Post by gnperdue on Jul 30, 2017 18:11:06 GMT
I found a lot to like in 1.09. Platinum is great and the idea behind weapon variants is cool. Veteran ranks are also an idea with a lot of potential. We have many more cool options for Mission Funds. However, the massive increase in the number of cards has been quite demoralizing for many. I used to buy Andromeda points fairly regularly, but I don't anymore because what's the point? It's just throwing pebbles into the ocean. It's too hard to get the cards you really want because you can't seem to "close off" options anymore. So I'm at Salarian Architect XIX and Turian Agent VI. I'm at Bulwark Venom V and Scorpion I, etc. I think the obvious way to fix this situation and make getting these extra character and weapon cars is to make them more interesting. So I'd like to propose a few ideas that should be relatively easy to implement as patches.
1. Level the stats of Concussive, Siphon, and Bulwark variants more meaningfully.
I know their bonus attribute levels slightly with each card rank, but the bonuses are fairly invisible and not worth the frustration of opening the cards. Why not level other stats as well? If you're hesitant to add damage for fear of unbalancing things, there are other stats. For example, increase the accuracy rating (only) for Concussive weapons. When I think of a Bulwark, I'm envisioning someone standing in a heap of bodies, tanking and blasting away. I'm not envisioning that character running around looking for ammo. So increase the max ammo on Bulwarks (capacity for the pseudo-remnant weapons that don't need ammo). Finally, for Siphons, you could reduce the weight to encourage people to run other guns along with their Siphons and mix things up a bit.
2. Tailor the veteran bonuses to the characters rather than having generic melee, combo destination, and power damage.
Some character kits really benefit from veteran bonuses (e.g., Human Vanguards), but some benefit very little (e.g., Turian Soldier). Why not tailor the bonuses a bit for each class. So, something like Turian Solider could get weapon damage (could be less than 4% per rank), max shields, and power damage. Angara Insurgent could get power restoration and defense, construct health and damage, and additional shields, and so on.
Of course, if you did this, someone would complain that their hipster melee build for Turian Soldier was wrecked by these changes, but people complain about everything. On the balance these changes would be a good trade-off and could help encourage more diversity in character selection and make it more fun to rank into veteran bonuses if they were more directly useful to a class. If you wanted to put any complaints to rest, you could let people choose the veteran bonuses when leveling a character. This is a much more complex mechanic to implement, and it could be confusing, so it isn't strictly necessary. But it would be really interesting and by the time people get to XI+ characters, they understand the UI well enough that this would be manageable. But this choice is definitely a "bonus item" since it would be much harder to implement in the code than the other suggestions I'm making.
3. Offer skill points for veteran ranks.
When characters hit level 20 and card X, they are exactly 20 points from maxing out all their abilities. Why not offer 4 skill points on every even veteran rank so by XX, we could fill out the skill tree? I understand and buy the argument that not filling out the skill tree actually enforces some creativity in builds. Limitations in general often spark creativity. Also, by making players choose, you get more variety in the way characters play - so you might have a squad with two Soldiers and one went into Turbocharge in a big way and the other didn't and so you get different play styles. Those are all good arguments against this.
However, if there is one thing players love in RPG-style games, it is making their characters cooler. Picking up veteran ranks when you really wanted a different card would be much less demoralizing if the character that was ranking up got something really cool out of it. To quote my Salarian Architect example from above - I'm not very interested in playing that class (not saying he isn't cool and I'm not disparaging the choice people make when they play him, but his style doesn't quite fit me), but maybe I would be interested if I could max him out across the board (and I'd be even more likely to play him if his veteran bonuses were more appropriate). This means I would want to level more characters to 20, I'd want to play more, and I'd eventually end up investing more when more things were more fun.
4. Make it easier to get Mission Funds by making Challenge Rating mean something.
The fact that the item store has gotten so much better is spectacular. But the store-only mods and the generally steep prices for items is frustrating. But there is another interesting resource we could couple to this - our challenge rating. Why not offer Mission Funds bonuses when you earn them based on your Challenge Rating? This would encourage people to work harder to close their circles. If adding 1,000 challenge points meant you got a 10% bonus payout when Mission Funds were awarded, it would be much more worthwhile to play with a wide variety of weapons and powers. Again, leveling my Bulwark Venom shotgun isn't so exciting right now because I don't really like the gun, but if I wanted to close the circle, I wouldn't mind opening them in packs. I'd start building around it to make it fun to go on a campaign to close my Venom circle because now I've got some incentive to do so. I'd have to see the numbers to know what made sense in terms of what sort of bonus applied to which challenge rating, but Bioware has all that data and it wouldn't be hard to come up with a reasonable formula.
