#Increase the number of drone slots

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pearl blaze
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The current game flow, where players switch drone upgrades to optimize a specific activity diminishes the 'pack opening' experience in the Overworld and leads to frustration when players forget to adjust their drone upgrades before traveling to a region. But most importantly, it oversimplifies the OW gameplay, as players mindlessly collect everything that aligns with their drone's upgrades. Players should have the freedom to collect whatever interests them, rather than feeling obligated to target specific activities based on their drone upgrades each run.

The current drone upgrades system lacks depth and re-craftability. This could be enhanced by introducing additional random mods to the upgrades. Adding +1 random mod per stage would be a good starting point. Furthermore, increasing the number of slots to accommodate more drone upgrades would provide players with greater flexibility and customization options.

4000 energy per travel doesn't feel that bad but there's always some parts of the heatmap left to explore even with reduced activity costs. Increasing the number of drone slots could help mitigate this but we could also introduce a new upgrade that increases the energy per travel.

I think an extra 500 energy would be welcomed through a drone upgrade. This paired with the Ergon Rifts would basically make a total available energy of 5000 per travel.

Drone Energy Upgrade Stages:
Stage 1: + 100 Energy
Stage 2: + 250 Energy
Stage 3: + 500 Energy

jagged storm
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I would actually want to increase by 500 at each stage.

pearl blaze
jagged storm
hidden quiver
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Hmm with augments to reduce mining and so on it's essentially the same. But I like the idea of being able to meddle with energy. It will slow down your runs, but make your fuel more efficient.

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Maybe it can be made to work with rifts. Like double the bonus from rifts. This can make it spicy.

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So you have to work to get the most of it.

pearl blaze
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I posted this in the OW channel, but I'll leave it here as well.

Don't you guys think the drone should have more upgrade slots?

For example, if I want to run the plus illuvial team size drone upgrade then I'm limited to having 2 weapons and 2 suits, unless I waste the drone's absolute slot with another upgrade for that. If I want to have more weapons and suits then I can only have 4 illuvials...

pearl blaze
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I feel like there's too much left to be done on each travel

hidden quiver
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Maybe each kind of upgrade can be slotted on the drone. This way you have to farm all the upgrades. Not having all people have just 4 most good ones. And then need to have them nerfed, so they crash in price and everyone rushes to get the new best thing.

pearl blaze
hidden quiver
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And in order to get the upgrade slots maybe you have to upgrade the drone

pearl blaze
hidden quiver
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So it's 4 slots 8 slots 12 slots for example.

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And I don't think having all the chips is that problematic, cuz you go on different runs to begin with. Having mining chips while hinting illuvials does not improve your run.

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It just makes it tedious to switch them between runs. Getting people annoyed.

pearl blaze
hidden quiver
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It just allows you to mess it up. Especially when you do own the correct chips.

pearl blaze
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I would much rather to simply go and whatever are my upgrades are the bonuses I get. I see a Illuvial I like I hunt it. I see a plant I want I harvest it. I see a blue mining node for shards I mine it.

pearl blaze
devout iron
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But that would make the drone upgrade a must have for everbody. If you don't have it then you are left behind compared to others. While all other drone upgrades serve a special purpose depending on what you want to do (Mining, Harvesting, Catching Illuvials). I am not sure if it is a good design to force everybody to have this specific upgrade. You basically have no choice. And if it fits in the same slot as other upgrades then it makes every other upgrade (- mining cost, - scan cost, -encounter cost) obsolete and replaces them completely. That's why I would vote no for that

hidden quiver
pearl blaze
# devout iron But that would make the drone upgrade a must have for everbody. If you don't hav...

  • "But that would make the drone upgrade a must have for everybody."
    Isn't that already the case? (Regarding all other upgrades) 🤔

  • "And if it fits in the same slot as other upgrades then it makes every other upgrade (- mining cost, - scan cost, -encounter cost) obsolete and replaces them completely."
    I think that's the point we need more slots. This gameplay of switching drone upgrades for every travel to suit wtv activity you're doing is bad.

devout iron
# pearl blaze - "But that would make the drone upgrade a must have for everybody." Isn't that ...

