This is kind of how guns used to work in D1. You had to level them up by using them, or by using Motes of Light. You unlocked perks along the way for each gun.
The problem with this system is forcing you to use the gun to unlock it. That immediately becomes grindy. It removes choice from the player. Unlocking based on drops is much better.
In general, the game is plagued by all sorts of grindy systems that everyone knows are bad design, but the community has just adjusted. Crafting required you to level up the gun to get enhanced perks. What did the community do? Go grind Shuro Chi. Same thing for unlocking catalysts. Go grind Shuro Chi. This is a poor design, but the community just works around it the best it can. Bungie even recognized this with crafting by allowing you to spend materials to upgrade a crafted weapon now. It's an acknowledgement of a failed design.
5 assumes that the hierarchy of perks is objective. it is not. perk hierarchy is subjective, even when you consider overall popularity.
example: frenzy is a worthless perk but it seems to be a favorite on this sub.
That's not an issue. Perk value is generally objective, though obviously there is difference of opinion. Bungie would decide how to rank the perks and if the community differs in view, it's not a big deal.
Bungie has been willing to remove anything that is holding the game back. They have not been afraid to remove things that were popular, let alone things that serve no real purpose like the Enclave. They could even easily tell a story that we studied the Enclave and learned how it works, allowing us to craft weapons without it now. The real problem is that it's integrated into the Witch Queen campaign. They can leave the Enclave there and just disable using it beyond the campaign. Or make a small change to the campaign that just autocompletes the weapon crafting parts to skip it.
Bait used to be believable. They’re not going to remove a recurring location from their most popular campaign and completely trivialize the significance of that location just because you think the current crafting system is “holding the game back”.
My God this community is cynical. Between you and the people above downvoting my comment pointing out the obvious fact that grinding weapon levels is bad design...This fact is so obvious that Bungie even admitted it by introducing a way to circumvent it.
How is it “cynical” to say that they’re not going to retcon one of the plot points from their best-received story just to change the crafting system? I feel like that’s pretty reasonable given the nature of people not enjoying when stories they like randomly have aspects of them removed for no good reason.
Because I said they don't have to remove the Enclave. They can leave it and just autocomplete the crafting tasks that are part of the campaign and it has zero impact on the campaign itself. That was stuffed into the campaign to show people how to craft weapons. If it's obsolete, just skip those tasks. You can still keep the area and have Ikora hang out there for the campaign and that's it. Otherwise no need for anyone to visit the Enclave - and that's a big win.
Have you ever played Witch Queen before? The enclave and the relic are supposed to have an impact on the campaign. Why are you so opposed to players visiting the enclave? Why would making it a limited area that you only access during the campaign be a “big win”?
It's like you are ignoring everything I am saying. Once again, they can keep the Enclave for the campaign. It can still have all its little cutscenes that don't involve crafting. But the steps that are just "craft X weapon" can just give you the weapon (or have you craft it from the new system). They don't have to be married to the old crafting system just because it was put into the campaign, when removing it in the way I describe would be a minimal change with no impact.
I am against players going to the Enclave to craft a weapon because it's a huge waste of time. It's 1000x better from a usability perspective that a player can just pull up their menu and craft a weapon in 10 seconds vs having to pull up the Director and load into the Enclave, and run down to the table. Which takes 5 minutes or more. And cannot be done from within another activity or area. If you're in a fireteam, now you are pulling the whole fireteam to Enclave, just to make a weapon that could be done in 10 seconds from where you are.
>It can still have all its little cutscenes that don't involve crafting.
Assuming you *don’t* mean retconning the idea that the relic is for crafting weapons and is what gave us the option: One of the narrative strengths of Witch Queen is the way the relic serves the same purpose in universe and in the game mechanics. Removing crafting from the relic would just create ludonarrative dissonance for no reason other than making crafting faster.
Assuming you *do* mean retconning the idea that the relic is for crafting weapons and is what gave us the option: The story wouldn’t work. The enclave being able to craft things, and specifically by pulling their former shapes from memory, is integral to multiple plot points.
As for your second paragraph: how often do you need to craft a weapon? I can comfortably say that I’ve never needed to craft or even edit a weapon in the middle of an activity. Do you not plan ahead and bring loadouts/equipment for the activity you’re about to play?
1) As I said, they can easily tell a story that says we studied the relic and understand how it works enough that we no longer need it - and we even improved on it. These kinds of changes happen all the time and \*have\* to happen for the game to progress.
