I’ll assume it’s because in some way, SD wishes to save face on having made a decision, but sometimes going by your gut is a terrible idea. many a time ive had to just swallow my pride and do something i simply do not want to do because if i dont, i’ll just be hurting myself.
now, though, besides the fact that its happened before, i cant even say what exactly was i told to do that i didnt want to do so much. it really doesnt matter in the long run.
It looks to me like the original system (or a prototype) was designed was a typical run-of-the-mill thing, flexible enough to accommodate any monetization model. Which is by no means bad - why reinvent the wheel?
Sadly what we got is a product of someone who thinks that RNG is required for a F2P game monetization 
Well, now I rememeber where I had seen the idea I also kept suggesting and even made a thread again not so long ago. Needless to say I think this should bloody definitely be a thing. I won’t spend a dime on cases ever now or in future as long as they are such a casino as they’re now. Some level of RNG is completely understandable, but this is just robbery.
And just as @derpypenguinz19 said above your comment here, making things in future something where skins are separate from actual loadout, and one just “attaches” them together, nothing from current loadouts would change. They are pre-attached so to speak.
If you want a good loadout, you can buy one in the store. It’s a bronze one, but you can play with this card. If you want the same in cobalt, it must be hard, otherwise everyone will have a good cobalt card. This game is about grinding, not easy stuff. Actually, when I see a cobalt 383 sparks, the first thing I think is “either he bought some elite case, either he played a lot. In both cases, I’m jealous”. If you can have every card easily, then rare stuff will become common.
Or the game will become only pay to have skins. Actually everybody can have a good skin after grinding a lot. That’s why I love this game.
[quote=“ClemClem7;170788”]If you want a good loadout, you can buy one in the store. It’s a bronze one, but you can play with this card. If you want the same in cobalt, it must be hard, otherwise everyone will have a good cobalt card. This game is about grinding, not easy stuff. Actually, when I see a cobalt 383 sparks, the first thing I think is “either he bought some elite case, either he played a lot. In both cases, I’m jealous”. If you can have every card easily, then rare stuff will become common.
Or the game will become only pay to have skins. Actually everybody can have a good skin after grinding a lot. That’s why I love this game.[/quote]
Thanks for adding absolutely nothing.
First off, yeah, some Cobalts were gained after a long grind. Nearly all of my Cobalts are. Still, there’s people getting perfect Cobalts in the first ever case they drop, it’s pure RNG and doesn’t mean you’ve worked hard for it.
Same can be said for the fact that you can craft a shitload of Cobalts (I did the math earlier, million creds + 750-something cards) that all come out as shitty loadouts, while someone else gets the right card on the first go.
People take massive offense on the RNG factor of this game. Most of us just want to look good while killing, and would very much prefer the old system with unlockables/purchaseables.
And the real kick in the face is going to be in about a month when the V2 loadouts come out, which is very most likely going to replace some of the better loadouts we have now. You ground hundreds of hours for that perfect Cobalt? Great, it’s no longer perfect, grind again!
I think it’s a good thing this game has loadout sets, but the cards do need some cons to balance out pros (why bother using cards with no augments? But that’s a different can of worms for another topic).
If everyone could choose their favorite augments and weapons, soon somebody would find out and start abusing the “GODLY UNIVERSAL LOADOUT” set. Then it would create snowball effect, with everyone else using the exact same loadout. Obviously SD would nerf it real hard and make it useless…
[quote=“TheStrangerous;170798”]I think it’s a good thing this game has loadout sets, but the cards do need some cons to balance out pros (why bother using cards with no augments? But that’s a different can of worms for another topic).
