Game-breaking problem: Memetic Specializations

[Voodou]

This may (or certainly) has been mentioned before. As currently implemented, memetic specializations literally lock players into different play styles with no opportunity to shape their game experience to their preference. They can also give players an unfair (and insurmountable) advantage. Take star dust source production. If you have the specialization that allows you to craft this item, you can literally farm what is arguably the most precious commodity in the game, allowing you to easily calibrate all of your weapons and gear to the max while you are afk. This is just bloody wrong. Meanwhile there are some specializations that are literally trivial to the point of comedy.

As for the recent "fix", it's not a fix. Good luck finding memory fragments that are actually useful.

IMHO, the best mechanic for this would be to allow players to change these AT WILL, paid or not with some currency that is reasonably attainable. And it should not be craps game with respect to which specializations are available to you, all should be available, but you can only have a limited number available at a given time.

The benefits of this approach:
1. Some specializations allow users to avoid tedious grinding of various items. Users will be able to pick what's important to them and avoid the grinds that they find most annoying.

2. As users progress through the game their needs and interests change. They will no longer be locked into a particular play style that they had little choice about being in.

3. Nothing this important is left to chance in the game (perhaps with the exception of legendary mod drops, but the impact of that is considerably less). Removing chance from this game mechanic will balance the game in a very important way.

I've seriously thought of abandoning this game for this reason. And if the developers ever want to make a profit on this thing they need to cater to long-term players. Fixing this mechanic will help retain long-term users.

[Hexoplex]

Worst case, you are only locked in for 6 weeks. Though it seem we get 1 reset a week for each season. They have added fragments you can farm to "fix" you build. This style is supposed to promote player interactions and hives. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[BurlsoL]

Okay... But most of these things can be constructed by other players to be put in your territory, or sold to other players through your vending machine. Reset items and it being only a 6 week season means that it isn't a long term problem.

It helps make it so that not every character is the same, and that is kinda refreshing in a way. Even if you don't get the 'best' memetics, you will usually get one or two that are useful in their own way. I got one that reduced the weight of ores, wood, and stone by 80%... been abusing the hell out of that one. Fridge in inventory is costly (15 batteries), but also useful.

For stardust, run silos, do events, kill elites, hunt down morphic chests, and use those refinery cards you've been neglecting. The pump does not give you that much overall.

[DarkEternal]

There's a chat function.
Ask someone to do what you can't.
Join a Hive. Ask them to help you along.
Join a Warband. Ask them to help you along.
Chat is a wonderful thing that can help you make friends and get stronger.
Play the game.
Don't let the game play you.

[Verdeth]

stardust source pump only provides early game benefits, you need 20 acid for a storage battery and one battery provides 80 stardust, you cant build tier 5 weapon in phase 1 and in phase 3 you can farm hard mode silos (so you kinda dont want to waste your controller early game), thus increasing your mods and stardust source income (100 per boss). so by that logic its really only viable in phase 2 afterwards it becomes redundant, why would i say that ? for over 1 week i have been stuck with stardust in my vending machine, nobody buys it anymore.

[DarkEternal]

Originally posted by Verdeth:

stardust source pump only provides early game benefits, you need 20 acid for a storage battery and one battery provides 80 stardust, you cant build tier 5 weapon in phase 1 and in phase 3 you can farm hard mode silos (so you kinda dont want to waste your controller early game), thus increasing your mods and stardust source income (100 per boss). so by that logic its really only viable in phase 2 afterwards it becomes redundant, why would i say that ? for over 1 week i have been stuck with stardust in my vending machine, nobody buys it anymore.

Yeah, I've got close to 10k stardust and I can't give the stuff away. Everyone on my server is stacked in Phase 5.

[Voodou]

Originally posted by Verdeth:

stardust source pump only provides early game benefits, you need 20 acid for a storage battery and one battery provides 80 stardust, you cant build tier 5 weapon in phase 1 and in phase 3 you can farm hard mode silos (so you kinda dont want to waste your controller early game), thus increasing your mods and stardust source income (100 per boss). so by that logic its really only viable in phase 2 afterwards it becomes redundant, why would i say that ? for over 1 week i have been stuck with stardust in my vending machine, nobody buys it anymore.

Well I've got 4k acid stuffed in storage boxes and I'd be happy to turn some of it into source, which I'm low on. Upgrading mods is 500 a pop, and fully calibrating a piece of gear is what, 1500? You can dump probably 4k into a weapon and it's mod. I'm sick of doing speed silo/boss/crate runs for this stuff, it's pretty tedious at this stage.

