Condition for new catalyst "Evolution" is way too harsh

[YesMan]

As title says.
From my testing, only direct kill with that weapon qualifies those "kill counts"

I've tried a typical device build corrosion Stinger in ancient rift, and I kept shooting with Blightmonger set Deteriorator.
The result? Only 7 kills are counted. SEVEN for 1 rift.
And for the backup coil gun Vigilante set Judge? ZERO as expected.

And actually I did 1 level 3 incursion before the rift. The combined kill count for 1 incursion + 1 rift:
Deteriorator: 8
Judge: 3

This is not really an easy catalyst to make. Players need to farm materials from Leviathan.
1000 kill count is not an easy task. Even if you switch to easy difficulty, it really takes time.

There is no need to make it that harsh to use this catalyst. There is absolutely no need to pad your game like this.
Imagine if I use Evolution catalyst for all equipped weapons. You really expect me to do a 1000 kill for EACH primary + secondary weapon?
If I want to fully utilize that catalyst on Interceptor, I need a total of 6000 kills?
Good luck if you want to use that catalyst on cruise missile for bomber.
And well, we can have 9 ships.

-Suggestion
Please consider making all kill counts account for all equipped weapons with that catalyst.

[Notoshy]

Hmmm..... Question about your Setup. Personally i plan to do atleast one Weapon with this Catalyst. Does your Setup utilize damage effects? Corrosion, the lv30 lightning ability, any kind of AoE damage?
Could it be that the Game didnt recognize the kills, because you didnt actually killed them with the weapon?

[YesMan]

Originally posted by Notoshy:

Hmmm..... Question about your Setup. Personally i plan to do atleast one Weapon with this Catalyst. Does your Setup utilize damage effects? Corrosion, the lv30 lightning ability, any kind of AoE damage?
Could it be that the Game didnt recognize the kills, because you didnt actually killed them with the weapon?

This is exactly the problem with this catalyst.

In this game players would naturally build multiple layers of damage.
Perks, Ult, missile proc on crit, damage reflection, Warfare devices (and even consumables), Corrosion stacks, Bob, Vindicator's drones, Wrath of the Fallen, Thundercore, Omni Manus, Toxic Revenger, Visions of Decay, etc. etc. to the latest Together We Stand set.
And don't forget those mutators&blessings from high risk areas, rift and reliquaries.
There are way too many things that can "steal" the kill.

And this catalyst only register direct kill with the active weapon.
Players have to restrain themselves, abandon their setup, just to make those kills count. And players need to force themselves to use backup primary weapon & secondary weapon on non-bomber as their main damage source.
(Well, unless it just happen that you have a build of using 1 weapon as your sole damage source)
This defeats the rpg build elements of this game.

I would say this new catalyst has a good concept, making a weapon grow even stronger, and it gives players purpose to kill even after level 30 with their fully geared ships. But it is really poorly executed in terms of gameplay.

[oligatordude]

Honestly, the bonuses it givers feel weak compared to other catalysts. Solo, for example, gives you 35% damage AND fire rate. That means 1.35^2 x DPS on that weapon (82.25%). Kinetic damage gives you 30% kinetic damage. The extra bonus attribute may be useful, but bonus attributes are outclassed by pure damage. I think If you go interceptor, solo is the perfect catalyst to use. Interceptor is all about weapon energy anyways. Just put solo on a guass cannon and go ham.

[oligatordude]

I think it could count kills based on if you have hit that enemy with that weapon. All the player needs in one hit, allowing for something else to finish that enemy off ant the catalyst to still count it as a kill with that weapon.

[Pappy]

I think this catalyst would be overpowered as you suggest. You only need 100 kills to permanently increase the weapons damage by 10% which is a pretty nice buff in itself. That's pretty easy to attain even the way the catalyst is currently working. Yeah 1000 kills is gonna take a long while but a 20% increase to damage plus an additional bonus attribute is a pretty powerful catalyst. It shouldn't be easy to attain and getting this on all 6 weapons should be damn near impossible.

It shouldn't be too difficult to get 1 weapon to 1000 kills if you have a build designed for it. Obviously a corrosive setup isn't the optimal way to do it, not to mention this catalyst is pretty much wasted on a corrosive build anyway. The catalyst is designed for a build in which 1 weapon will be doing most of the damage. If it were changed as you suggest, the bonuses would be too easy to acquire in my humble opinion.

[YesMan]

Originally posted by oligatordude:

I think it could count kills based on if you have hit that enemy with that weapon. All the player needs in one hit, allowing for something else to finish that enemy off ant the catalyst to still count it as a kill with that weapon.

