Crafting. Let's talk about it.

[boerhae]

I’m so happy to see this video!

Anyway, some improvements that could be made, just from a basic point of view.

1. The current system is very punishing toward those of us who want Cobalt cards for these reasons.
   
   A. It’s harder to get the credits to make Cobalts, and the only other option is to buy crafting kits. It would be nice if we could combine them or something, instead of having to rely on only one.
   
   B. After that, when we get the card, there is a 1/18 chance of getting the card you want (because of the number of skins), so unless you have spectacular luck, you’re going to have to go back and try again. This, combined with the last point, makes it generally harder to get Cobalts. While the old system had the same RNG, it had more chances to get what you wanted, and was therefore, better.
   
   C. The only way of lessening the RNG involved in this system requires weapon kits. This still gives you a 1/6 chance of getting the card you want, which (considering the cost of a Cobalt at this point) still is quite a bore. Plus, weapon kits are frustratingly rare. To be perfectly honest, it’d be great to get those MERCServ cases from the Crafting Week more often, maybe like, five per merc rotation?
   
2. Okay, and I have to stress this point greatly because it’s what I really want in this game… PLEASE GIVE US MORE SKINS! Cobalts are not rare, so to speak. If you get a cobalt, this is the math behind it. There’s a lot, and I’m bad at math and may be wrong, so feel free to correct me.
   
   [spoiler]
   
   1/18 cards per merc, x19 mercs, x2 generations = 1/684. Therefore, there are only 684 unique cobalt cards in this game. DB’s peak player-count in the last 30 days is 3259 players according to steamcharts.com/app/333930 and THAT means the following…
   
   If every DB player in the peak amount for the last 30 days (3259) owned one cobalt, then 4.76461988304 (which we’ll round up to 5) players share the same cobalt.
   
   This is incomplete, because there are many players who own more than one cobalt. I myself own 7 at this point and have owned 11 at one time, so there are probably even more players who share Cobalts.
   
   Now, I don’t know how many players own how many Cobalts, so this math is very guess-y. Yeah, though, we need more skins, considering that ~50% of all Cobalts are Fragment, while the others are Shard. I have a 50% chance of sharing a skin with someone if we both own a Cobalt. Not very “rare”.
   
   [/spoiler]
   
   Considering the math above, Cobalts can’t be considered rare, just somewhat difficult to obtain. For this reason, I actually prefer SE (special edition) cards over Cobalt cards. It would seriously be great to have more skins, that would make me want to have higher-value cards more.
   
3. Progression. This was already pointed out, but the current system doesn’t make me feel like I’ve, well, progressed!
   
4. Fragments are seriously somewhat worthless. Because of how difficult it is to make cards, I honestly cannot see myself ever running out of them, as long as I craft my Leads and Irons once in a blue moon.
   
   So you don’t need to recycle, and you won’t be crafting often. That makes for a boring system, and the rewards are so unspecial, it’s barely worth it. THAT is my current take on DB’s crafting system.
   

ALSO SHOE DIDN’T SAY PLAY DIRTY AT THE END OF THE VIDEO

[VincentRJaeger]

I like communication.

Now I just need to see action.

Also for the love of the nine divines please keep the Recycling atleast, it’s a blessing <3

[The_N00Ba]

By the looks of things, it appears some people would prefer to pay 50,000 credits in small chunks rather than a huge one.
Recycling appears to be valued due the fact it reduces inventory clutter and other inventory issues.

[GhostEntity]

I for one would love to see character skins being seperated from weapon skins (imo silver and gold have the best weapon looks).

Other than that, no insightful comments for progression or value for time.

[SirMurder]

[quote=“Boerhae;202500”]I’m so happy to see this video!

ALSO SHOE DIDN’T SAY PLAY DIRTY AT THE END OF THE VIDEO[/quote]

I heard him whisper help at 3:08. #SaveMarinaShoe

[watsyurdeal]

So I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I think there’s a way to have the best of both worlds.

1. Remove fragments, entirely, all player remaining fragments in a players inventory are added to credits at a rate of 3x, so every fragments is a credit.

2. Instead, all you can craft with, are crafting kits. They can now be purchased in the store for credits, and cost 5000 credits each.