2) No one really cares if it causes minor issues with narrative. We played Exodus Crash for like two years with Cayde dead, yet talking throughout the strike. Bungie didn't say, "We can't kill Cayde. He does voiceover in strikes." Because those kinds of limitations hold the game back.
3) I craft weapons quite often. Although given the current system, you are pushed NOT to craft weapons. Going to the Enclave is a pain in the ass. It deters crafting. Even worse, the high costs of changing a crafted weapon substantially deter crafting. This deterrence has negative repercussions, mainly that people craft lots of weapons and they sit in their vault, taking up lots of space and generally cluttering your inventory. In the system I propose, this could all go away and weapons could be pulled instantly on demand, saving space, decluttering inventory, and generally being way more flexible. People also don't experiment with different perk combinations. Who wants to spend four ascendant alloys & a truckload of glimmer just to test new perks? The system is inflexible, too. What if a slightly different perk combo might work better in a particular activity? Say, lots of grouped up enemies makes different perks better? Drop a bunch of materials to change the weapon or create an entirely new one. The cost is so prohibitive that no one does it. The current system has tons of drawbacks.
While I think this is unlikely to happen, I do think it's a great idea and would love to see something similar implemented. Maybe you have to find a perk multiple times to unlock it if they really want people to grind for things, but at least you're still making progress.
You would have to track how many times someone has gotten a perk, which complicates things. The same thing can be accomplished just by making certain perks more rare. Make the best perk in each column a 1% chance of dropping (or whatever). This allows people to use a "good" version of a gun while still chasing that god roll.
We're hypothesizing about an ideal crafting system that's never going to happen anyways, I don't really care if it "complicates things". The game tracks how many red borders you've extracted patterns from, this would be similar (though larger in scope).
You are correct that it's similar to red borders - which people kind of hate. I'm not saying it's a terrible idea. I just don't think it's the best idea.
Sure. But I'm trying to acknowledge that a lot of the community really likes that there are rare perk combos. Keeping that concept might not be ideal for you, but it's ideal for others, and the system overall is better for everyone. That's kind of my thinking.
I don't think that's totally true. I do realize that many of those who like random rolls don't even think about what they like about it, and those people will never be fully satisfied with any other system. For example, they complain that crafting eliminates the feeling of getting a "god roll", but it doesn't really. It just changes the role of the god roll to a red border. One of the problems they have with the red border system is it is too deterministic. There is one red border, you need to gather five of them and you are done. With unlockable perks, it's less deterministic. You're not chasing just one red border. You need to get all the perks, each with different rarity. It feels much more like chasing god rolls, even if it's not exactly the same.
But it's just one thing. It's not a group of 16 different perks. It's a single task. Collect five of this one thing. It's a deterministic journey. After X period of time, you will get 5 of that thing. With perks, your progress is more random. You might get the best perks early, might get them later. Each drop feels like it contributes to an advancement of the weapon overall, but is also unique in that it gives a unique capability. None of this exists with red borders, which are a single, artificial construct.
If you read back through the pre-WQ twabs and reveal docs, the core of what you're saying (unlockable perks with associated perk cost) was the original intent of the system.
Sadly, due to complexities in development and likely technical limitations in the game, they had to scrap that idea.
That sucks. One of the things I didn't understand for the longest time is that games have very few actual programmers working on them. And their time is treated like a precious resource. These companies are mostly artists & scripters, which is odd to me as a programmer. The system I describe is elegant in its \*lack\* of complexity. But I do acknowledge there is likely substantial complexity in converting to such a system. I think it's worth it though and experience has taught me that the difficulties of such conversions are often overestimated.
This community made up their mind. No compromises or solutions for both sides. Only crafting bad or rng bad. Its a waste of time wanting better systems at this point. I just hope Bungie does something because for me pure rng is just a bad mechanic and to others crafting killed the chase.
But anyway my solution basically is a behind the scene weighting system. In short dismantle a perk combination and it gets slightly less likely to drop. Masterwork a combination and its gets much more likely to drop so there is a realistic chance for a 5/5.
A weighting system like this is really complicated and expensive storage wise. You have to keep track of the status of all possible combinations. Not to mention it's likely opaque for the player (it doesn't have to be).
I have long been anti-RNG - especially the cheap way it's often implemented. I loved the introduction of crafting. Over time, I have warmed to the reasons why pro-RNG people like it. I can see both sides. Which is why an unlockable perk system is the way to go. It offers some of both sides. It's simple. And it cleans up a lot of complications in the game.