I think the switching system is implemented to make a tradeoff for every upgrade. When you mine, then you have a disadvantage on catching. When you catch you have a disadvantage on mining. Some people might like to farm shards and sell them to others for fast profit, others might like to gamble to get good illuvials for potential higher profit, but higher risk if they fail a catch or don't find anything good.
Even if you add another slot then you can just increase the energy per run by a flat amount because nobody will ever do a run without increased energy. Because if you don't have that upgrade you essentially get less for your money (less energy per crypton). With every other upgrade there is a specific playstyle, risk/reward or skill involved. While here it is simply flat number that everyone gets once crafted.

We need an economy associated with drone upgrades. If you provide too many slots and everyboy has everything at max then ressources will be useless because nobody crafts anything anymore. This will make mining useless decreasing the reward of a run rapidly when Illuvials are the only thing you can extract from it.

I don't say the current system is perfect. But I don't think a energy upgrade is needed. But I definitely think we need more upgrades over time to hold up the value of resources to mine.

pearl blaze
# devout iron I think the switching system is implemented to make a tradeoff for every upgrade...

IMO the switching system fails its purpose. If I want to go on a mine run then it doesn't matter if you have upgraded harvest or not unless that takes away from your mining bonuses. Everyone should be free to do whatever they want in a run and not be limited by their drone's equipped upgrades.

Right now there isn't really much to craft once you have all the S3 drone upgrades. That's because we only have 1 random mod. I've already said this before but more random mods to the upgrades would increase the value of re-crafting these items. This would brighten much more the done upgrades economy than the current way it is.

I disagree with your argument that too many slots with everything maxed out would decrease the value of all resources. You have it right now where if you go on a illuvial hunt you go maxed out for hunting. If you go mining you go maxed out for mining. Only the avg gamer that ain't min/maxing simply goes to the OW without targeting their specific activity.

pearl blaze
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Increase the number of drone slots

devout iron
pearl blaze
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The way the OW is set is completely backwards IMO thanks to the drone upgrades.

For example, if I need shards then I only want to look for Lazurite Deposits. If I need gems then I look for Bismuth Deposits. I don't have to force myself to only mine because I bring the mining drone upgrades.

It might not seem that way at first, but the current drone upgrades system greatly dictates how one plays the OW.

hoary bone
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I agree that maxing for certain activity takes away from the fun aspect of the game and only adds to complexity. I would much rather see the drone upgrades as kind of a talent tree where resetting the tree cost substantial amounts of fuel (something like diminishing returns in wow when resetting talents, each reset is more expensive). This way minmaxers can spend extra money but an avarage players would simply rock an optimal build depending on their main activity.

pearl blaze
fathom galleon
# pearl blaze The current game flow, where players switch drone upgrades to optimize a specifi...

I dont think this is a game mechanics problem but like many aspects of the crafting and Forge systems, a UI/UX problem.

The gacha role system of the drone secondary effects needs to be prioritised and I agree having 2 rolls per component could give this even more variability, but I don't think u need more drone slots.

But the pain point is actually the switching. If the game had 'loadouts'. That included your setup for drones, weapons and illuvials all in one kit then it would solve all the problems.

Once you prepare your load outs say for 'mining' or 'catching' u just hit 1 button to switch between them in Sanctum Mesa easily. This removes all the friction you are describing without changing the fundamental value of rerolling drone components

jagged storm
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How about this as an idea. As you level your hero, it unlocks the ability to use additional drones in OW. So each drone can have a unique set of chips to help accomplish the varying tasks.

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Up to 3 or 4.

pearl blaze
# fathom galleon I dont think this is a game mechanics problem but like many aspects of the craft...

It's so much more than that. These upgrades shouldn't completely change the way a player plays the OW. They should instead differentiate a new player from a veteran player.

