Terran and I were discussing the current state of the server, and why playercount has been consistently declining despite no apparent disinterest with TTT as a gamemode.
It's apparent that other TTT servers are rather successful, and constantly fill out their servers, while FRG only ends up being full when there is an update implemented.
That's not an issue that I'm unfamiliar with. Many servers suffer from this update-oriented mentality, and it's simply because people get bored of content quickly and don't have much of a reason to stick around after they feel that they have accomplished everything the update has to offer, I.E. unlocking everything in a crate, or after everything has been discovered in a given crate.
Another issue that I've identified is the clunkiness of our inventory system. While I'm sure that many people are content with it, the FRG inventory is rather clunky, and many drops and systems are monotonous and time consuming to convert into something useful that the player actually wants to have- Some players entirely delete items below a given rarity that they've deemed worthless. This leads to a general atmosphere of monotony, and it's definitely hard to get excited when most things you get are just going to get turned into a key that get turned into an item of (usually) a similar rarity. That isn't to say that keys are a bad thing, it's just that making them from piles of inventory clutter can be both time-consuming and unwelcome for a lot of players. (Assuming that they even stick around long enough to learn that we have a lobby)
So...
I suggest adding a few things to make drops something you actually want to get, instead of something that clutters your inventory.
This requires...
A streamlined way to turn your post-round drops into something that can be used, regardless of level. This would be implemented in a similar way to the planned creation of godlike shards. You can convert any item into shards (or essence) by pressing and holding the conversion button. Anything of primordial rarity or above (or above a given rarity value, to prevent deleting say, a triple suffix rare - may be a good idea to assign each item a rarity value given this update) will query an additional text box (this can also be disabled). You can use this essence to then make keys, re-roll specific stats on a weapon (with specific states each costing varying amounts of essence - damage and firerate being the most expensive next to suffixes and traits, etc), and it could potentially be used as a secondary currency with some specific vendors. (specifically a reworked key vendor- more on that later.)
However...
I recommend a currency page that keeps track of all of these shards, which would also include a conversion of coins to a simple value that can be found on the currency page.
As a side note, you would be able to lock a given number of coins to prevent you falling below that value. A lot of people want this implemented to help them save money. This would also be available to lock any specific essence at a given cap.
Keys can be created by simply going to your currency page, clicking a given essence, and converting X essence to a key.
It's also possible that keys may not require going to the lobby, since that's also a little bit restricting, and they can be obtained on TTT from dailies anyway (which new players can't currently use)
It should also be noted that you should be able to obtain common, uncommon, and ordinary essences from higher tiers, albeit in smaller amounts than a respective tier.
The newly introduced vendors would be player specific, and have no timer on the items that are available - Instead, a player can roll one item at a time with a given number of essence. This item can then be bought for the stated price, or passed to clear the shop and find another item.
The result?
Something more to progress towards, instead of chasing discoveries on guns and crates, or being a collector.
This creates a system to upgrade guns that you may not otherwise be able to use rather than throw all of them into keys and call it a day.
Allows some of the lower rarity tiers to be upgraded to their full potential, allowing for the maximization of potency when perusing dailies with a given tier.
Essence has multiple uses, and allows players to manage their wealth in ways a little more complicated than simple coins-
Do you want to upgrade your weapons, try to roll new ones, or collect essence and spend them on vendors to look for a gun with great rolls?
Some notes:
Naturally, lower tiers would cost less to upgrade than primordials and godlikes. The progression for primordials would be slow enough and costly enough to keep someone occupied for a very long time maximizing a high-tier gun.
The cost of enhancing a gun to its highest value would also naturally be more expensive the closer you get to perfect.
In order to balance the potential of essence, essence shop items would have access to traits and suffixes similar to that of the refreshed market.
OR:
The simple version is simply allowing items to be broken down into essences and turned into keys at will. Essence would be 1:1 with items, and a key would be made upon reaching 10 essences.
However, I like my idea a bit more. I know it's insanely complex and to be honest you probably just read this last part before scrolling back up, but I do think this would help our player count immensely and expand the potential of the server a lot.