Overall, these four ideas would be generally easy to implement (with the "bonus item" of allowing players to choose what their veteran ranks did being the exception) and they all make opening otherwise very redundant character and weapon cards much more fun and interesting. I think these changes would make people more likely to play more because they would reward us for playing more diverse kits and loadouts. This would extend the life of the game and ultimately sell more Andromeda Points and improve the financial success of the product. So go for it!
1. Level the stats of Concussive, Siphon, and Bulwark variants more meaningfully.
I know their bonus attribute levels slightly with each card rank, but the bonuses are fairly invisible and not worth the frustration of opening the cards. Why not level other stats as well? If you're hesitant to add damage for fear of unbalancing things, there are other stats. For example, increase the accuracy rating (only) for Concussive weapons. When I think of a Bulwark, I'm envisioning someone standing in a heap of bodies, tanking and blasting away. I'm not envisioning that character running around looking for ammo. So increase the max ammo on Bulwarks (capacity for the pseudo-remnant weapons that don't need ammo). Finally, for Siphons, you could reduce the weight to encourage people to run other guns along with their Siphons and mix things up a bit.
2. Tailor the veteran bonuses to the characters rather than having generic melee, combo destination, and power damage.
Some character kits really benefit from veteran bonuses (e.g., Human Vanguards), but some benefit very little (e.g., Turian Soldier). Why not tailor the bonuses a bit for each class. So, something like Turian Solider could get weapon damage (could be less than 4% per rank), max shields, and power damage. Angara Insurgent could get power restoration and defense, construct health and damage, and additional shields, and so on.
Of course, if you did this, someone would complain that their hipster melee build for Turian Soldier was wrecked by these changes, but people complain about everything. On the balance these changes would be a good trade-off and could help encourage more diversity in character selection and make it more fun to rank into veteran bonuses if they were more directly useful to a class. If you wanted to put any complaints to rest, you could let people choose the veteran bonuses when leveling a character. This is a much more complex mechanic to implement, and it could be confusing, so it isn't strictly necessary. But it would be really interesting and by the time people get to XI+ characters, they understand the UI well enough that this would be manageable. But this choice is definitely a "bonus item" since it would be much harder to implement in the code than the other suggestions I'm making.
3. Offer skill points for veteran ranks.
When characters hit level 20 and card X, they are exactly 20 points from maxing out all their abilities. Why not offer 4 skill points on every even veteran rank so by XX, we could fill out the skill tree? I understand and buy the argument that not filling out the skill tree actually enforces some creativity in builds. Limitations in general often spark creativity. Also, by making players choose, you get more variety in the way characters play - so you might have a squad with two Soldiers and one went into Turbocharge in a big way and the other didn't and so you get different play styles. Those are all good arguments against this.
However, if there is one thing players love in RPG-style games, it is making their characters cooler. Picking up veteran ranks when you really wanted a different card would be much less demoralizing if the character that was ranking up got something really cool out of it. To quote my Salarian Architect example from above - I'm not very interested in playing that class (not saying he isn't cool and I'm not disparaging the choice people make when they play him, but his style doesn't quite fit me), but maybe I would be interested if I could max him out across the board (and I'd be even more likely to play him if his veteran bonuses were more appropriate). This means I would want to level more characters to 20, I'd want to play more, and I'd eventually end up investing more when more things were more fun.
4. Make it easier to get Mission Funds by making Challenge Rating mean something.
The fact that the item store has gotten so much better is spectacular. But the store-only mods and the generally steep prices for items is frustrating. But there is another interesting resource we could couple to this - our challenge rating. Why not offer Mission Funds bonuses when you earn them based on your Challenge Rating? This would encourage people to work harder to close their circles. If adding 1,000 challenge points meant you got a 10% bonus payout when Mission Funds were awarded, it would be much more worthwhile to play with a wide variety of weapons and powers. Again, leveling my Bulwark Venom shotgun isn't so exciting right now because I don't really like the gun, but if I wanted to close the circle, I wouldn't mind opening them in packs. I'd start building around it to make it fun to go on a campaign to close my Venom circle because now I've got some incentive to do so. I'd have to see the numbers to know what made sense in terms of what sort of bonus applied to which challenge rating, but Bioware has all that data and it wouldn't be hard to come up with a reasonable formula.
Overall, these four ideas would be generally easy to implement (with the "bonus item" of allowing players to choose what their veteran ranks did being the exception) and they all make opening otherwise very redundant character and weapon cards much more fun and interesting. I think these changes would make people more likely to play more because they would reward us for playing more diverse kits and loadouts. This would extend the life of the game and ultimately sell more Andromeda Points and improve the financial success of the product. So go for it!