PDA

View Full Version : [What If?]There were high-TL non-rares



CMaster
13-12-12, 16:19
Thinking I may do a few of these - "what if" posts. Ideas that might change the game for the better, or might not, sort of blue skies thinking (although still constrained by being Neocron as we know it, and at least reasonable practical), throw them out there and see what people think, and if there's something good to be gotten from it

So, the basic idea for this post is pretty simple: For all the weapons streams, there are "normal" and epic weapons up until tl90, then after that there are rare and WoC weapons. What this basically means is that for most capped characters, rare weapons are a straight up necessity. A spy isn't getting anywhere bringing a TL79 street rifle to a fight, PvE or PvP.

But why should it be that way? Why on earth do Tangent and Tsunami not make and sell high-end weaponry? How about if we had non-rare weapons going all the way up to TL115 (and beyond?).

Rares would still be better thanks to their +10% damage bonus and superior stats (and slot chance), but non-rares would be an option. It would make the swirly a bit more of a statement, and perhaps make more options (eg, if there was a pulselaser rifle at ~TL100, that would lead to different setups than what the dissy asked for. Same with say, a TL112 plasma cannon.

More technically challenging, but even better to my mind would be if rares lost their straight up damage bonus, but gained a thematic "special" effect. Eg Slasher does a (small amount) of bonus piercing damage; Beam of Hell a small fire stack, etc. And even better still if rares were made well, a lot rarer (very hard to do retroactively) - they'd only offer a small advantage, but pulling out a swirly would be one hell of a statement.

So yeah, thoughts?

Izeo
13-12-12, 17:45
More technically challenging, but even better to my mind would be if rares lost their straight up damage bonus, but gained a thematic "special" effect. Eg Slasher does a (small amount) of bonus piercing damage; Beam of Hell a small fire stack, etc. And even better still if rares were made well, a lot rarer (very hard to do retroactively) - they'd only offer a small advantage, but pulling out a swirly would be one hell of a statement.
I have nothing to add other than that I like all of this.

Dribble Joy
13-12-12, 20:47
I think non-rares should reach the bottom of the PvP viable range. Unfortunately if that goes all the way to spies, then you include nearly all the range of PEs.

I think I prefer the rares as 'level 4' weapons. But you could use some of the non-rares to enable certain weapon types for PEs that they are normally unable to reach. The top fusion pistol for example would give an alternative to the Exec.

Faction only high tl non-rares (like the CA plasma wave) are an option though. A viable choice that adds some flavour to the otherwise fairly standard factions.

For example:

TL79 gat rifle moved to tl 85.
Libra moved to tl 110 (out of PE range).
CM only gat rifle added at tl 100.

Torg
05-01-13, 16:25
[What if] we could blueprint rare weapons like we can bp rare drones today? any rare gun/psimodule would do and allow us to rebuild the item in usual limits: "non-rare-rares" would carry a 99% build cap, so no rebuilt weapon would reach all-arti stats (tc-guns could go near-artifact). of course constructing from those blueprints would be insanely expensive (lots of weapon parts 10, 9 and 8 needed) and need TL 100 datacubes and licenses to prevent mass production. but even an occasional rebuilt ravager/cursed sould would help, right?

apart from "making things easier", do you think this would benefit the game, or just add another feature of no further use - as we all expect the current drought of rare items to be ending rather soon.

Netphreak
06-01-13, 16:11
[What if] we could blueprint rare weapons like we can bp rare drones today? any rare gun/psimodule would do and allow us to rebuild the item in usual limits: "non-rare-rares" would carry a 99% build cap, so no rebuilt weapon would reach all-arti stats (tc-guns could go near-artifact). of course constructing from those blueprints would be insanely expensive (lots of weapon parts 10, 9 and 8 needed) and need TL 100 datacubes and licenses to prevent mass production. but even an occasional rebuilt ravager/cursed sould would help, right?

apart from "making things easier", do you think this would benefit the game, or just add another feature of no further use - as we all expect the current drought of rare items to be ending rather soon.

I think if you were going to go down that route then you would really need the weapons to require parts that are very time consuming to get (items dropping off DoY guards that need to be salvaged to get other parts etc), otherwise why even bother farming and trading for tech parts to make a rare weapon.