Right now instead of enjoying each run for what it has to offer the meta is simply to focus on what the drone upgrades are boosting, i.e. mining, harvesting or illuvial hunting runs.

And I don't see any fundamental value of re-rolling drone components except for the fact that it limits the amount of resources you can get. But even that I disagree because you pay to travel and then you end up with an incompletion feeling since there's still so much heatmap unexplored at the end of each run. This could be the experience for a new player but not for a player with maxed drone upgrades.

That's why I suggested in this thread to add a new drone slot giving increased energy and I'm now advocating to have all drone upgrades active simultaneously.

fathom galleon
pearl blaze
terse swallow
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Those are the micro decisions that makes the game enjoyable imo. If we can have it all then that just makes it dumbed down and just becomes tedious

pearl blaze
# terse swallow Those are the micro decisions that makes the game enjoyable imo. If we can have ...

This has nothing to do with having it all... You would still have to make meaningfull choices. It's about having the option to choose what you want, instead of being forced by the drone upgrades. You want to focus on gems? Then you search for Bismuth Deposits. You want to help level your illuvials? Then you focus on harvesting flintcaps. All this while searching for strong illuvials. Making each travel focus on one specific activity just so you can make the most out of your drone upgrades is not a micro decision to me.

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As a matter of fact what currently is implemented is literally the opposite of that. We dumbed down the OW by making every run be optimized for one specific activity. You just put your mining drone upgrades and go blindly shoot every single deposit. Where are the micro decisions in that?

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This reminds of the arena discussions where you played the game before playing the actual game, i.e. the team-builder screen instead of inside the arena. Here in the OW is the same, you do the decisions BEFORE traveling instead of doing them WHILE traveling.

fathom galleon
# pearl blaze This has nothing to do with having it all... You would still have to make meanin...

While I agree, I fear the outcome. If you make it too easy to optimise for everything all at once, then everyone does that, its a single path for every single player and everyone reaches the same 'god mode'. This also splits the reward between the wealthy and the F2P quite substantially. In our current system, if you specialise than it costs you 5x less, and u have the same max ceiling as everyone else. Idk

devout iron
pearl blaze
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You guys must be fucking kidding me. Wealthy and F2P? P2W to max everything?
You currently spend anyway to have all the drone upgrades maxed out, and you're simply switching between them...
And I never said it would be "too easy to optimize" I'm saying all bonus should be active simultaneously. If you go mining fine you go mining. Who cares if you have double harvest chance.

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I'm not sure you guys understand the meaning of a progression system.

fathom galleon
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Every character is specialised, that's just how it is

pearl blaze
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The answer is obviously you are. And that completely destroys your arguments.

fathom galleon
devout iron
# pearl blaze So do tell me. Don't you plan to have the mining, harvesting and capture chance ...

Yes. I will max everything too. And lots of others will do it too. But the difference in progression, compared to other games, is that you have to pay per run. You cannot max your character for free or by paying once. This means that will increase the $ cost of a max character significantly. Not everybody can afford maxing everything. But they can still participate and play the game they like by farming only the upgrades they need and still competing with someone who has everything.
At least that is what I would like to see. The problem is that the whole discussion is pointless atm because of the limited upgrades that exist and the limited tasks you can do in the Overworld. But what happens if you expand the tasks a player can do? Just add another drone slot? And another one? Then in some years we reach the point where a skill tree would make more sense instead of equipping 10+ upgrades in your drone.

For this reasons i would prefer a limited number of slots. You can call it a class system if you want. And in the future when new players join they will see the price tag of a for example "Mining class", "Harvesting Class", "Illuvial Hunting class" and can have an easier start instead of seeing "Max drone Sets" that get sold. Because it feels way better that even maxed players can only play 1 class at once and not an "Everything class". This makes a huge difference imo and limits P2W while appealing to many different play styles and player budgets. Then we will also have drone presets that can easily be switched before runs and then it is no pain anymore to manage your drone upgrades

pearl blaze
# devout iron Yes. I will max everything too. And lots of others will do it too. But the diffe...

