Crafting. Let's talk about it.

(OneLetter) #1

What’s the future of the much-debated Crafting system? You’ve all been asking, so here’s what to expect.

(Xenithos) #2

First?
Edit: Okay, best of both worlds, seems like meme material. :wink: Good luck SD.

(Jan S.) #3

I made a thread about this video at the same time because the second I saw this video, I really needed to share it with you all! So, since this is official talk-thread about this now, I’m just going to copy paste what I said earlier:
I’m really starting to like these update videos, it’s definitely great way to talk with community about upcoming changes :slight_smile:

(Tanker_Ray) #4

Oh man. This article woke me up at 8 in the morning.

  1. Let us craft loadout with combined Crafting Kit + Credits.

  2. Yes the progression.

Don’t really have a solid idea, but how about this?

Cobalts only requires Silver or Gold’s fragments.(Reason why I included Silver is for people who bought Elite Cases.)

Gold only requires Bronze and Silver fragments.(Expert Case for Gold crafting just like Above.)

…etc.

  1. Credit price increase to Gold from Silver is WAY TOO DAMN steep and sudden.

I can understand the Cobalt at least,

But just lower the damn credit cost.

I know we can use Credit boosters from Arsenal ans Merc Serv Crates, and that’s how you guys encourage us to spend money, but still credit cost is way too extreme to handle that.

…BUT On the other hand, we can still play DB with Bronze no problem.

May be you guys need other new cosmetics to simulate us.

Not just coloring skins, but new MODELING like the Foundation loadouts have.

OR basic Master/Challenger skins/accessories to compensate and satisfy players who played single merc a lot and pro enough.

(Tanker_Ray) #5

Additionally,

Just thank you for listening to us and showing us that you guys are struggling for improvements, though it is quite late and progressing so slow.

That is why I’m still playing DB from 2014, eventhough I never had under 60 normal Ping in Asia server as one of the very few Korean player.

Still having hard time waiting for sluggish speed, but I will still be waiting while others leave or got tired of unchanged DB.

So just like you revealed the credit earn rate, please be transparent as you guys can.

Not just weapon/merc balance, but everything including this Crafting system.

Can’t always wait for someone to do the math, or we can’t even calculate if you don’t reveal the correct and precise numbers of anything.

(The_N00Ba) #6

From the math I have done, I also recommend bringing the gold cost down a little bit. I have found it to still be rather close to what the "average’ player payed to trade up to a gold in the previous system. If that makes any sense.

Other than that… Well played shoe. … Well played. :slight_smile:

(Blubehriluv) #7

Glad to see they really are listening. All those that say they aren’t are just downright impatient, we can’t always get it when we want but these video updates of what you feel is important to put out is much appreciated! Keep up the good work SD

(Koku-) #8

Thanks for this update Shoe. Glad to see a hell of a lot more transparency and interaction with your community. Thank you and I look forward to seeing what you create.

(geronimoooo) #9

I appreciate this kind of transparency.

Here is my feedback.

  1. Introduce more variants of skins for various rarities. That would bring more incentive to purchase lower tier rarity. While that would increase RNG a lot, there is a way to decrease it from current version.

  2. And that is, lowering the amount of weapon kits required for each rarity by a substantial amount. Which would actually make people want to spend it. Remember, even after spending 45 weapon kits for a cobalt, there is still a chance to get a loadout that is not that good or in different version ( fragment vs shard), and therefore needed 45 more weapon kits. After introducing new skin variant, people will want that so they will craft again. 45 is really excessive as is the price for other rarities. With a less punishing price of weapon kits, new skin variants would be really attractive and people would want to craft as long as its affordable and they like the skin. Which brings us to

  3. no need to update arsenal crates, except that 5 equipment cases that could be replaced by other different cases ( gold ones from few weeks ago) or better, special event cases, if those events are never coming back. If they are, then no need to do that. But I play other f2p game, where they launched the game with few only back then available costumes and opted out of it and now everyting that is exclusive, will come back at some point or version, so new people or old people not being able to get it back then, will get the chance to have it. Remember, RNG is huge on skins, so those event skins being still available in some way wont be as heavy. This would allow you to keep RNG on events low, because availability would be increased. While there is a number of people who want a truly exclusive things, like founders. In the future, this will create a rift in playerbase as it already probably did. Skins and visuals are back and bone of the games these days. Immersion is important. If a new player finds a truly beautiful skin he really wants and realises he cant ever have it, because it wont be available anymore in any way, that will make them feel less inclined to play, will leave a sour taste and might result in them stopping to play at all. Current trend is not ultimate exclusivity, but still be somewhat exclusive in some way. Having tens or hundreds of skins available to get would make people feel more unique while playing while retaining exclusivity of them being the only ones in that skin since different people different taste.

  4. let us mix crafting kits with credits for prices so we can craft in our own desired way to get what we really want

  5. make silver/gold/cobalt credit prices more attractive and less punishing. 50k for cobalt is a one week few hours a day play. with the RNG involved and fragment price, this is really excessive. Gold same. Especially if those new skin variants make it in.

  6. Lead and Iron rarity is something that is not really needed in the game. Keep the skins as tiers, but remove undesirability in form of not full augments. And you will see people running around even with them, because as it is, who except some weird cosmetic fetish people would want to use it?

  7. And this all brings me to my last point. You can have good RNG and bad RNG. Current system is bad RNG. What I am proposing, would make the RNG way more desired as it would shift RNG from playability to cosmetics. And in the end, would bring in more money. Because cosmetics is the way to go. It will annoy people to get the wrong skin variant for the rarity they want, but they will still have a way better chance to get augments they want while trying to get the skin they really desire.