3. Crafting kit costs are reduced, bronze are 1, silver is 3, gold is 6, and cobalt is 12.

4. Weapon kits can also be purchased for 5000 credits each, the number required for each rarity is as follows, bronze is 1, silver is 2, gold is 3, cobalt is 4.

5. Skin kits can also be purchased for 5000 credits each, the number required for each rarity is as follows, bronze is 1, silver is 2, gold is 3, cobalt is 4. These kits allow to pick specifically what skin you want.

6. Cards are now broken down into credits, the amounts are as follows, lead is 250, iron is 500, bronze is 1000, silver is 2000, gold is 4000, cobalts are 8000.

7. Cards can also be traded up, on one of two conditions, they must be the same rarity, and must be the same merc or card. You must have 3 to trade up.

8. Cards that are of the same merc, cost 3 to trade up and produce a random card for said merc.

9. Cards that are all the same card, for example, you have 3 silver BL32 cards for Fletcher, you can trade all those up and get a single gold BL32 card.

10. Cases that drop in matches, are now Loot Cases, and contain the following, 1 equipment case, 1 expert case, 1 elite case, 1 crafting kit, 1 weapon kit, 1 skin kit, 3 hour credit booster. These are randomly dropped cases so imo, this seems very fair.

11. Equipment cases can still be bought in the store, and are mandatory rewards in every ranked match you play.

I think these changes would encourage people to play a lot and often, even if their missions are done for the day. And that brings to my next point, I think we should completely change the way missions are done, for example, instead of having 3 hour resets, we should have daily resets instead, and how it should go, is this.

Getting things Done: Get x amount of xp in Objective Mode
Marathon Man: Get x amount of xp in Stopwatch Mode
Search and Destroy: Get x amount of xp in Execution Mode
Slayer: Get x amount of combat xp
Teamplayer: Get x amount of support xp
Greasemonkey: Get x amount of objective xp

And I am not done, the x in each these, is how much you need to get for each one, and each one has a specific tier in which credits are rewarded. So for example

Slayer tier 1: Get 6000 of combat xp, get 500 credits
Slayer tier 2: Get 8000 of combat xp, get 750 credits
Slayer tier 3: Get 10000 of combat xp, get 1000 credits

So when you complete tier 1, you can start on tier 2, and so on. So the amount of missions you can do in a single day are as follows.

Getting things Done 1: Get 9000 xp in Objective Mode, get 500 credits
Getting things Done 2: Get 1200 xp in Objective Mode, get 750 credits
Getting things Done 3: Get 1500 xp in Objective Mode, get 1000 credits
Marathon Man: Get 9000 xp in Stopwatch Mode, get 500 credits
Marathon Man: Get 1200 xp in Stopwatch Mode, get 750 credits
Marathon Man: Get 1500 xp in Stopwatch Mode, get 1000 credits
Search and Destroy: Get 9000 xp in Execution Mode, get 500 credits
Search and Destroy: Get 1200 xp in Execution Mode, get 750 credits
Search and Destroy: Get 1500 xp in Execution Mode, get 1000 credits
Slayer: Get 6000 combat xp, get 500 credits
Slayer: Get 8000 combat xp, get 750 credits
Slayer: Get 10000 combat xp, get 1000 credits
Teamplayer: Get 4500 of support xp, get 500 credits
Teamplayer: Get 6000 of support xp, get 750 credits
Teamplayer: Get 7500 of support xp, get 1000 credits
Greasemonkey: Get 4500 of objective xp, get 500 credits
Greasemonkey: Get 6000 of objective xp, get 750 credits
Greasemonkey: Get 7500 of objective xp, get 1000 credits

Total credits you can get in a day from doing all this, is 13,500, and the best thing is you no longer have to wait for missions every 3 hours, just come in, play as much as you want for the day, then go about your business or come back to it later.

[MarsRover]

I would also suggest 2 things:

1. ability to spend extra credits to reduce or eliminate completely RNG for skin and loadouts. Something along the lines of what Watsyurdeal suggested, but I don’t have the time or energy to propose any solid numbers.