Ok just so we're clear. OW is massively P2W. F2P players don't even enter the equation cause they're restricted to T0's, and a player farming stage 3 regions will clearly outpace other players just farming stage 1 regions. So let's be real here.

With that said, ofc a new player can still compete with a veteran they just aren't as efficient, and that's actually the point of a progression system...

And I'm sorry but the discussion isn't pointless at all. I doubt they'll had that many more activities to do in the OW. And IMO there shouldn't be "mining class" or "harvesting class". I see this completely different and much more like POE. What would give players a way to specialize in a specific activity would be to aim for the random mods to match that activity of interest.

pearl blaze
pearl blaze
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Here is how I envision this.

  • Reduce the materials cost for the crafting recipes overall.
  • Each drone upgrade stage would give +1 random mod.
  • Each activity has their drone slot, i.e. mining, harvesting, encounter, heatmap and a illuvial/weapons/armors slot.
  • Each activity would have 2 base options just like it currently is, e.g. mining is reduced mining cost or double ore chance. Lower the base values slightly to accommodate for the extra slots. With the exception of the illuvial/weapons/armors slots which would be 3.
  • Increase the number of components needed to craft a stage 2 from 2 to 3 and a stage 3 from 8 to 9.
  • Decrease the amount received when deconstructing a component from 3 to 2 for stage 2 and from 9 to 7 for stage 3.
  • Remove the absolute slot, so there would be no easy way for doubling down.
  • If needed add an energy component/slot (but maybe with these changes it's not).
  • Remove essences from the recipe for this idea https://discord.com/channels/760344898200666112/1236096708182802522

With this we would create a more engaging crafting system where players would end up spending more solon re-crafting their components to try and hit their desired mods in order to specialize in one activity if they choose to do so.

pearl blaze
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Yes and I know what you guys will say, that you can still have different sets to specialize for all 3 activities. But this way at least it would be harder to achieve it, while also increasing the amount of solon spent and increasing a bit the number of actions per travel.

devout iron
# pearl blaze Ok just so we're clear. OW is massively P2W. F2P players don't even enter the eq...

Yes, F2P players have a hard time competing and I agree that you progress way faster when you are P2W. And by limiting the drone slots you limit the impact a fast progression has. Apart from whatever your goal in that game is one aspect doesn't change. And that is that everybody has to pay for a new run. Meaning your drone upgrades impact your ROI per run. This means that if you can upgrade everything than a P2W player has a massive advantage vs. a player that doesn't invest as much. But if you limit the slots that gap isn't as big and you can reach the same ROI as a maxed out player even with lower investment.

And I like that with every run you do there is a trade-off you have to make. Do you do a mining run and miss out some good Illuvials because you are not optimized for catching them or do you make an Illuvial catch run and pay that premium mining some shards during it. You basically choose between a constant and lower ROI (mining) vs. a more luck based but potential higher ROI (Illuvials). This will also impact the cost of drone upgrades giving players that can't invest as much still the chance to earn by mining stuff.

This is my biggest problem with the so called "progression system". Because of the ROI per run I don't see it as a progression system but rather as a prerequisite to play the game. You must upgrade everything first before you can start playing the game. So I would rather see another form of character progression than the drone upgrades or totally different upgrades that don't affect your ROI per run. Then I could see a "max everything" too. But personally I don't dislike the current system as much as you do. I could live with it. But I also could not find a better system so far that would me make wanting to replace the current one.

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Atm I am really thinking about never touch any mining upgrade and only go for Illuvial catching. Because I don't miss out on anything when I mine. I shoot everything and when I go out I can shoot everything again. But if I would focus on mining I could potentially miss Illuvials that can take forever to find again.
And to be fair in the end it might not even matter which upgrades you run. Because that premium on mining might be compensated by the Illuvials you catch, while the cheap mass mining might earn enough to buy the missed Illuvials. But we don't know that yet because we don't have accurate prices of everything. That are just my thoughts

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But i totally respect your view too. My biggest concern of Illuvium has always been the "pay per run". Nobody did that before and idk if the masses of player can adapt to such a payment system. That's why I don't want to add any other potential barrier for new players to come in. Meaning as less P2W as possible to make it appealing for as much players as possible.

pearl blaze
# devout iron Yes, F2P players have a hard time competing and I agree that you progress way fa...