(frostyvampire) #10

  1. Remove credit cost completely but increase the fragment cost instead. All existing crafting kits currently in the game will be turned into weapon kits

  2. Allow buying weapon kits with Steam wallet

  3. Remove 1x weapon/crafting kit and 5x crafting kits from Arsenal crates

  4. Do something about progression. I don’t know what you can do with it but I’m sure someone else will come up with a great idea

  5. Remove the ability to craft iron cards

  6. Another way to make people less disappointed is to introduce the trading system. Start by adding Dirty Bomb items to your Steam inventory and make them all untradable and unmarketable (if it’s not too difficult I don’t see a reason for it not to happen in the next Summer Squash update) and when you think it’s time to push out trading change some items to be tradable and/or marketable
    All loadout cards will be tradable (excluding promotional and obsidian cards) but only silver, gold, cobalt and special edition will be marketable.
    Cases, boosters and trinkets will be untradable and unmarketable
    Trading will be locked until you spend at least 25$ ingame OR own the Down and Dirty starter pack DLC. This is to avoid people abusing the free gold card and easy Arsenal Crates (because you need less xp to rank up before you reach level 10)

Thanks for communicating with us and listening to us to change this system. I hope it comes out better when you change it :slight_smile:

(geronimoooo) #11

This is a f2p game. No feature should be locked behind paywall. They can have cosmetics cost money directly( I dont agree with current RNG involved in money spent), but anything that is not purely cosmetic or just there for convenience, cannot be locked by requiring money to be spent.

Even though loadouts are available in other free ways and this would be only their exchange, it wont be just a convenience. Trading system would be a feature of the game. And as such, it has to be free to enter and free to use. It can require in game currency, but not money. That would be a very very very bad direction to go.

(frostyvampire) #12

@geronimoooo
Then they need to remove a lot of features new players get

This includes: Removing the free gold card
Removing the 30,000 credits you get when you reach level 4
Arsenal Crate rewards will only be rewarded starting on level 10

And a lot of stuff that will make it harder for new players to start playing. I think that requiring you to pay to unlock trading is better than removing all these features.

It’s not hard to create 100 Steam accounts, it takes less than a week to get to level 10 which means free gold card + free 5 Arsenal Crates + 30 equipment cases per account while in your main you would only level up once and get only 1 Arsenal Crates.
If they don’t lock trading so there is no abuse or remove the rewards new players get (which would be unfair towards legit new players) then the entire economy will crash and 383 shard Sparks will cost 1$. If they do it carefully and make sure you can’t abuse the system, 383 shard Sparks can be worth over 30$

(hoyes) #13

@FrostyVampire if they were to implement trading, spending $25 before it unlocked is a bit excessive isn’t it?Maybe $2-3. All the rewards like a free gold card and credits are there to keep new players playing the game, helping them get their first merc, so it doesn’t feel as daunting having to get mercs and then high rarity loadout cards. It doesn’t matter about people joining the game just to trade since the higher level players will always have the advantage of having good cards already, and having nothing else to spend their credits on other than cards, thus making them have to work for cobalt cards, which have higher value than golds.

(SkrubLord) #14

Was kind of dissapointed when I heard that the system would be ‘‘improved’’ rather than “removed” but still, thank you for listening to the community!

(B_Montiel) #15

Yes, incorporate the community in crafting system creation process, so this time they’ll have to undertake what it is going to happen with it. Good job putting the responsibility on somebody else ahah.

(frostyvampire) #16

@Jokder
Well the amount of money you spend should be more expensive than how much the free items are worth. 30k credits are worth 6$ so clearly you need to pay more than 6$ to unlock trading because you also get 5 Arsenal Crates + 1 gold card. The gold card will be worth over 4$ so let’s say 4$, That’s already 10$. Now we just need to count the value of ~3-4 Arsenal Crates and then we can know the value. Assuming Arsenal Crates will be worth ~2.5$ that’s 20$ already.

If it’s less than that, the economy will crash unless the free rewards are removed. In my opinion these rewards should be removed. Arsenal Crates should only be given from level 8+ and the free gold card should be replaced with 2 cases that include bronze card (1 for Aura and 1 for Skyhammer), these cards will be untradable (but you will be able to recycle them).
If they do that, then I think that spending 5$ is enough. But not 2$ of course

(Szakalot) #17

in simplest terms:

keep two options possible.

Player can tradeup lower tier cards like previously. They also can use fragments to cover the credit cost of tradeup - this way you can still do tradeup even though you’re hoarding credits for the mercs.

Keep crafting in: if i want to go for cobalt directly and i have the fragments & credits - let me. Crafting should be cheaper than trading up through all the tiers, to compensate for the bigger RNG risk, and lack of progression (failed crafts will result in net loss)

(TheStrangerous) #18

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I like the recycle system.

Getting rid of these useless duplicates/iron/lead cards within’ the press of the button is great. In the older system, I had to wait until I could afford trade up/in, thus making my loadout card inventory cluttered.

Now progression system is nice, but it’s the gameplay I value more over progression. Thus I’m more excited for new maps and mercs to come, which’ll provide some gameplay variety. That’s just me.

(MarsRover) #19

[quote=“Szakalot;202469”]in simplest terms:

keep two options possible.
[/quote]

Came here to write just that. These two systems can coexist without any issues.

(SnakekillerX) #20

The simple way to include progression is to just make it so you can’t make any card rarity using fragments/credits alone. You would need at least 1 card of a lower rarity tier that you will be converting to the next tier.

Prices would get reworked to fit in with the changes and of course, you can still recycle any card for fragments… this gives the best of both worlds.