2. Every credit/fragment/whatever cost should be bypassable with real money. At 40% reduction the price point for crafting kits was perfect - cheap enough for a impulse buy. 10 kits for 3.49EUR = 0.35EUR for 5000 credits = 0.35EUR for a chosen merc’s Silver (of course plus fragments). I can even deal with RNG for that price

What I really want to see is separation of skins and loadouts but that’s about as probable as me winning the US presidential election, so why even bother?

[aminuseternal]

[quote=“MarsRover;202618”]

What I really want to see is separation of skins and loadouts but that’s about as probable as me winning the US presidential election, so why even bother? :([/quote]

Have you seen our candidates? you would be fine
I too would love to see skins/loudouts separated. It would probably make things a little better for event skins too, well that and I would love to be able to just buy event skins, I would spend the same amount of money, but I would have more skins for more mercs…

The ReV event was an improvement, but yeah it would be nice just to be able to use money/credits to lessen that RNG up.

[bontsa]

This right here might be our last chance of proposing a proper separation of skins and functional loadouts. I hope some insightful idea tinkerer has some thoughts on the way, as I lack the ability to go through such math on how to create such system in detail. But I really see that as the only good way of having reasonable amount of RNG present so that stuff isnt too easily obtained thus providing profit for developers through allowing purchaseable shortcuts (in terms of skins) for players, without the systen kicking the nuts of paying and non paying players both alike.

[Xenithos]

I decided to put my “rants” as “examples” and spoiler’d them. If you want my full undivided thoughts, etc. Then click the spoilers.

My thoughts on the whole system:

1. Splash Damage values cobalts way too much.[spoiler] If I had NEVER EVER gotten rid of a cobalt, due to bad rng, and all other conditions, I MIGHT have ~20 cobalts today. With roughly 4-6 that I would actually use. That’s over a year of playing, AND over 200$ spent on events that I actually found as fun. I really don’t think that me, who can make 60-80k credits in a week, and made over 280k credits from 12 credits upon hearing of the Crafting week, should have to spend so much money, for so little of the highest tier stuff. I’ve got extremely close to a thousand hours IN-GAME shooting time.[/spoiler] A good cobalt SHOULD be a monthly investment, imo, NOT 2-3 months, at the rate that I play this game. Please, lower your expectations, and allow players to earn a cobalt of their choice roughly every month from approximately 60-80 hours of work a month. Honestly, it seems more than fair. So please, look at reducing the time to get a Cobalt someone actually WANTS.
2. The new system should give daily playability beyond 3 hour mission rotations similar to what Watsyurdeal proposed. I enjoy Dirty Bomb a lot, to the point where I play it even if I don’t have missions because of the many great friends and people I’ve met.
3. [spoiler]Your weapon kit prices (and most prices tbh) are abnormally STUPID. I get that “Weapon kits are rare items”, but why the FUDGE does it require 45 of these to craft one weapon choice on a cobalt? That’s 45 levels straight of getting ONE WEAPON KIT. I’m level 71. This is retarded, no matter how you try to defend your number. [/spoiler]Please allow players to fully customize the loadouts they craft, they deserve it, and if they do, a lot more heartbreak and frustrations will be removed from the game. Even if it costs MORE in-game resources, allow them to EARN THEM, not by levels and RnG, because it’s past reasonable.
4. Allowing players to work up to a cobalt is a unique thing, that was very pleasurable about the old system. If you manage to find a way to allow this with my previous limits, then PLEASE do so.
5. Release cooler content for money so that you earn stuff. As has been mentioned many times on the forums: Players want more unique skins, cooler ones than what is currently offered. Ones where the actual models are changed.
6. We get that Cobalts are the “End-Game reward” however user results may vary is a stupid thing to tack onto that. Allow the user to continue “Replaying” the game because the user wants to expand his collection.[spoiler] As @THUNDA has already posted in a different thread as a joke: He can die now since he’s finally gotten every great loadout for Thunder in cobalt that he wanted. However, it took him 114 levels to do this, and I don’t really think he’s going to stop playing just because he’s gotten what he wants.[/spoiler] Or perhaps, maybe you guys could find DIFFERENT End-Game rewards in your constantly failing “Ranked” game mode that you could deploy.[spoiler] Perhaps even similar approach to what Blizzard is offering in OW with golden weapons. Not that that’s something that I’d go for, but just an example.[/spoiler] Expand your end-game “rewards” beyond cobalts and skins.
7. The best thing about this game is the fact that it’s free to play. Like ACTUALLY free to play. There’s no P2W in this game. Maybe offer that sort of thought to DB.
8. Future proof this system with TRADING in mind. If you guys forget that your economy will be affected by trading later on, including the fact that people will want to trade their older, unused cards that others like for resources they can USE, then this system will fail too.
9. We get that you like RnG, and you can still maintain it, but do not have it as the main limiting factor in the game. It kicks too many teeth out,[spoiler] and the “It’s more likely to kick your teeth in” commercial always painfully pronounces itself in these frequently occuring moments…[/spoiler]
10. If you make Cobalts so easy to get, it also makes getting cards during events worth MUCH MUCH MORE. Doing this allows your events to become the main ways for you guys to make money, and doing events means you guys can focus on the more fun parts you actually enjoy, rather than just fixing the game. ESPECIALLY when trading comes out.
    