Ivan Eres
06-01-13, 17:30
I think if you were going to go down that route then you would really need the weapons to require parts that are very time consuming to get (items dropping off DoY guards that need to be salvaged to get other parts etc), otherwise why even bother farming and trading for tech parts to make a rare weapon.

I don't think so. In that case it's just another rare weapon again, if you again need some kind of rare parts to build them.

But having a class B kind of rare wepaon which is expensive to build (as Torg has already pointed out thoughtfully in his post) would be a good idea to make players more able to do PvP a lot sooner and stand a chance. It's also good for PvE because players can join the fun in high level areas sooner.

However, Cmaster's idea in the OP has virtually the same effects in the game as Torg's, in my opinion. To me it's the same story told from different angles, and I like both ideas a lot! I very much would like to see high level store bought weapons up till 115 (and more) if they can compete. The 10% damage bonus that rares get is good enough for a distinction, in my opinion.

Maybe Cmaster's idea is easier to implement because it just means adding new weapons to the vendor's (or as DJ pointed out, to the factions). Building these weapons could also be really expensive, maybe a few hundred thousand NCs for one (for all the parts and grease), to limit mass production.

These are great ideas, people. Very cool. Looking forward to see your next "What if" postings, Cman ! :-)

Dribble Joy
06-01-13, 18:59
More high tl (PvP and PvE) viable non-rares would also act as an end-game cash sink, something that's currently lacking.

Dropout
06-01-13, 19:33
@CMaster
I like this idea, quite a lot actually.
Would help new players a lot aswell.

Although it would kinda remove that "hahaha I raped you with a non-rare, you noob" element.. :p

Kame
06-01-13, 22:23
I think before we think anout adding yet more items to the game we should fix and balance the ones we have now.

Besides, to me, as far as the "get noobs to pvp sooner" arguments, a 0-1 slot rare goes for about 15-20 unressed or 1 mil, which is pocket change when you're done leveling and considering PVP.

Again, lets focus on fixing what we have rather than trying to add new items.

Roc-a-fella
06-01-13, 22:50
a 0-1 slot rare goes for about 15-20 unressed or 1 mil

you dont even play, clearly

Doc Holliday
07-01-13, 06:54
@CMaster
I like this idea, quite a lot actually.
Would help new players a lot aswell.

Although it would kinda remove that "hahaha I raped you with a non-rare, you noob" element.. :p

some people need no incentive to shit talk.

interesting thoughts back on topic. Balance first though. sort that out. bring the high tl stuff more inline with the lower end stuff so that more classes compete and we are not inundated with woc spies and not much else and then this idea could come to fruition.

With the current edition being Spank'o'cron (spies and tanks)(tm) i think that balance should be taken care of before anything else. maybe 6 months from now revisit this one?

Dropout
07-01-13, 13:38
some people need no incentive to shit talk.

interesting thoughts back on topic. Balance first though. sort that out. bring the high tl stuff more inline with the lower end stuff so that more classes compete and we are not inundated with woc spies and not much else and then this idea could come to fruition.

With the current edition being Spank'o'cron (spies and tanks)(tm) i think that balance should be taken care of before anything else. maybe 6 months from now revisit this one?

Yeah I do agree that some sort of balancing needs to be done before anything else, really (exept for bug/exploit fixes).

Spank'o'cron must be the best name for NC ever btw :p

William Antrim
07-01-13, 14:54
Thats a great name for it bro.

I actually LOVE these ideas. Torg I am a massive fan of this idea of yours. Huge CASH sink yes. Huge time sink - no thanks. I think you should have the option of one or the other. If you want your artifact stats then you need to go the old fashioned way. IF you want your 99% stats on your "levelling" rare then get a bp off some other guy and get it sorted that way. This is absolutely brilliant!!!

I think that the bped rares should not have the damage bonus that rares get (they should be more like store bought with a higher TL) but this would hopefully still make them more viable than the non-rares in pvp as the player youre fighting isnt going to know you have a shit storebought weapon.


I would also like to see some more faction only weapons added - like DJ said CM gat weaponry, maybe TT could have some lasers and TG could have some fusion weaponry. FA might have some pulse lasers - crahn have some Energy beams or something, you get the idea. I guess DRE, Protopharma and Biotech could have some generic weaponry similar to the CA wave (so as not to be left out). Black Dragon would get a shotgun, obviously and TS would have another Assault rifle (that worked).