If the devs make changes like this, I can imagine players making very busy finger movements, just to hit 1 single enemy with all weapons, and then switch back to their main damage dealer. And they have to do that 1000 times.

[YesMan]

Originally posted by Pappy:

I think this catalyst would be overpowered as you suggest. You only need 100 kills to permanently increase the weapons damage by 10% which is a pretty nice buff in itself. That's pretty easy to attain even the way the catalyst is currently working. Yeah 1000 kills is gonna take a long while but a 20% increase to damage plus an additional bonus attribute is a pretty powerful catalyst. It shouldn't be easy to attain and getting this on all 6 weapons should be damn near impossible.

I do understand what you tried to say.
But it is not always wrong for players being powerful or even overpowered, in a single player only game.
We have ships that can use Ultimate abilities, and we afraid become too overpowered?

And actually Evolution catalyst is powerful, but not that overpowered as you stated.
If the weapon doesn't have the "Powerful" prefix, I can just snap a Powerful catalyst for +20% damage with zero kill needed.
If the weapon has Powerful prefix already, I can always snap catalyst for +30% kinetic or energy damage. That's not really a big difference from +20% all damage, and again with zero kill requirement.
And for attributes, there are only a couple of them being important, many are just insignificant or even useless. An extra attribute on weapon would not be game-breaking overpowered.

Originally posted by Pappy:

It shouldn't be too difficult to get 1 weapon to 1000 kills if you have a build designed for it. Obviously a corrosive setup isn't the optimal way to do it, not to mention this catalyst is pretty much wasted on a corrosive build anyway. The catalyst is designed for a build in which 1 weapon will be doing most of the damage. If it were changed as you suggest, the catalyst would be too powerful in my humble opinion.

IF you have a particular build for that, and many builds are not like that. The Devs introduced many ways for players to establish multiple damage layers, they did not design a game like that.
This is not about "What build is good for Evolution catalyst?"
Let me be very entitled right here. This catalyst is part of the content from a premium DLC, which we have to pay for it.
I am not asking for "Hey just let me push a button and become the space ship god in ES2."
I am trying to point out why this catalyst does not integrate well with current version of this game, and to suggest a more reasonable and accessible way for the kill count.
With the benefit of +% damage & extra attribute, I am totally fine with the 1000 kills requirement. But I really can't agree with "only direct kill with that weapon is qualified for kill count".

[Pappy]

Originally posted by YesMan:

But it is not always wrong for players being powerful or even overpowered, in a single player only game.

The devs don't mind you being overpowered, but they do want you to have to work for it. If you want to spend the time to get a couple weapons with this catalyst, it can be done, but it's gonna take some effort.

And there are some players that utilize primarily a single weapon. This catalyst is really designed for them. The devs don't want any particular catalyst to become meta. They've really tried hard to avoid that situation.

[oligatordude]

Originally posted by Pappy:

Originally posted by YesMan:

But it is not always wrong for players being powerful or even overpowered, in a single player only game.

The devs don't mind you being overpowered, but they do want you to have to work for it. If you want to spend the time to get a couple weapons with this catalyst, it can be done, but it's gonna take some effort.

And there are some players that utilize primarily a single weapon. This catalyst is really designed for them. The devs don't want any particular catalyst to become meta. They've really tried hard to avoid that situation.

In that case, the solo catalyst is much better. Its an extra 80% dps.

[Pappy]

Originally posted by oligatordude:

Originally posted by Pappy:

The devs don't mind you being overpowered, but they do want you to have to work for it. If you want to spend the time to get a couple weapons with this catalyst, it can be done, but it's gonna take some effort.

And there are some players that utilize primarily a single weapon. This catalyst is really designed for them. The devs don't want any particular catalyst to become meta. They've really tried hard to avoid that situation.

In that case, the solo catalyst is much better. Its an extra 80% dps.

I haven't obtained this catalyst so I'm not really familiar with it.

[YesMan]

Originally posted by Pappy:

Originally posted by oligatordude:

In that case, the solo catalyst is much better. Its an extra 80% dps.

I haven't obtained this catalyst so I'm not really familiar with it.

I just tried "Solo" catalyst with Interceptor+Marksman Disintegrator.
Pure damage bonus of +35% damage and +35% fire rate. You just need a build that equip 1 primary weapon only.
Some effort is needed to manage energy consumption, which is not an issue for Interceptor + Stormchaser shield&2-set bonus.

