensory etc) proc more often, tick faster. Perhaps small passive wetwiring regens every 15 secs on the armours, The resistance mods increasing the lowest resistance on a piece of gear to the same as the modded resistance. I'm sure you can think up better things that won't be massive balance swings.
2. Fully researched mods provide a research boost towards other mods. You have mastered X, you know the ins and outs of it, and this has provided insight into how other mods are slotted together. As such, each mod you fully research provides a stacking 10% increase to research credits earned.
3. Rebalance the amounts you get at each level of a mod so the scaling is better. If you're committing a large amount of your mod level allocation to one effect, it better be worth it in boosted stats. Make it scale more linearly so the mods don't just taper off with virtually no improvement over previous levels, or make the final amounts so much better. If you can only have 2 level 15 mods in your equipment, you've still got a tradeoff because you're not including other beneficial effects.
This is all I have as feedback on the system. Everything else seems pretty fair and balanced to me. The artifacts that effect this system the most are freely available to everyone through credit purchases (parts gen and research).
One last thing I have noted, however, is that if you have weaponmodding and armormodding, you are diluting your capabilities of researching these and can't focus on one specific branch to increase your gains. I would love an option to tell your manage to concentrate efforts on weapons or armour, so that any you find while triangulating are limited to this.
Love to hear everyone else's thoughts on this, your own opinions or just tearing mine apart, all are welcome.
Neritus has requested that I start a forum post to gather some feedback on the weaponmodding and armormodding, so here it is. If you have any particular issues with it in its present form or want to see some tweaks and improvements, perhaps quality of life adjustments, post them here.
I want to start by saying that I love the changes to these two tradeskills, feels like the first bit of actual longterm content that the game has received in a while. Followed sharply on the heels with our asteroid mining content, I am overjoyed to have things to do again. Thank you, Starmourn team.
Now, moving on to my feedback:
Mod Scaling
While I do not have exact numbers at hand, it does feel like getting a mod from level 1 to level 14 in research takes roughly the same amount of research credit as getting it from 14 to 15. This in itself isn't a bad thing, perfecting and finishing a mod off should be a gargantuan amount of effort, to excel at your chosen field. What gets me is that this amount of effort is not reflected in the results.
Crit_Chance:
Lvl 14 = 24.75%
Lvl 15 = 25%
There is a measly 0.25% increase for what is likely months of effort in increasing a mod from level 14 to level 15. I suspect that other mods have the same sort of scaling, where the later stages of development grant minimal improvements.
With the numbers as they are presently, there's just too many downsides to slotting in a level 15 mod, there's really zero reason to push research up to the maximum level. You will get more out of using that 1 level out of your 30 total on a different mod. You may as well just use 3 mod effects at level 10, or split it to 2 at level 8 and 2 at level 7 if you can find four effects that benefit you for your one piece of armour or weapon.
If this final tier of research is going to be such a huge commitment in time and effort, then I do want to see a payoff for it. I have a few ideas, not necessarily picking all of them at once, but balance is ever an issue when I dream up stuff.
1. You can only slot 1 mod of level 15 in on any piece of gear. All mods at level 15 gain additional unique bonuses. An example I gave Neritus was Crit_Chance at level 15 grants 25% crit chance and 10% more damage on a crit. Criticals are PvE only and this won't effect PvP balance, but thinking up useful, relevant boosts for other mod types at 15 may impact PvP and that is obviously a delicate situation. A few ideas for other mods could be that the afflictions under their banner (muscular, sensory etc) proc more often, tick faster. Perhaps small passive wetwiring regens every 15 secs on the armours, The resistance mods increasing the lowest resistance on a piece of gear to the same as the modded resistance. I'm sure you can think up better things that won't be massive balance swings.
2. Fully researched mods provide a research boost towards other mods. You have mastered X, you know the ins and outs of it, and this has provided insight into how other mods are slotted together. As such, each mod you fully research provides a stacking 10% increase to research credits earned.
3. Rebalance the amounts you get at each level of a mod so the scaling is better. If you're committing a large amount of your mod level allocation to one effect, it better be worth it in boosted stats. Make it scale more linearly so the mods don't just taper off with virtually no improvement over previous levels, or make the final amounts so much better. If you can only have 2 level 15 mods in your equipment, you've still got a tradeoff because you're not including other beneficial effects.