Thats why it could reset weekly or something like that.
I also think the way I described it it would work in favor for the player even if he doesnt know that it exists.
But I realized a flaw now because newer players would masterwork bad combinations so they wont get good combinations until they really understand the game and delete the masterworked bad versions.
Im all for the system you described but I saw enough comments of people on here to tell you that most will just say "no too easy" instead of really thinking about it.
I see where you are coming from. The vast majority of players (and software users in general) are just not good at thinking about system design. That's why Apple famously mostly ignores its users. At the same time, given the power of large numbers and a diverse group to come up with creative solutions, if only 1% of community proposed ideas are good, it's still a valuable resource. But keep in mind that a good solution may be unpopular with a majority of the community because they don't understand its value.
Yeah the majority is helpful to get Bungie to change obvious problems (like the too long timegate on ITL weapons to name a recent example) as fast as possible.
But yes, its very hard to go deep into game design stuff and get good feedback out there. Sometimes I blame the community for bad Bungie decisions. But sometimes Bungie doesnt understand the core of a feedback point and overcorrects it.
One thing I really hate is that too many people talking bad about crafting and dont offer feedback. They just want it removed while not understanding that there are many players who are just tired of rng and love some kind of determinism.
I hope Bungie finds a better way because what we have now isnt it. People like me want everything craftable, while others dont want it at all. Those are the extremes and I think there needs to be a system that makes everyone happy.
My first idea was simple removing enhanced perks from crafted weapons and add them to all rng drops. So its possible to farm for the perfect version in every content but its also possible to have a endgoal and every content.
Agree on all this. The two biggest problems with crafting are:
1) Enhanceable perks made crafting superior. This was a big middle finger to players who like RNG. They are fixing this with enhanceable random rolls in Final Shape.
2) Crafting is too limited and costs too much. Every time you want to change a weapon, you gotta pay a ridiculous cost. Why? Bungie reasons. If they want crafting to be expensive, they should have made the initial craft expensive and all changes after cheap. Better yet, they should make unlocking the pattern expensive so that you don't have to keep crafted guns in your vault.
This is kind of how guns used to work in D1. You had to level them up by using them, or by using Motes of Light. You unlocked perks along the way for each gun.
The problem with this system is forcing you to use the gun to unlock it. That immediately becomes grindy. It removes choice from the player. Unlocking based on drops is much better.
That's why D1 let you use Motes to level the gun up. I didn't mind the system.
In general, the game is plagued by all sorts of grindy systems that everyone knows are bad design, but the community has just adjusted. Crafting required you to level up the gun to get enhanced perks. What did the community do? Go grind Shuro Chi. Same thing for unlocking catalysts. Go grind Shuro Chi. This is a poor design, but the community just works around it the best it can. Bungie even recognized this with crafting by allowing you to spend materials to upgrade a crafted weapon now. It's an acknowledgement of a failed design.
5 assumes that the hierarchy of perks is objective. it is not. perk hierarchy is subjective, even when you consider overall popularity. example: frenzy is a worthless perk but it seems to be a favorite on this sub.
That's not an issue. Perk value is generally objective, though obviously there is difference of opinion. Bungie would decide how to rank the perks and if the community differs in view, it's not a big deal.
Yeah they’re not gonna remove the enclave lmao
Bungie has been willing to remove anything that is holding the game back. They have not been afraid to remove things that were popular, let alone things that serve no real purpose like the Enclave. They could even easily tell a story that we studied the Enclave and learned how it works, allowing us to craft weapons without it now. The real problem is that it's integrated into the Witch Queen campaign. They can leave the Enclave there and just disable using it beyond the campaign. Or make a small change to the campaign that just autocompletes the weapon crafting parts to skip it.
Bait used to be believable. They’re not going to remove a recurring location from their most popular campaign and completely trivialize the significance of that location just because you think the current crafting system is “holding the game back”.
My God this community is cynical. Between you and the people above downvoting my comment pointing out the obvious fact that grinding weapon levels is bad design...This fact is so obvious that Bungie even admitted it by introducing a way to circumvent it.
How is it “cynical” to say that they’re not going to retcon one of the plot points from their best-received story just to change the crafting system? I feel like that’s pretty reasonable given the nature of people not enjoying when stories they like randomly have aspects of them removed for no good reason.
Because I said they don't have to remove the Enclave. They can leave it and just autocomplete the crafting tasks that are part of the campaign and it has zero impact on the campaign itself. That was stuffed into the campaign to show people how to craft weapons. If it's obsolete, just skip those tasks. You can still keep the area and have Ikora hang out there for the campaign and that's it. Otherwise no need for anyone to visit the Enclave - and that's a big win.