11. Genius mode activated: If you can find a way to make the new system with Lore more involved, it would be cool. So maybe as you unlock cobalt options, you unlock different pieces of backgrounds of characters. So if people wanted to learn all of the lore and the storylines and stuff, they’d work hard to get ALL of the cobalts for their waifus and junk. CRAP you could even expand the DB universe and add storylines that are hidden in the different loadouts, with a little feature to play different missions because of the cards you’ve unlocked. So players that don’t want to “Grind” and only want to play the storyline, spend real-money to get these cobalts faster. Then this makes crafting all of these Cobalts the ultimate reward.
    
12. I have the honest feeling, that once trading comes out, and if lore is involved with how I mentioned above, then it will revive your community. Kinda like Pokemon… :neutral:
    

[RickyNeuman]

You can combine both systems with two easy steps:

1.To craft a higher tier card you need one lower tier + fragments + Credits
(Makes you go through the rarities again)

2. Reduce credit + fragment costs
   (Lower the costs to a reasonable amount. The math is up to you, but fragments could be close to what is was during the event. Credits maybe something like 30k for cobalt, 15k for gold, 7,5k for silver,…)

[n-x]

Why don’t you introduce a trade up System where you pay small amounts of Cash instead of credits. But you can directly choose Merc, Skin and loadout. The Hook is, that you can’t trade up with credits and then the last step is with Cash. You must select the Cash Route from the beginning. bronze, Silber, gold, Cobalt. That way everybody who dislikes rng could avoid it with some Cash and you would make some money. Just don’t go too crazy with the price. Maybe 10-12 Euro in total for a Cobalt.

This is additional to whatever Credit based System you come up with.

[The_N00Ba]

It appears some players do not mind paying a large chunk of credits and fragments all at once to get the rarity they want.
It also appears some players prefer to spend a little credits and fragments here and there in order to get the rarity they want in time.
The crafting serves the first group of people very well. Not so much the second.
The second would probably enjoy some sort of Upgrade system where they can put predetermined amounts of credits and fragments into a card to pay the difference between rarity costs in order to “upgrade” their card’s rarity. RNG can or can not be involved with this still.
The costs between the two systems could be the same in total or different depending on how the math of “upgrading” actually worked.
The fact that players can “upgrade” cards from free cases or cases bought with credits or real money would need to be kept in mind though.

[Tanker_Ray]

@Xenithos

True. I’ve been playing more since that day actually. A~~~ND… of course I’ll play more

Took me so long to reach my own goal eventhough I felt so unfair of RNG.

Your ideas are also great Xenithos!

[bontsa]

My 2 cents on it with help from [TAW]Corpse and @MisterBadmin ; separate functional loadouts and skins by having default-skinned triple-augment “Bare Loadouts” and “Paint packs” for each of the skin variants we have currently.

There is really a lot about this that I can’t slap here due shortage of space and simplicity, hell I already had to divide this to 2 posts and its a wall monster of text. Also I am definitely not the first one to bring such idea up, not my idea but I did try to flesh it to fit current system.

Overall

[spoiler]How I think about this is to keep it simple and also as similar as current system. Advantage in separation would be that no longer player would face the situation where they get lucky but only in half. “Oh cool Gold from equipment case…Oh goddamnit not another Remburg for Aura” // “Oh nice BL41 for Aura, too bad I hate this skin”. You get the desired functional card with relative ease, think much like current Bronzes are quite doable to obtain. Trick here is these “basic” cards would be with default skin. Even though the process would take slightly longer, once you get your hands on the desired skin you have more freedom to apply it to card you like.