[YesMan]

So...I managed to achieve 1000 kills for 2 items, EMP mine for bomber, and Judge for sentinel.
It is rather easy to do it with bomber.
And for sentinel, as I have mentioned above, I have to restrain myself not to use other damaging abilities. I still find it rather ridiculous, that you have to compete with yourself for the valid killing blow lol. Now my sentinel is once again the emp machine, rather than just pew pew.

(extra: I made another test run with Vanguard and Deteriorator being the sole damage source.
I am quite confident that those corrosion stacks applied by Deteriorator, do NOT contribute to the kill count of Deteriorator. There is now way I did a Dreadnought encounter with...less than 15 kills...)

The "completed form" for evolution catalyst is...less exciting than expected. Of course the +20% damage component is nice, but the extra attribute slot doesn't really make significant difference. And the old +30% kinetic/energy damage catalyst is not really falling behind.
If you have bad luck like me, you would just keep re-rolling less useful attributes on all 4 slots. And I believe many players already re-roll/gamble enough to have 3 good attributes already, the 4th one is not really needed.

And the kill count continues after 1000 kills, I don't know if there are hidden stats, or the dev just forgot to stop the counter in coding.

I don't think I would snap evolution catalyst on other items again lol.
If you can think of a build with only 1 primary weapon equipped and can manage weapon energy well, aka you can live without vigilante set, just use 1 weapon with solo catalyst, it's way better for dps.

[Notoshy]

If its a random additional attribute, then it makes more sense to use it on a rare item, get the 3rd Slot, re-roll to get nice attributes and then upgrade the item^^
Its cheaper.

"Solo" could work well with the Sniper. There is a new Railgun with extra damage to Targets "that didnt noticed you" (funny, if you can attack Targets from over 7km away xD) and Sensors with over 8km Target-Detection. I think with a good roll on multiple Gear, you can get over 8km attack range. Additional damage from "Solo" would really create the infamous Stealth-Archer with instakill to any Target XD

[YesMan]

Originally posted by Notoshy:

If its a random additional attribute, then it makes more sense to use it on a rare item, get the 3rd Slot, re-roll to get nice attributes and then upgrade the item^^
Its cheaper.

But superior starforged gear is not something you can upgrade to, at least for the current version.

Originally posted by Notoshy:

"Solo" could work well with the Sniper. There is a new Railgun with extra damage to Targets "that didnt noticed you" (funny, if you can attack Targets from over 7km away xD) and Sensors with over 8km Target-Detection. I think with a good roll on multiple Gear, you can get over 8km attack range. Additional damage from "Solo" would really create the infamous Stealth-Archer with instakill to any Target XD

The Initiator
But if you plan to use solo with scout, Executioner from Vigilante set is a better all-rounder.
You can easily shoot it over 5km, and it is still very easy to be spotted in this game even with cloaking.

Stealth-archer build scout is fun for general gameplay. But for situation like ancient rifts, many modifiers are just simply big middle finger to stealth build scouts lol.

[Notoshy]

Originally posted by YesMan:

But if you plan to use solo with scout, Executioner from Vigilante set is a better all-rounder.
You can easily shoot it over 5km, and it is still very easy to be spotted in this game even with cloaking.

Stealth-archer build scout is fun for general gameplay. But for situation like ancient rifts, many modifiers are just simply big middle finger to stealth build scouts lol.

Spotting the Player and reaching him are 2 different Things^^ The only Target that could be an annoyance, is the Teleporter-Drone, but that pile of Scrap is ALWAYS an annoyance XD

Entering a Dungeon-like Rift, that punishes defensive, careful behaviour, with a light Shipclass like the Glasscannon Scout is by default a very doubtful Decision XD

Nearly 5km range is reachable with every Shipclass, all you need is a standart Railgun with Marksman. You dont need the Sniper-Class for that. Executioner has a reduced range which is a no-go for a railgun and "fully charged criticial hits instantly kills smaller targets" is to vague. What does it mean? Any sufficient Railgun could vaporize smaller Targets with a charged Bullet.
I found a normal Swift Initiator (just superior, no prototype or starforged), slapped kinetic Damage on it (2069 kinetic; 1819 energy dps). Its effect adds 20% extra damage to unaware targets + 50% reduced speed. Charge damage is 1500% and that with 3,5km range. Executioner just cant compare.
On a Scout with its range and damage modifiers, my limitation is the range of the Sensor. Currently thats 7,6km, with a legendary Sensor i can probably extend it to 8,3km.... but it would be a damage trade-off, because the Sensor has +20% damage for Railguns xD
And keeping your Hand steady while aiming at a moving Target in that distance....