lime scarab
I've read through the dev diaries and have a general idea of what the Rarity system is and what NK wants it to be on release, However, a point of critique is that the RED and BLACK versions of items/equipment, introduced in SAS 4, is phased out in the favour of this Rarity system in ZAR.
Alot of people including myself are undoubtedly displeased with RED and BLACK weapons/gear going away, but i have a suggestion which doesnt encroach on the fundaments of the current Rarity system and brings back the opportunity to include the now-symbolically established RED and BLACK versions of equipment into ZAR.
How does the system work currently? How could RED and BLACK be re-implmented?
So, the current Rarity system is split into different levels/tiers that a given weapon/armor/mod could have, currently in the demo we only got to see Common and Uncommon rarity, but i will make an educated guess that more tiers will be introduced on release. so for example's sake, lets say ZAR will have 5 tiers of rarity.
Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary
My Suggestion is as follows
Rename the levels appropriately so that instead of having generic names they have something more in-line with SAS, most importantly, atleast two of these tiers i would wish to be renamed to RED and BLACK, the rest of the tiers would also have to be renamed appropriately, i cant really come up with anything proper so to examplify:
Rename Common to GRAY/Standard
Rename Uncommon to GREEN (or something else, this is the only one im unsure about, as it would be inbetween standard and red)
Rename Rare to RED
Rename Epic to BLACK
Rename Legendary to GOLD
These are meant to be a faithful way to re-apply the previously established RED and BLACK tier system, into the current one, by renaming the tiers into something more lore-appropriate while also bringing back the established tiers. ofcourse, this may be less understandable to new players than the generic rarity names we have now, but im sure there will be plenty of opportunities to explain the rarity of equipment in depth in-game.THIS CHANGE IS PURELY COSMETIC QOL IN PRINCIPLE! this has nothing to do with their performance other than ofcourse higher tiers are better than the previous ones.
Legendary being GOLD is a deliberate reference to premium weapons
However, it is undeniable that it would also be great if the changes in rarity reflected not just exclusively in the statistics, but also visuals of a given item
So, with that, i would also like to make a sibling suggestion, for a given equipment's texture (or possibly model with higher tiers) to be changed depending on its rarity, just like RED and BLACK weapons used to have special accents ! in SAS:4 alot of people surely are going to miss the change in texture, so bringing it back is surely something we can all agree on!.
ADDENDUM, STRONGBOXES
The current strongbox rarities have also been replaced with more generic names, everyone really enjoyed them all having unique names in SAS 4, (steel, titanium, molybdenium, iridum, so on) i saw others users complain that this was a negative change and that the unique names were preferred, so im also advocating for it to be changed back to be more like the old ones!
i do not expect any of this to be implemented exactly as-is, everything is up to developer interpretation
my only real intent with this suggestion is to hopefully make the rarity system less bland and less generic, while also taking up the opportunity to bring back some cool established things like the RED and BLACK versions, which i feel could be incorporated into it
mighty remnant
fallow badge
velvet pendant
prime remnant
earnest marsh
glacial plume
fallen quartz