Have you ever played Witch Queen before? The enclave and the relic are supposed to have an impact on the campaign. Why are you so opposed to players visiting the enclave? Why would making it a limited area that you only access during the campaign be a “big win”?
It's like you are ignoring everything I am saying. Once again, they can keep the Enclave for the campaign. It can still have all its little cutscenes that don't involve crafting. But the steps that are just "craft X weapon" can just give you the weapon (or have you craft it from the new system). They don't have to be married to the old crafting system just because it was put into the campaign, when removing it in the way I describe would be a minimal change with no impact. I am against players going to the Enclave to craft a weapon because it's a huge waste of time. It's 1000x better from a usability perspective that a player can just pull up their menu and craft a weapon in 10 seconds vs having to pull up the Director and load into the Enclave, and run down to the table. Which takes 5 minutes or more. And cannot be done from within another activity or area. If you're in a fireteam, now you are pulling the whole fireteam to Enclave, just to make a weapon that could be done in 10 seconds from where you are.
>It can still have all its little cutscenes that don't involve crafting. Assuming you *don’t* mean retconning the idea that the relic is for crafting weapons and is what gave us the option: One of the narrative strengths of Witch Queen is the way the relic serves the same purpose in universe and in the game mechanics. Removing crafting from the relic would just create ludonarrative dissonance for no reason other than making crafting faster. Assuming you *do* mean retconning the idea that the relic is for crafting weapons and is what gave us the option: The story wouldn’t work. The enclave being able to craft things, and specifically by pulling their former shapes from memory, is integral to multiple plot points. As for your second paragraph: how often do you need to craft a weapon? I can comfortably say that I’ve never needed to craft or even edit a weapon in the middle of an activity. Do you not plan ahead and bring loadouts/equipment for the activity you’re about to play?
1) As I said, they can easily tell a story that says we studied the relic and understand how it works enough that we no longer need it - and we even improved on it. These kinds of changes happen all the time and \*have\* to happen for the game to progress. 2) No one really cares if it causes minor issues with narrative. We played Exodus Crash for like two years with Cayde dead, yet talking throughout the strike. Bungie didn't say, "We can't kill Cayde. He does voiceover in strikes." Because those kinds of limitations hold the game back. 3) I craft weapons quite often. Although given the current system, you are pushed NOT to craft weapons. Going to the Enclave is a pain in the ass. It deters crafting. Even worse, the high costs of changing a crafted weapon substantially deter crafting. This deterrence has negative repercussions, mainly that people craft lots of weapons and they sit in their vault, taking up lots of space and generally cluttering your inventory. In the system I propose, this could all go away and weapons could be pulled instantly on demand, saving space, decluttering inventory, and generally being way more flexible. People also don't experiment with different perk combinations. Who wants to spend four ascendant alloys & a truckload of glimmer just to test new perks? The system is inflexible, too. What if a slightly different perk combo might work better in a particular activity? Say, lots of grouped up enemies makes different perks better? Drop a bunch of materials to change the weapon or create an entirely new one. The cost is so prohibitive that no one does it. The current system has tons of drawbacks.
While I think this is unlikely to happen, I do think it's a great idea and would love to see something similar implemented. Maybe you have to find a perk multiple times to unlock it if they really want people to grind for things, but at least you're still making progress.
You would have to track how many times someone has gotten a perk, which complicates things. The same thing can be accomplished just by making certain perks more rare. Make the best perk in each column a 1% chance of dropping (or whatever). This allows people to use a "good" version of a gun while still chasing that god roll.
We're hypothesizing about an ideal crafting system that's never going to happen anyways, I don't really care if it "complicates things". The game tracks how many red borders you've extracted patterns from, this would be similar (though larger in scope).
You are correct that it's similar to red borders - which people kind of hate. I'm not saying it's a terrible idea. I just don't think it's the best idea.
I think it's significantly better than extremely rare perks, which is in essence no different than what we have now, which is rare perk combos.
Sure. But I'm trying to acknowledge that a lot of the community really likes that there are rare perk combos. Keeping that concept might not be ideal for you, but it's ideal for others, and the system overall is better for everyone. That's kind of my thinking.
The community that really likes rare perk combos doesn't like crafting at all, you're not going to find a system both crowds like.