Also, if you want to break this suggestion down into smaller bite-sized pieces instead of implementing a huge overhaul like this, I'd understand completely.
I'd rather more QoL updates but not with creating hundreds of new features. Polish what we have then find the next bit of content.
"Closest thing I have had to alcohol is chocolate milk... Don't quote me on that!"
"Please somebody use this as a signature to remember this day."-Catbug
(03-23-2018, 02:28 AM)Kheyre Wrote: I'd rather more QoL updates but not with creating hundreds of new features. Polish what we have then find the next bit of content.
The thing is, the essences are all part of one idea. It can all be implemented over time, and QoL dictates that the essences from items and key conversions came first anyway, but i think it'd be much easier to do it in this order:
-Create a currency page
-Convert coins into said currency page
-Implement locking of currencies
-Add essences/shards, implement these into the currency page.
-Create the ability to turn essences into keys
-Create the ability to roll the stats on guns utilizing essence
-Create the essence shop
-etc.
From a coding standpoint, that makes sense and I'm sure this huge wall of text overwhelms people pretty easily, but it's mostly a loosely organized rough draft anyway.
It can be expanded on in chunks- Don't get me wrong, I'm not telling Brass or Tobias to do this tomorrow. Rest assured.
Nivendo is a fountain of good ideas. He mentioned a lot of them previously, and I saw them as really good stuff. Going to the lobby server is occasionally a pain; - i.e I don't *want* to leave just because I have an inventory full of Unlikeleys, but deleting them is stupid. The only real issue I see is how flexible the "Markets" of FRG are, and assigning a "Set price" would ruin the free-spirited economy, but it wouldn't be terrible if they were turned into an untradeable currency. Not only this, but I'd love to see a weapon Crafting system, a la NTG, as Halaman said above me; - It was a LOT of fun and skill based, but the real issue was the extreme scarcity of certain metals, and far too many of others.
I could type more but really, these are all good ideas.
03-23-2018, 03:10 AM (This post was last modified: 03-23-2018, 03:15 AM by Brassx.)
Our Player Counts have actually been doing pretty well since before I even released Crescent Case II, we've been regaining players at a steady rate, and it's quite nice. Big end-game changes are already in the works. Though that said, it's hard to compete with big budget/big dev team servers that advertise their names everywhere, and aren't afraid to use scummy tactics. I don't think that means we're doing anything wrong here, or that our system is too hard to use. It's just some are better at advertising and or/babyfeed their players 'overpowered' items.
I've already 'secretly' planned making stackable shards(kuro knows) of each rarity that can be key'd though, that you turn weapons into though, with options to automatically turn them into their respective 'shards'. I don't see it as a big game changer or anything, it's just a quality of life update.
What you described(pressing and holding 'convert') is likely going to be seen as more work than just making keys without an automated way to turn things into 'essence'.
For them re-rolling specific stats, that's probably a bit too much. We have runes that exist already to re-roll stats, that would completely nullify those as you can choose specifically what stat you want to re-roll. Not to mention there's much less risk involved. It just seems a little TOO much. Perhaps rethink other things.
As for this idea overall. I do like the idea of a shop or some kind of currency you can turn weapons into, but thinking of things that are worth it to spend said currency on that IS NOT just a random item roll, is tough. I see why you picked re-rolling a specific stat, but it's just not something I think should happen at this time. I'm not really sure what that could be replaced with though. Just turning them into keys wouldn't bring people back at all, because that's nothing but a simple quality of life update.
03-23-2018, 03:41 AM (This post was last modified: 03-23-2018, 03:54 AM by Man.
Edit Reason: Further clarification
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(03-23-2018, 03:10 AM)Brassx Wrote: For them re-rolling specific stats, that's probably a bit too much. We have runes that exist already to re-roll stats, that would completely nullify those as you can choose specifically what stat you want to re-roll. Not to mention there's much less risk involved. It just seems a little TOO much. Perhaps rethink other things.