Whenever there would be 2 types of equipment cases for dropping cards and paint separately, or just 1 type which drops both is a thing that affects this system’s profitability and player-friendliness a lot but here goes:

2 case types. Current equipment cases would drop single-, duo-, and triple augment default cards for all mercs, comparable to our Lead, Iron and Bronze now but without the skin. Theres 513 possibilities to these, which while is the same amount of functional cards as now, since skins are separated overall is considerably less stuff to drop from single case. These could all be turned into fragments if one wishes, which again could be used to create again duo and triple augment default cards. Some of the Fragment value would be lost in order to stop infinite rerolls. These cases would drop just like equipment cases now, and you could buy triple augment default cards from the shop like Bronzes now.

Then you would have paint pack cases which drop one of the 10 different skins (Lead, Iron, Bronze, 2x Silver (Carbon, Urban), 3x Gold (Bamboo, Crown, Swiss) and 2x Cobalt (Fragment, Shard) for all mercs, merc specific. So for example you can get Fragger Carbon that you can then use to paint a Fragger loadout card you like. These cases would be slightly more rare to come by, for example replace some Equipment case drops in Arsenal crates and have chance to drop in Ranked mode etc. Percentages would be somewhat the same as current equipment cases (66% lead and so on). These should also be recycle-able into Fragments (so that our inventories don’t get flooded with unused Leads) but in what relation / conversion rate compared to loadouts, I don’t really know.

So in the end of the day functional cards would be easier to get, but skins would be considerably harder to get. However you have all the power over where the skin is gonna end up in.[/spoiler]

Separation and some speculating about the current way

[spoiler]So we would have bare function loadout cards with preset 3x augment and weapon combination, think like Bronzes we have now, only with Default skin. Through free cases/bought cases/crafting you would obtain merc-specific paint packs you then merge with these loadout cards, creating something that works and looks exactly like cards we have now. Except that this separation opens possibilities to use i.e Iron skin with 3 augment combo and so forth. As can be seen, depending on how skins are obtained even if or when there would still be RNG involved, once you have your hands on that functional loadout you like it all comes down to matter of finding the wanted skin.

There should still be completely preset loadouts like Humble Bundle ones (functionality and skin preset) and random functional loadouts should be dropped from cases, and crafting these should still stay somewhat randomized. This is because core principle SD stated in somewhere that they want players to set out of their comfort zone every now and then, trying out loadouts that don’t immediately strike to players as preferable. Call them “pleasant surprises” or whatnot.[/spoiler]

How is this in any way profitable?

[spoiler]Increased freedom should come with a price however, because if everything would be easy to obtain there would be no reason to spend money on the game. As anyone sensible knows, game doesn’t get done from nice thoughts and intentions, there needs to be profit, no freebies no matter how much people crave for them.

What I’m proposing as “increased price” is lowering the percentages of getting silver/gold/cobalt paint packs for free, from those paint pack cases I mentioned. Leads/Irons/Bronzes would dominate those, with still some chance of getting vanity skins. Mind you that I possess no skills on going further with this math so more precise calculations should definitely be done by people with more insight. Bottom line is free way of obtaining skins would still definitely be there (and trading is coming at some point in foreseeable future) but with possibility reduced due more freedom to choose once you find one. Fairer for players on average all across the board, but the lucky jackpots few people here and there get would no longer be there.

What would one get with cash then? Shortcut for vanity goodies. Core of the suggested system, ability to merge loadout with a skin, already gives more freedom and makes obtaining the preferred combination easier, so how I see it RNG would still be present in these cases. How much or if at all is however debatable, I’m trying to find golden line between player-friendliness and profitability. Knowing exactly what one gets when investing money would definitely be the optimal route but then again I have no proper idea how to keep system so that it’s not too easy to get the vanity stuff one wishes. If this wall of text of an idea hits home for you, feel free to drop a suggestion.
[/spoiler]

Keeping whatever possible from current system

[spoiler]Recycling could still stay intact. The part which I’m still unsure of is whenever loadouts and skins should both be transferable into fragments and/or credits or not. Its a huge part of all this and I haven’t thought it much, which is why in my first post on this thread I was hoping someone else would grab the ropes.