If everyone could choose their favorite augments and weapons, soon somebody would find out and start abusing the “GODLY UNIVERSAL LOADOUT” set. Then it would create snowball effect, with everyone else using the exact same loadout. Obviously SD would nerf it real hard and make it useless…[/quote]
Which exactly why in the discussion here is to simply separate looks of the loadouts and the functionality of them. You have set of weapons and set of augments and then above those you have mercenary skin, let it be Woodland for Bronze, Carbon/Urban for Silver, etcetc. Worry not that this kind of discussion is not aiming for letting people pick their augments and weapons, creating those exact jack-of-all-trade combinations (coughcough 383 Sparks) you mentioned.
We mostly want not to be hit in the junk by needless RNG with a metallic baseball bat like @Matuno gives an example for.
To the subject itself at hand, how could RNG be involved then? How would the rarity be conserved like @ClemClem7 seemed to be worried about? By making drop rates of said skin varieties more limited for example. After all, if we would be to be able to pick by ourselves which loadout we want to look shiny, there wouldn’t be threat of having to wade through millions of credits and thousands of loadout tradeups, or even hundreds of real-life currency just to get some garbage that only looks neat. Oh, not even that if you happen to get the, lets say Cobalt, variant you dislike instead of the other that you drool for.
How devs get money of the new type of system? Lowering chances of skins from free cases (after all we would have, once obtaining skin, ability to stick it to loadout of our choosing), having even separate cases for gun skins (I sure can’t be only one wanting Fragment skin but Swiss Red gun?), etc. Lot more fair for larger portion of the playerbase, only being “less profitable” so to speak to true luckers out there.
This is just the basics of a system trying to mix more skin customization, reduce the rng for the skin/perks and trying to compensate the actual loadouts you have for each merc.
What about divide the actual loadout cards in 2 parts: Merc+skins and weapon+perks (+skins)
The skins could be dedicated to each merc, so you can still trade up skins for better ones (but only skins), and keep your 383 sparks perks/weapons, but unlock a new shiny skin for that merc (and if you have various mercs with cobalt skins, you’ll still have that skin for that mercs). With this you keep the skin rarity of the mercs and this wont kill all of your cobalts/gold loadouts you actually have.
The weapons+perks will be unlocked too for each merc, for example, if you have a 383 loadout and gold, cobalt, CW, Humble bundle and bronce skins, you can use the 383 set on each skin. With this you reduce the grinding for having a desired loadout with a rarer skin, but you still need to unlock it somehow. Also it could be an option to use the merc skins and apply a different skin to the weapons (so you can have a cobalt skinned sparks with a golden empire in a 383 loadout)
An example with 2 mercs and various actual cards for each one.
Merc: Sparks
Currently cards: 343 (Cobalt Shard), 383 (Gold Crown), 382 (Gold Bamboo and Lead Dirt), 373 (Bronze Woodland and CW), Basic (Basic Skin)
Merc: Proxy
Currently cards: H11 (Bronze Woodland and Iron Galvanized), Ke12 (Cobalt Fragment, Silver Urban and ReV), R22 (Lead Dirt and Gold Swiss), Basic (Basic Skin)
With the system mentioned, the cards’re divided:
Merc: Sparks
Skins: Cobalt (Shard), Gold (Crown), Gold (Bamboo), Bronce (Woodland), Lead (Dirt), CW, Basic Skin
Loadouts: 383, 343, 382, 373
Merc: Proxy
Skins: Cobalt (Fragment), Gold (Swiss), Silver (Urban), Bronze (Woodland), Iron (Galvanized), Lead (Dirt), ReV, Basic Skin
Loadouts: H11, Ke12, R22
And with the divided loadouts you can mix the skins and loadouts, but only for the merc you have unlocked (so if you want the shard cobalt on proxy, you still need to trade up the skins for that merc)
(i hope this is understandable lol)
@Draco I think despite loadout skin and weapon&augment combo being separate, they should be attached in irreversible manner so some level of grinding is still involved to saviour rarity.