This is all I have as feedback on the system. Everything else seems pretty fair and balanced to me. The artifacts that effect this system the most are freely available to everyone through credit purchases (parts gen and research).
One last thing I have noted, however, is that if you have weaponmodding and armormodding, you are diluting your capabilities of researching these and can't focus on one specific branch to increase your gains. I would love an option to tell your manage to concentrate efforts on weapons or armour, so that any you find while triangulating are limited to this.
Love to hear everyone else's thoughts on this, your own opinions or just tearing mine apart, all are welcome.
1
Comments
1) Regarding the armor/weapon/and possibly ship sharing the same assistants and workshops. This really does divert where you can send your assistants to do or research stuff but I mentioned it in discord before that turning Workshop_Brew into a multi-tier artifact to give one, two, or three karafee would really make a difference. This is obviously a promo artifact but I think in the long run making it into a normal artifact with multiple tiers would earn more money for IRE but that's just my personal opinion with no real backing behind it. (Other players feel free to chime in here.)
2) Personally, with all the current mod effects we have from a new player's point of view it might be a bit overwhelming. If we do introduce more mod effects just know it'll only complicate combat further and lead to having to adjust classes more and more for the sake of balance. I don't mind if we steadily add more but when I last checked the combatants are still attempting to get those perfect mod ratios. Then once we get a standard mod loadout set people are going to create sets to counter those sets and it should be an infinite cycle albeit a slow one until we get people with everything at least to level 10 mod effects.
3) It does seem a bit odd that the highest level of a mod effect gives so little. It's almost not even worth getting unless you're an absolute completionist. That last level could be one level into something else and it'd probably be more cost effective. I like the current numbers for mods around level 6-10 but after that it seems like you get the shorter end of the stick if you go higher. I haven't thought of any real solutions to this yet nor know if it should be changed but like Steve said 6, 8, and 10 does seem to be the sweet spot.
I love:
- Regenerative armor mod.
- Critical hits weapon mod.
- Establishing a workshop, the simple customization options we have available for it right away with the room adjective and LOOK description.
- The way the assistants work overall, with the different tasks I can send them on, the long timer, the slow buildup of skills and loyalty, the varied races to pick from.
- The way parts and mods are tradeable with other players.
I like:- The way designs for mods work and how the flavor messages on those work on slot/unslot.
- The majority of mod effects we have to select from.
- The 60 RL day expiration date on mobs. This isn't a "get the perfect mod and forget about the system forever" kind of thing.
- For PvE, I can pretty much just slot a regenerative somewhere and an impact/melee resist somewhere and be mostly fine.
I'm neutral about:- The full range of effects available, since there are many that either seem too niche or not really worth investing into currently (wetwiring affliction stuff, cellular damage, etc).
I dislike:- The amount of armor mods I should get is a bit overwhelming. It just feels like a lot to calculate and purchase and keep track of to me.
- Limb scope overall, and related to this, how armor works as a whole.
- The inequality among classes in how much each one requires you to "slot against" them. (PvP specific)
- The prevalence of "Impact" as a damage type and how important it is to protect everywhere against it. It feels like it's removing meaningful choice. (PvP specific)
For the last part (things I dislike), I understand that this feedback is not always directly related to the addition of armor and weapon mods, but I figured I'd share both the positives and the negatives for a more helpful and complete representation of my feelings towards this system and how it fits in to the game. I feel like there are too many pieces of armor, and I have to put a big impact resistance mod into most of them. I understand that with more "slots" comes the potential for more customization, but I'm not currently feeling too much value from it. I know a big overhaul is out of the question, but I feel like a more intuitive and straightforward system might just have armor split into something like 3 slots (upper/middle/lower or arms/torso/legs) rather than 7 pieces or 11 scopes.(And anticipating a "if you don't like engaging with all those armor slots, don't bother, it's a small difference most of the time": Other PvP concerns I have are often met with the response of "well you need to mod properly before this opinion is valid", so I figured my issues with the experience of "modding properly" are relevant and worth highlighting.)