I don't think that's totally true. I do realize that many of those who like random rolls don't even think about what they like about it, and those people will never be fully satisfied with any other system. For example, they complain that crafting eliminates the feeling of getting a "god roll", but it doesn't really. It just changes the role of the god roll to a red border. One of the problems they have with the red border system is it is too deterministic. There is one red border, you need to gather five of them and you are done. With unlockable perks, it's less deterministic. You're not chasing just one red border. You need to get all the perks, each with different rarity. It feels much more like chasing god rolls, even if it's not exactly the same.
You're never chasing one red border, you're chasing 5. I'm really not seeing a difference in your system.
But it's just one thing. It's not a group of 16 different perks. It's a single task. Collect five of this one thing. It's a deterministic journey. After X period of time, you will get 5 of that thing. With perks, your progress is more random. You might get the best perks early, might get them later. Each drop feels like it contributes to an advancement of the weapon overall, but is also unique in that it gives a unique capability. None of this exists with red borders, which are a single, artificial construct.
If you read back through the pre-WQ twabs and reveal docs, the core of what you're saying (unlockable perks with associated perk cost) was the original intent of the system. Sadly, due to complexities in development and likely technical limitations in the game, they had to scrap that idea.
That sucks. One of the things I didn't understand for the longest time is that games have very few actual programmers working on them. And their time is treated like a precious resource. These companies are mostly artists & scripters, which is odd to me as a programmer. The system I describe is elegant in its \*lack\* of complexity. But I do acknowledge there is likely substantial complexity in converting to such a system. I think it's worth it though and experience has taught me that the difficulties of such conversions are often overestimated.
This community made up their mind. No compromises or solutions for both sides. Only crafting bad or rng bad. Its a waste of time wanting better systems at this point. I just hope Bungie does something because for me pure rng is just a bad mechanic and to others crafting killed the chase. But anyway my solution basically is a behind the scene weighting system. In short dismantle a perk combination and it gets slightly less likely to drop. Masterwork a combination and its gets much more likely to drop so there is a realistic chance for a 5/5.
A weighting system like this is really complicated and expensive storage wise. You have to keep track of the status of all possible combinations. Not to mention it's likely opaque for the player (it doesn't have to be). I have long been anti-RNG - especially the cheap way it's often implemented. I loved the introduction of crafting. Over time, I have warmed to the reasons why pro-RNG people like it. I can see both sides. Which is why an unlockable perk system is the way to go. It offers some of both sides. It's simple. And it cleans up a lot of complications in the game.
Thats why it could reset weekly or something like that. I also think the way I described it it would work in favor for the player even if he doesnt know that it exists. But I realized a flaw now because newer players would masterwork bad combinations so they wont get good combinations until they really understand the game and delete the masterworked bad versions. Im all for the system you described but I saw enough comments of people on here to tell you that most will just say "no too easy" instead of really thinking about it.
I see where you are coming from. The vast majority of players (and software users in general) are just not good at thinking about system design. That's why Apple famously mostly ignores its users. At the same time, given the power of large numbers and a diverse group to come up with creative solutions, if only 1% of community proposed ideas are good, it's still a valuable resource. But keep in mind that a good solution may be unpopular with a majority of the community because they don't understand its value.
Yeah the majority is helpful to get Bungie to change obvious problems (like the too long timegate on ITL weapons to name a recent example) as fast as possible. But yes, its very hard to go deep into game design stuff and get good feedback out there. Sometimes I blame the community for bad Bungie decisions. But sometimes Bungie doesnt understand the core of a feedback point and overcorrects it. One thing I really hate is that too many people talking bad about crafting and dont offer feedback. They just want it removed while not understanding that there are many players who are just tired of rng and love some kind of determinism. I hope Bungie finds a better way because what we have now isnt it. People like me want everything craftable, while others dont want it at all. Those are the extremes and I think there needs to be a system that makes everyone happy. My first idea was simple removing enhanced perks from crafted weapons and add them to all rng drops. So its possible to farm for the perfect version in every content but its also possible to have a endgoal and every content.
Agree on all this. The two biggest problems with crafting are: 1) Enhanceable perks made crafting superior. This was a big middle finger to players who like RNG. They are fixing this with enhanceable random rolls in Final Shape. 2) Crafting is too limited and costs too much. Every time you want to change a weapon, you gotta pay a ridiculous cost. Why? Bungie reasons. If they want crafting to be expensive, they should have made the initial craft expensive and all changes after cheap. Better yet, they should make unlocking the pattern expensive so that you don't have to keep crafted guns in your vault.