These are great ideas.

Ivan Eres
07-01-13, 19:18
These are great ideas.

Yes they are! For me this would really be a breeze of fresh air in Neocron. At the moment I've got the problem that when I reach the rare weapon level with my chars I can't do much anymore because rare stuff is very hard to get at the moment. That's okay of course, they're meant to be difficult to get, but I need an alternative then.

Without the rares I can't join in to the PvP fun, and I can't do high level PvE too.

With Cmaster's high TL weapons I would have a goal to continue now and I could compete somehow.

However, to keep the first implementation simple I wouldn't restrict the high tl weapons to faction membership in the beginning.

Everybody should be able to use these weapons.

Although they could be FSM items so that there is more player interaction to get them, but I wouldn't want restrictions for their usage in the beginning.

At the moment I'd vote for Cmaster's original idea of high TL weapons instead of Torg's beta rares, because I assume that Torg's idea is much more difficult to implement correctly.

But when I think about Monks some kind of beta rares would also be cool, cause that would help them too. I am not sure how to implement something akin to the rare shields any other way.

I think the implementation should not be delayed because of the big balancing project ahead. To me the balancing in Neocron is an ongoing process and this could even be a first step for a better balancing.

The reason for this is that we could have separate lines of high TL weapons, like the store bought stuff Cmaster suggested, and a line for rare weapons, and a line for WoC weapons, each with a distinction, like the 10% damage bonus for rare weapons.

However, every player could choose what he wants for whatever reason and know its advantage or disadvantage.

Right now I do need rare weapons for my Tank to compete or as a Spy if I can't get a rare I need the WoC weapon AK47. I think it's very bad to limit the possible character setups to this.

So my argument for the balancing is: If we had complete separate lines for every weapon class (store, rare, WoC) we could more easily distinguish them through their properties and therefore balance them.

Regards

Dropout
07-01-13, 20:18
I would also like to see some more faction only weapons added - like DJ said CM gat weaponry, maybe TT could have some lasers and TG could have some fusion weaponry. FA might have some pulse lasers - crahn have some Energy beams or something, you get the idea. I guess DRE, Protopharma and Biotech could have some generic weaponry similar to the CA wave (so as not to be left out). Black Dragon would get a shotgun, obviously and TS would have another Assault rifle (that worked).

I will always be against faction only items. I hate the idea of being forced into a certain faction, just to use the weapon I want to use.
Even now that its just a few items, I cant stand it.

Dribble Joy
07-01-13, 20:40
There's items that are of actual benefit (which would be a bad thing to make faction only) and there are those that simply give another option.

Does the CA plasma wave really impact things?

So long as there is a similar item then I don't see much wrong with some items being unique to a faction.

Kame
07-01-13, 21:03
you dont even play, clearly

You pay more for shitty rares ?

Sucks to be you then.

Dropout
07-01-13, 22:08
There's items that are of actual benefit (which would be a bad thing to make faction only) and there are those that simply give another option.

Does the CA plasma wave really impact things?

So long as there is a similar item then I don't see much wrong with some items being unique to a faction.

The NCPD Armor (eventhough its incredible ugly) does not have an equal.
I wouldnt mind faction only items, if they were purely a visual thing though.. Like your example DJ, but same TL/dmg as ravager, but with a red/blue/pink/random-color beam instead. However, that would be pretty impossible to do when it comes to lowtech weapons, without remodeling them - and we all know that the volunteers has more than enough to do as it is :)

William Antrim
08-01-13, 00:49
DJ you need to get hit by one. :) Its smart. Beats the Rav hands down.

Dribble Joy
08-01-13, 02:12
Of course it does, it's several TLs higher.

I think what I mean by similar is similar TL option, rather than weapon style.

Like a TG raygun pistol, CM gat pistol or TS uzi at dex 100 would be alternatives to the judge.

Also, the CAPA, while it has no 'equal', it doesn't increase skills and the armour values are not particularly amazing, is it better or simply a different option?

Netphreak
08-01-13, 20:49
Of course it does, it's several TLs higher.

I think what I mean by similar is similar TL option, rather than weapon style.