As for this idea overall. I do like the idea of a shop or some kind of currency you can turn weapons into, but thinking of things that are worth it to spend said currency on that IS NOT just a random item roll, is tough. I see why you picked re-rolling a specific stat, but it's just not something I think should happen at this time. I'm not really sure what that could be replaced with though. Just turning them into keys wouldn't bring people back at all, because that's nothing but a simple quality of life update.
I agree somewhat with the sentiment that upgrading a specific stat over time is a bit much, but it can definitely be done in small enough increments to make creating a perfect weapon extremely painstaking, thus balancing the process. I was imagining thousands of essences being used to increase a primordial's damage or firerate stat by a meager .1%, while the lower tiers would be rather simplistic to max out given enough essence.
To further expand the idea, it is possible that you could literally "forge" a weapon using the essence currency, thus negating the RNG variant of a random roll. These weapons would likely have values based on how much essence was inserted, and would have a certain level of instability- I'm imagining a process by which you can "mold" a weapon with 100 essence(As a base)- You can allocate the essence freely between all available stats, and when the weapon is forged, the value of the allocated stats is heavily favored towards the stat where the essences were allocated, albeit with a region of uncertainty where there will be a small degree of RNG to create a unique gun.
However, I don't quite like this idea because it feels like we'd be taking the old NTG way of crafting guns. To be honest, I'd like to avoid the whole idea of "metals" and crafting if possible. It feels overused and, at least in my opinion, gives players too much control and the ability to create a gun that's absolutely absurdly powerful or dumb. I don't personally feel that players should ever have total control of what suffix or stats are being put onto a gun.
To clarify, my suggestion is allowing the player to upgrade an existing gun's stat, not reroll a specific stat. Rerolling a specific stat is far too powerful, because it allows a player to roll 15% to 25% on the first try with virtually no effort, potentially. The runes that exist would still be VERY useful for rerolling the gun in its entirety and receiving a good base to work on using this system, but wouldn't be used once you had obtained a stat baseline that you felt comfortable on spending essence to upgrade.
I will admit, everything that you said there is something that I considered quite heavily before making this post, but even still I do think that upgrading guns like this is a step towards having "replayability" and progress in FRG.
EDIT:
I just realized that most primordials are enhanceable. This complicates things a bit, as for some reason it didn't click that this limits the usability of slowly enhancing a primordial. In that specific case, it may be possible to gain additional points of a stat on an enhanceable primordial, which cap out at another level seperate from the normal enhanceable cap. Of course, this could also be true of the non-enhanceables. I'd recommend an additional possible 2% on each stat, obtainable over a long period of time. This would also be applicable to godlikes that already have maxed stats, and would appear in an different, golden color past the normal green/red bar of a gun to indicate that the gun's stat has been "enchanted".
I'd like to see a way to take metals of a similar rarity to "reform" a gun and make it lose one negative stat, like using 10 legendary metals to remove negative stability from my apocalyptic(or 10 prim to remove negative clip from galactics for some of you whiners).
It would give people something better to do than make a key, and you could always return the gun to how it was at the cost of the metals you put in.
This would also introduce some funny combos(trace with no negative damage) and be a game changer to how things currently are
A while back I proposed an addition to weapons (like an attachment), you could go to the new gunsmith NPC(Cyrene's father lore btw) to make tiers of attachments that give their own boosts like "legendary" sights or a "rare" grip. You can attach only one to your gun and it gives a positive on top of whatever it already is(a gun with 10 accuracy and it gains a sight with +5 it becomes 15).
(03-23-2018, 10:12 AM)Kuro Wrote: This would also introduce some funny combos(trace with no negative damage) and be a game changer to how things currently are
I'm going to have to say no to this. Too much freedom and you just proved it. Eventually, it will lead to godlikes being even more broken. (Imagine if Creeper could do that to his glaedr.)
I was going to say the meme weapon, but I doubt anyone would scrap all of the rest of the meme weapons to get an insanely broken one...or maybe they would.
Unless this was rare or lower, I think this is too much power.
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