[What If?]There were high-TL non-rares

[CMaster]

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]

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]

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]

[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]

[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]

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]

More high tl (PvP and PvE) viable non-rares would also act as an end-game cash sink, something that's currently lacking.

[Dropout]

@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..

[Kame]

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]

a 0-1 slot rare goes for about 15-20 unressed or 1 mil

you dont even play, clearly

[Doc Holliday]

@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..

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]

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

[William Antrim]

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]

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]

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.