Like a TG raygun pistol, CM gat pistol or TS uzi at dex 100 would be alternatives to the judge.

Also, the CAPA, while it has no 'equal', it doesn't increase skills and the armour values are not particularly amazing, is it better or simply a different option?

I'd say these days it's just a different option. Though, unfortunately due to it's lack of skill bonuses it's not actually any good for someone to actively use other than full RP and looks (unforunately it doesn't look that great either, if it made you look like a storm bot however....)

William Antrim
08-01-13, 21:20
Pierce and Force resists are good on it. The energy and whatever other buff it gives are only 25. If they were doubled it would actually be viable. I considered making a thread about this but thought id get laughed at :D.

Netphreak
09-01-13, 00:10
Pierce and Force resists are good on it. The energy and whatever other buff it gives are only 25. If they were doubled it would actually be viable. I considered making a thread about this but thought id get laughed at :D.

It needs to give a 'slight' combat boosts (though if you didn't need 190+ p-c or r-c to do decent damage on your weapons would help).
Or maybe +2 dex on it to make it viable and make you look like a STORM bot! Lol

Ivan Eres
09-01-13, 23:31
To get back on the original topic: I think that if these new high TL line of weapons would be faction specific like DJ suggested everybody will start changing the faction to get the current best weapon.

To avoid this we would have to give every faction the same faction specific weapon line.

But then we will have virtually the same weapon 12 times. For each faction one and this does not make sense to me.

Remember, we are not talking about one faction specific weapon like the hacknet HC weapon for CA ("Special Forces Plasma Wave") but about a whole line of weapons to be able to somehow compete with rares and WoC weapons in PvP and PvE.

Although the special weapons will still be better (for example the 10% damage bonus for rares) this would really be cool for everybody because more people could join in to the fun of PvP and endgame PvE a lot sooner.

Regards

Dribble Joy
10-01-13, 09:42
Well the first thing to do before bringing in any more weapons or altering the current ones is to make sure that all weapon types are equally viable. Fixing the implant/armour system is the precursor to this as it currently massively favours high TL.

Doc Holliday
10-01-13, 10:29
Well the first thing to do before bringing in any more weapons or altering the current ones is to make sure that all weapon types are equally viable. Fixing the implant/armour system is the precursor to this as it currently massively favours high TL.

agreed.

While we are on the subject also the epic rewards need some time devoted to them as a sub topic. We all know which ones im talking about ;)

p3 should be the place for the dre storage cell etc. the moveon, ca pa etc need looking at. Hopefully by nature of the rebalancing the TS rifle becomes useful again. Maybe the blackdragon apartments could be in pp2/3 also. just ideas. prob should be in the Brainport but its been discussed in the thread

Ivan Eres
14-01-13, 13:40
agreed.

While we are on the subject also the epic rewards need some time devoted to them as a sub topic. We all know which ones im talking about ;)

p3 should be the place for the dre storage cell etc. the moveon, ca pa etc need looking at. Hopefully by nature of the rebalancing the TS rifle becomes useful again. Maybe the blackdragon apartments could be in pp2/3 also. just ideas. prob should be in the Brainport but its been discussed in the thread

Yes, that's true. Another subject that arose (again) from this thread are faction specific items that fit into the lore and make people loyal to that faction, so that we will maybe have true faction wars and political alliances again in the future, for example.

Right now nobody cares much about their faction anyway but one or two clans (LG and Skulls comes to mind).

For example, when I first played NC i read thru the faction infos and decided I wanted to be in TT cause I wanted to have the effin best weapons there are. But in game this clearly isn't the case. The epic weapon is very nice for PvE atm but nothing more, and there's nothing else for TT.

William Antrim
14-01-13, 15:17
I say give the factions non-combat related items - uniforms for example.


High end NON-rare weaponry should be available to all after you complete some sort of indepth mission for Archer and Wesson or HEW.

Put the NPC in the HEW/A+W/PSI shop and let people go from there.


Pitch all of the weapons at between 80 and 90 TL (something for PE's as well as the other classes). Use the mission rules for these weapons too perhaps - capped stats (120%) and a random chance of slots. Not BPable but they would be DROPPABLE and the quest is repeatable. Pick from, initially, one pistol, one rifle, one cannon and one psi spell (apu). Then go from there adding more if you feel you need to.