Got 383 Sparks in Carbon silver and you feel good with it, but new drool-inducing event skin is released? Get new 383 weapon&augment combo card and new Sparks event skin and you’re good to go! Still considerably less work, effort, broken nuts and gamble and 273’s clogging up your inventory than with current system, but stays more profitable for developer and publisher, since player can either choose to grind or buy a quick-way to it (getting 383 from Store).
So how would we get loudouts? Have separate cases for them? Would we have separate ones for guns and skins? Would they all have 3 augments or would some only have 2 or 1?
it could be done like that:
LOADOUTS:
to get loadout that you want, you need to buy it in store
SKINS:
skins are now dropping from cases, merc skins are separated from weapons (same in elite cases), normal cases are normal and dropping every thing
for example you open normal case and get bronze skin for stoker, and in another case you get lead m9
TRADING UP:
its tricky soo the game wont die and i see 3 options
i also see that a loot of people complain about low levels that got lucky and have best cobalts.
the simplest solution for that are skins based on achievements or… bages!
not sure about that idea, but we could have 3 tiers of achievements for every gun and merc
something like getting x kill with a gun or x xp with a merc, and why 3 tiers of achievements? because every tier would unlock new skin! ( i will use skins from sparks update for example) get x kills with empire 9 to unlock that red skin, get 4x to unlock woodland skin and finally get 10x kill to unlock gold skin! ( amount of kills wouldnt be the same for every gun soo you wont need to get the same amount of kill with pistol and ar
oh i almost forgot about very important thing, and that thing is that ppl wont loose their skins, for example i have cobalt kira with br, m9 and stiletto, soo i will get cobalt kira, cobalt br, cobalt m9 and ofc cobalt stiletto
you could for example have stoker with crown skin and founder m4 !
That video, along with pre-closed beta stuff is all very much still under NDA and not permitted to be posted on these forums. Please only discuss information that is rightly made public - thanks guys.
Old systems like this were in place BEFORE Dirty Bomb had any form of income besides the founder packs, thus making money was not at the fore-front, it was testing out the game’s systems. This is why old things are still NDA’d, because they simply aren’t relevant, nor were ever going to be implemented in the game in such a manner, it’s just testing. And then people expect that it was actually a “feature” for the game.
@Faraleth the dream destroyer…those are just our dreams about db without RNG
[quote=“Faraleth;170891”]That video, along with pre-closed beta stuff is all very much still under NDA and not permitted to be posted on these forums. Please only discuss information that is rightly made public - thanks guys.
Old systems like this were in place BEFORE Dirty Bomb had any form of income besides the founder packs, thus making money was not at the fore-front, it was testing out the game’s systems. This is why old things are still NDA’d, because they simply aren’t relevant, nor were ever going to be implemented in the game in such a manner, it’s just testing. And then people expect that it was actually a “feature” for the game.[/quote]
How exactly is it not relevant? Such a system is present in many other successful FPS games today such as CSGO, Battlefield, Call of Duty and more (or even MOBAs like Dota or League where you buy skins directly from a store, no RNG involved). It may have just been a feature meant for testing purposes but is also illustrates that such a feature is possible in a game like Dirty Bomb and that they have the implementation filed away somewhere.
I think most will agree that there is a better ‘Free to Play’ model out there, such as the one in the video, that doesn’t include as much RNG and instead features a more straight forward store and customization system. Instead of brushing a possible system aside, take the complaints seriously about the current system and see if something can be done about it. The game is in beta after all and that means things can change, even if it is drastic change, it can happen. implementing a new monetary system for the game is quite possible and while it might be difficult, at the end of the day, it might be worth it to invest time and effort into a more robust system which is agreeable to the majority of players. As an added benefit, a “skin store” and player customization system would also appear to be much less “pay to win” to new players (obviously DB is not P2W, but many outsiders get that impression). As another added benefit, the system shown in the video or that type which is common in many FPS games today, would allow for easy expansion to areas such as gun customization (sights) which the devs have expressed interest in a number of times.
However, that is just my two cents.