In terms of kits. Crafting kits for now are simply a replacement for credit cost in the crafting process. So were there to be come kind of “trash lower tier skins into currency to create higher”- system, they would stay pretty much what they are now. Just replace them being used to create entire loadout+skin combo to just creating a skin. Or maybe a loadout? However, we already have more suitable kit for that…

…weapon kits. Those buggers that we’re supposed to need 45 for a Cobalt skinned card for still rather random functionality. Scrap weapon kits being used to create entire loadout+skin combo again, and use them only to craft loadout cards only, just like now deciding what weapon we’ll get. Put the requirement to something between 4-7 and it makes sense getting them through Arsenal crates and possibly some minor ways in future.
[/spoiler]

…continues down below (hope I ain’t getting combo-broken :3 )

E: Edited a lot of “How is this profitable” paragraph due a brainfart I had because I took breaks in writing this. Pfft, silly.

[bontsa]

And whats missing?

[spoiler]
Progression is something not really present in this system, I know. And I also know that would be off-putting for quite many. Perhaps one could still use multiple lower-tier paint packs to create one higher-tier one like in old card system you needed from 3 upto 6 of previous tier cards plus credits to create one higher. I don’t really know nor have opinion.[/spoiler]

It is not only the crafting thats issue here though

[spoiler]And last but not least, there is no proper ways to show off your in-game shiny vanity yet. Some sloppy “you were killed by” mini-icon visible for few fractions of a second is not going to cut it, same goes for trinkets and whatever baubles and cosmetics are to become in future. In order to have wanted vanities, one needs proper channel to show them off.

Trading and marketplace are also something that change the value of cosmetics considerably, and which also has an effect on how cosmetics and functionality alike should be obtained in-game. Completely different realm that I don’t want to venture into.[/spoiler]

[GhostEntity]

@bontsa Yes! Very well put my internet friend!

[The_N00Ba]

I myself prefer that skins be separate from load outs. I think it can allow things to be more modular.

[_i_Skree]

the crafting system as it is now is too expensive in comparison to the old trade up system where i could comparatively cheaply trade up 5 golds to cobalt for only 10k credist, even though the trade up is significantly cheaper when viewed at it as if you were trading up solely from lead cards though most people who trade up to cobalt would never do that they’d just leave them or eventually trade up a bunch to iron and furthermore bronze therefore I’d like a hybrid system of both worlds which would still incorporate the new system with shards though i suggest splitting them a little like currency (gold cards give gold shards etc) and judging on which fragments you use the trade up systems calculates the price in credits and in addition to that make it possible to upgrade the currency (with some loss of course as an example: I have 1000 lead shards on paper they’d be worth an exact amount of 100 iron shards though if i upgrade them I lose 10% and now only have 90 iron shards though the upgrade cost for credits is still lowered if i use those Iron shards since they are higher in value than lead)

and in use this system would be something like this:

i scrap 5 gold cards and have enough gold shards to trade up to cobalt and if i use those shards the trade up cost will only be 10k

i scrap tons of leads and get a lot of lead shards and i olny have 49.000 credits I have barely enough shards to still trade up to cobalt if i upgrade all of my shards to iron therefore I do it and since they are a higher rarity then lead now the upgrade cost is a little lowered from the 50k credits it would cost me if I only used lead shards to 47k
but since i upgraded my lead shards to iron to achieve the lower price in comparison i used more resources while saving some credits

[The_N00Ba]

From the math I have done:
If you only bought cases with real money the Trade Up system was less expensive credit wise than the crafting system.
If you only bought cases with credits the Trade Up system was more expensive credit wise than the crafting system with most rarities.
If you only used free cases the Trade Up system was more expensive credit wise than the crafting system with most rarities.
The reason why I found the Trade Up system to be more expensive credit wise when not using real money is because of all the costs of trading up.
Even if you have some free higher rarity cards the costs of trading up from lead to iron to bronze to silver to gold and finally to cobalt eventually add up to being more than the current credit costs of Crafting.
This at least appears true for the average player.