  • "This means that if you can upgrade everything than a P2W player has a massive advantage vs. a player that doesn't invest as much"
    And that's how it should be in the OW. We want to incentivize players to spend as much as possible without breaking the game balance.

  • "This is my biggest problem with the so called "progression system". Because of the ROI per run I don't see it as a progression system but rather as a prerequisite to play the game. You must upgrade everything first before you can start playing the game. "
    This is very true.

  • "So I would rather see another form of character progression than the drone upgrades or totally different upgrades that don't affect your ROI per run. Then I could see a "max everything" too."
    I think if it doesn't affect the ROI they would be meaningless.

  • "Atm I am really thinking about never touch any mining upgrade and only go for Illuvial catching. Because I don't miss out on anything when I mine. I shoot everything and when I go out I can shoot everything again. But if I would focus on mining I could potentially miss Illuvials that can take forever to find again."
    Yep, my thinking is exactly the same. I go hunt illuvials and only mine Lazurite Deposits when I see them.

pearl blaze
devout iron
devout iron
pearl blaze
pearl blaze
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In web2 P2W gives you nothing in return. In web3 P2W is all about ROI. It's very different.
And as I like to say, once you go web3 there's no going back.

devout iron
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I mean they still can increase the number of slots in the future if that's needed. But if they give out too much in the beginning you will piss of all players if you take it back.

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I would start with the limited system and adjust if needed

pearl blaze
pearl blaze
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You go check the leaderboards and the average time per travel is 15 mins, this is way less than it was before. And there's a big part of the heatmap left to explore on each run, even when focusing only on one specific activity with max drone upgrades.

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A fully maxed out drone should let the player explore basically the entire heatmap. Otherwise it leaves a feeling of uncompletion.

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My doubt is do we reduce the heatmap area or do we increase the number of actions allowed per travel. I'm more inclined to the latter.

devout iron
# pearl blaze A fully maxed out drone should let the player explore basically the entire heatm...

I disagree here. A run should make the player explore the map. If you clear the whole map every time it is boring. Either you catch the first Illuvial you see and be fast or you look for rare Illuvials while being slower. The same goes for rocks. Either you are fast and shoot everything and sell in bulk. Or you look for specific rocks and try to get rare materials/shards, etc. Otherwise you wouldn't need OW at all and can just pay x amount of crypton and get back x amount of stuff. Like a real pack opening. But then we don't need OW and would have released the game a long time ago

pearl blaze
# devout iron I disagree here. A run should make the player explore the map. If you clear the ...

Scoriox said the exact same thing. I'm not getting my point across. The heatmap zone does not encompass the whole map, let's get that straight. I'm not saying each run with a maxed out drone should explore the whole map but rather the entire heatmap zone. That's the progression I'm talking about. When you start with no upgrades you can only explore 50% of the heatmap, which might correspond to 30% of the entire map. And with the drone upgrades you increase that value to 100% of the heatmap which might be 60% of the entire map.

dreamy terrace
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i prefer specialized class/run.
doing a spesific run is more efficient. let miners be miners and hunters be hunters

pearl blaze
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and I mean it's you and everyone that wants to min/max

dreamy terrace
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i dont think we should get that many random mods. i prefer :
S1, no random mod
S2, 1 random mod
S3, 2 random mods
getting a good roll on S1 is kinda sad, because u want to upgrade but the random mode is so good.

pearl blaze
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3 mods might also be too much

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with 5 slots having 3 mods each would be 15x possible multipliers to a specific action

idle sun
hidden quiver
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So people argue that it's better for the game to have 12 chips but only being able to equip them 4 at time and switching them between runs is fun and engaging?
And if you have all equiped at same time, you convey that people can't just do a mining run?