Does make you wonder what kind of problems showed up that made them change the system, as there is no doubt in my mind it’s a good one. Hopefully one day NDA is lifted and we can ask on a stream or something. @Faraleth would it be impolite to ask on the next stream about the old system, if they can even answer at all?
I wouldn’t bother man, they will almost definitely not even voice your question, let alone answer it. Although you could ask about potential changes to the loadout card system that could come in the future.
@bontsa, I understand how the system works and what people want, my point is to do you make it work without taking anything away from what we already have. People do have double ups on skins in various loadouts.
Let’s say someone has a fragment cobalt M62 fragger and a fragment cobalt b52 fragger. If the new system was put in place, it would strip both these skins off his cards, and in his loadout inventory he would have the M62 and B52 fragger and in his skins inventory he would have fragment cobalt that he can equip to either card. The end result may be that he has exactly what he had before so you can argue he has lost nothing, but it’s taken a whole heap of value out of the cards he had, because the cards are now only worth their loadout value not their rarity value. It literally strips all value off current cobalt cards people have collected, grinded for, spent money on elite cases, people who have purposely bought other cards to do cobalt trade ups etc.
Take Sniff for example. That guy has spent thousands on elite cases to gather up his awesome collection. If you were to introduce this new system which would strip all his cards of their skins, and he has technically lost a lot of value and all his double up cards are now worthless (I’m sure he has plenty of double ups - even I do). A fragment M62 cobalt fragger that someone has spent the equivalent of 1 million+ in game credits is now worth 17,000 in game credits because the skin is totally separate to the card.
This system is better, don’t get me wrong, I would have been all for it, but it’s too late. Some people do collect skins even if they don’t like them, it’s totally unfair to strip their hundreds or thousands of dollars off them and say “here you go, now all those cards you spent hundreds on are just blank cards worth $3 in the store and even though you had 9 fragment cobalts for fragger you now just have 1 that you can equip to any of your fragger cards when you want to use it”
[quote=“rancid;170978”]@bontsa, I understand how the system works and what people want, my point is to do you make it work without taking anything away from what we already have. People do have double ups on skins in various loadouts.
Let’s say someone has a fragment cobalt M62 fragger and a fragment cobalt b52 fragger. If the new system was put in place, it would strip both these skins off his cards, and in his loadout inventory he would have the M62 and B52 fragger and in his skins inventory he would have fragment cobalt that he can equip to either card. The end result may be that he has exactly what he had before so you can argue he has lost nothing, but it’s taken a whole heap of value out of the cards he had, because the cards are now only worth their loadout value not their rarity value. It literally strips all value off current cobalt cards people have collected, grinded for, spent money on elite cases, people who have purposely bought other cards to do cobalt trade ups etc.
Take Sniff for example. That guy has spent thousands on elite cases to gather up his awesome collection. If you were to introduce this new system which would strip all his cards of their skins, and he has technically lost a lot of value. A fragment M62 cobalt fragger that someone has spent the equivalent of 1 million+ in game credits is now worth 17,000 in game credits because the skin is totally separate to the card.
This system is better, don’t get me wrong, I would have been all for it, but it’s too late. Some people do collect skins even if they don’t like them, it’s totally unfair to strip their hundreds or thousands of dollars off them and say “here you go, now all those cards you spent hundreds on are just blank cards worth $3 in the store and even though you had 9 fragment cobalts for fragger you now just have 1 that you can equip to any of your fragger cards when you want to use it”
[/quote]
…but that’s assuming the entire community magically assumes that the skin cards have no value whatsoever and that blank loadouts are their lord and savior and only tradable commodity. Based on how skins are doing in games with trading systems like CS:GO and TF2 (yes I’m using that comparison), skin cards would be worth something, as would loadouts.
And you’d get (surprise!) not one single skin, but duplicates if you had multiple loadouts with the same skins. At least, that’s how I envision it.