As for the mechanic encouraging social interaction, that's bull***t not only because some people don't want to socialize, and shopping at vending machines is not my idea of socializing. Oh, and try and trade something for source on the in-game chat. Everyone is stuffing it into their missles for PW at this point.

I don't know why I'm complaining, this game has gotten pretty repetitive and tedious. Most of the side quests and puzzles are comically lame and completely divorced from the game theme. I'll probably get my last bit of starcrom, buy what weapons I can from the wish machine, and call it a day until the reset.

[internetgrout]

Cool man. The developers don't use the steam forums for feedback so you'll need to head to their discord.

[Zackerie]

I'd be wary of chat, because there is a bunch of people who love to just condescend to you like you haven't thought through the problem yourself already.

Playing solo, and i got a fat stack of stardust. It is like acid. there is a small funnel when you first get to level 50, and you need to go out of your way for it, but eventually you'll have more than you can spend before the wipe happens. My stardust funnel happened right after my acid funnel. But if you just run the silos on hard and pro you'll end up with more than enough guns to disassemble into stardust. plus what you get from the bosses.

[HAcoreRD]

Originally posted by DarkEternal:

There's a chat function.
Ask someone to do what you can't.
Join a Hive. Ask them to help you along.
Join a Warband. Ask them to help you along.
Chat is a wonderful thing that can help you make friends and get stronger.
Play the game.
Don't let the game play you.

this.

I had Chemist pretty early and I helped my hive out early game with acid farming. Late game, my friend got Stardust ability, so now he's helping me.

Everything goes hand if hand if you're not some hermit living off the "grid" and you actually talk and trade with players

[Voodou]

Originally posted by Zackerie:

I'd be wary of chat, because there is a bunch of people who love to just condescend to you like you haven't thought through the problem yourself already.

Playing solo, and i got a fat stack of stardust. It is like acid. there is a small funnel when you first get to level 50, and you need to go out of your way for it, but eventually you'll have more than you can spend before the wipe happens. My stardust funnel happened right after my acid funnel. But if you just run the silos on hard and pro you'll end up with more than enough guns to disassemble into stardust. plus what you get from the bosses.

I'm sorry running silos on pro for 200 (300 if you get lucky with drops) stardust over and over and over and over again is not my idea of a good time. It's not good gameplay, it's a formula.

[Vela Darney]

Go check out players' vending machines. On the other thread, some people were complaining the Stardust Source they put in their vending machines aren't selling anymore cos everyone's loaded. (Me, I'm not so tomorrow, I'll go check out the vending machines in Blackfell.)

[n.]

I would fix it by taking the power out of the specialisation. I'd give everyone the ability to craft stardust source from the same materials. But you'd have to do it an inconvenient place. The specialisation can then be changed to be "you can craft it at home".

[Vela Darney]

And then what? Give everyone the ability to craft silver and gold ingots, too, cos someone complains they don't have enough energy links and it's unfair how some people can create precious metal stuff that sells for a lot? Give everyone the exact same stats cos people think it's unfair someone's better? The exact same gear and weapons cos people complain it's unfair that some people got better weapons and gear than them? If you get started on that kind of thing - where do you stop?

Nah, leave it as it is. This season I got lucky with some of the stuff I could unlock. Next season, I might not get any of the nice stuff I unlocked this season by chance and might end up with a lot of useless stuff. It's not forever, it will reset with the seasonal resets. Just gotta wait. I get how that might be difficult for folks who're used to getting everything they want right when they want it but, well, as that old Rolling Stones song goes: "You Can't Always Get What You Want" ... *shrug*

[RedFaster]

Seems like the problem with the resource crafting specializations could be solved by making the memory fragments obtainable so that every player is guaranteed the option.

[Xarian-Prime]

Originally posted by HAcoreRD:

Originally posted by DarkEternal:

There's a chat function.
Ask someone to do what you can't.
Join a Hive. Ask them to help you along.
Join a Warband. Ask them to help you along.
Chat is a wonderful thing that can help you make friends and get stronger.
Play the game.
Don't let the game play you.

this.

I had Chemist pretty early and I helped my hive out early game with acid farming. Late game, my friend got Stardust ability, so now he's helping me.

Everything goes hand if hand if you're not some hermit living off the "grid" and you actually talk and trade with players

Off the grid hermit that doesn't do much interacting here...
I'm also stacked with more than i need and if i do need anything i just run the appropriate tasks (Silo Runs/Public Events/Town Clearing)
Never found the Memetic stuff to be much of an issue.. I chose the crystal crafting though and changed that up to the one where you craft the crystals you sell for big bucks.. I feel no disadvantage other than i cant spamcraft Red Biomass.. but I don't want to either, as PW isn't my focus.