If you compare the drone system to the ranger gear system, why aren't people arguing that you should only bring either jetpack or boots or visor? And there is a linear progression to them.

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I'm conflicted on the amount of random mods. More mods and variety of their values can make the perfect gear really hard to obtain even for whales. And people have already said that at some point it doesn't matter how much you increase mining, because there are just not enough rocks on the map to farm or they are so sparse that it takes you longer to get them.
Imagine if you have to roll capture chance, but that is not guaranteed to be +15. Can be a range of 5-15.

All of these changes will inherently need more resources spent. This creates more sinks in the economy. Which will increase the long term value of great gear.

pearl blaze
pearl blaze
hidden quiver
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We don't have to invent the wheel here. There are countless of crafting systems out there.
Many things are common:
Locking a specific mod you want to keep.
Rerolling the whole thing.
Addning an extra mod with a specific item/currency.

Adding more solon sinks should be good for the game. There are some that say it's the most lackluster fuel.

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And if you have more mods, then you do more rerolls. Cuz there is a higher chance to miss on something or even reroll a good thing.

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Right now all chips with the same mod are the same. "THE BEST" chip exists way too often. It's like 1/15 chance to craft it.

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And I feel like the UI is very badly designed for crafting. Something like the LoL item shop seems to be a good idea. You can easily see what you can transform something into or what you need to accomplish the item you've selected. And you move easily between components and end results. But this is for a thread on its own.

dreamy terrace
pearl blaze
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even worse with plants

dreamy terrace
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this is actually good, faster run, more flexibility to mine spesific ores. but i just shoot randomly

pearl blaze
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yep... We should reward players that know what they're shooting vs those who shoot everything that matches their drone upgrades.

pearl blaze
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Just did a stage 3 mining run, and yes I don't have both components decreasing the extraction cost cause I have 10% duplicate ore, but you can see there's still like almost half the heatmap left to explore.

image.png
runic crow
pearl blaze
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my point is that if you have a maxed out drone for mining then you should almost nearly mine all the nodes inside the heatmap

runic crow
pearl blaze
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I chose the 10 cards out of the 20, being those cards the mine deposits

idle sun
# pearl blaze I harvested zero plants, captured zero illuvials, only went for mining deposits ...

Simple math reveals that you mined 51 rocks (or a few more if you used an Ergon rift or two).
That is half of the available rocks on the map.
Without your upgrades you would've gotten 40.
With maxed out upgrades you would've gotten 100 (which is what's on the map in total).

Looks to me like it's functioning exactly as you wanted it to from your earlier description.
Or is there something I'm missing?

runic crow
pearl blaze
idle sun
pearl blaze
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if you guys think it's fine as it is so be it. But at least give one more random mod to the stage 2's and remove the essences from the craft.

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if we lower the crafting cost it would be more appealing for re-crafting, and thus a greater solon sink

idle sun
idle sun
pearl blaze
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I also don't understand why deconstructing gives one extra component from the base crafting recipe, it should be deflationary to dismantle not inflationary.

idle sun
pearl blaze
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all 3 stages take different resources, not sure about that one

idle sun
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basically you salvage the entire thing without losing value

pearl blaze
idle sun
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that would make the crafting process a bit simpler as well

pearl blaze
idle sun
pearl blaze
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they worked so hard for those pretty components and now you want to remove them?

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they're gonna kill you 🤣

idle sun
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maybe we can... re-purpose them...

pearl blaze
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nonetheless, I do like your idea of using lower stages as it would really simplify the crafting process

idle sun
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it would also make it feel more like you're upgrading the item and not just crafting a brand new one

pearl blaze
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but I guess for consistency their all system is made like that. You also need to deconstruct the armaments.

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you can't expect to simply have a fire sword 1 and craft it into a fire sword 2, no no no. You need to deconstruct it to get their component to construct a better one...

idle sun
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I can't just slap a bigger battery in it to improve it's glow power?

pearl blaze
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we don't do that here.

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illuvium has to be complex.