Weapon/damage type upgrades shouldn't be a thing.

[Asherogar]

TLDR: Weapon/damage type upgrades are way too powerful compared to improving a single weapon and massively bloat the upgrades pool, which results in ignoring fun and exciting overclocks in favor of stacking boring global +dmg% as far more effective option the game seems to be balanced around.

Overclocks. Overclocks are the thing you're supposed to chase. To change your weapon and do something fun and exciting. Make your grenade into claster munition. Make your boomerang pick up experience and loot. Turn your stukovs into a death spiral. Make your M-1000 shoot a nuke.

But then you look at upgrades and need to choose between adding 10% damage to your M-1000 and progress it towards ICBM or add 10% damage to All [PROJECTILE] weapons. You look at your hotbar with 3 or 4 projectile weapons and understand there's no choise. You pick the projectile card, because it's several times stronger.

So instead of chasing overclocks I'm stuck in the process of stacking infinite number of boring +dmg/fire rate/reload projectile cards, simply because they're much more powerful compared to upgrading an individual weapon.

And that's only half of the problem, the other one is that those cards massively bloat the upgrade pool. You have your base stats upgrades, then each weapon adds 4 and you have 4 weapons, then each combo of 2+ same tags on your weapons adds a bunch of weapon/damage type upgrades. Some weapons don't want specific stats, like boomstick doesn't care about fire rate or reload being far more valuable on grenades. And on top of all of this you have rarity. You might luck out the Uncommon reload on your Boomstick, but then there's a Legendary Mining Speed. You're griefing if you don't pick the Mining Speed.

Global upgrades, that work on everything are fine, not only because their numbers are actually quite lower and you can have an actual decision between adding 10% reload on one specific weapon or 3% reload on everything. But there's only 2 such upgrades too. Global damage and global reload. So they don't bloat the pool.

[Cor.]

For you.

Others happen to enjoy it, and revel in the mass slaughter of the bugs

[Mandori]

Here we go again....

[Cor.]

Originally posted by Mandori:

Here we go again....

Almost like they dread the idea of having to choose.

[Intra]

I don't think you're doing the math equation correctly.

And that's what these are, math equations. Boring ones.

Lets say the M1000 with no Overclocks does 5x the damage of your other weapons (which can... be a very common occurence). Then you get the overclock making it Electric, or the overclock giving you +100% damage +100% reload speed -25% damage -25% reload speed for other guns. Now every point of fire rate and crit on the M1000 is so exponentially large in firepower that the other guns don't matter. The problem is that you can't reliably get overclocks that have that large impact.

And every paint job you take is an opportunity cost in hopes to get a large payoff for the overclock but you can roll snake eyes. And if you take a paint job without it giving you the overclock immediately you can sacrifice killing speed which will lower your total levels.

So... I agree with you, just don't agree with your decision making.

[Cor.]

Talk about over thinking things.

[Asherogar]

Originally posted by Cor.:

Almost like they dread the idea of having to choose.

That's the fun thing. Currently you don't choose. There's no choise between 10% dmg on one of your guns vs 10% to ALL of your guns. What choise?

Again, when you have 10% reload on one of your guns and progress to an overclock or 3% reload on all of your guns, it's a choise. Current systm isn't it.

[Intra]

Every level up or shop is just a multiple choice math question where you get punished for being an idiot. Is that really fun gameplay?

Compare that to Hades, where there's actual effects that are unique and "wrong options" aren't so clear cut that they can be put in a calculator.

[Cor.]

Originally posted by Asherogar:

Originally posted by Cor.:

Almost like they dread the idea of having to choose.

That's the fun thing. Currently you don't choose. There's no choise between 10% dmg on one of your guns vs 10% to ALL of your guns. What choise?

Again, when you have 10% reload on one of your guns and progress to an overclock or 3% reload on all of your guns, it's a choise. Current systm isn't it.

Really.

lets look at that.

10% damage to a specific gun VS 10% damage to all guns.

!0% damage also LEVELS UP YOUR WEAPON.

10% damage to all guns does absolutely NOTHING for leveling a weapon.

Congrats. You just made getting to an overclock that much harder

[Intra]

Originally posted by Cor.:

You just made getting to an overclock that much harder

And yet, while Overclocks can absolutely destroy the enemies so fast that it makes the game a joke, they also can give you trash options that Salvaging is a better choice.

[Cor.]

Originally posted by Intra:

Originally posted by Cor.:

You just made getting to an overclock that much harder

And yet, while Overclocks can absolutely destroy the enemies so fast that it makes the game a joke, they also can give you trash options that Salvaging is a better choice.

And?

You gotta make a choice

[Asherogar]

Originally posted by Intra:

I don't think you're doing the math equation correctly.

And that's what these are, math equations. Boring ones.

Lets say the M1000 with no Overclocks does 5x the damage of your other weapons (which can... be a very common occurence). Then you get the overclock making it Electric, or the overclock giving you +100% damage +100% reload speed -25% damage -25% reload speed for other guns. Now every point of fire rate and crit on the M1000 is so exponentially large in firepower that the other guns don't matter. The problem is that you can't reliably get overclocks that have that large impact.

And every paint job you take is an opportunity cost in hopes to get a large payoff for the overclock but you can roll snake eyes. And if you take a paint job without it giving you the overclock immediately you can sacrifice killing speed which will lower your total levels.

So... I agree with you, just don't agree with your decision making.

That seems more like an edge case scenario. You're not only betting everything on a single gun with supposedly 3 other slots filled with utility only, you're somehow expecting to survive until this big pay off? With M1000 i really want some backup like Boomstick and that's already 2 weapons that can benefit from any projectile upgrades. And they both pull their weight. Let's even say last two slots are Cryo Grenade and THOR for utility that wouldn't benefit. I would still take projectile dmg over dmg for a single weapon, assuming both upgrades are of the same tier.

In any way, all of my runs where i just picked 3-4 weapons with the same tag and spammed this tag upgrades went far far far smoother than any attempt on chasing overclocks. The only case where it wouldn't be the case is if your single weapon literally deals 90% of total damage and able to deal with all enemies from all directions. Idk, BRT7 maybe? With piercing overclock and death spiral. But even then you need like lvl 35-40 to even get to this point. And you're most likely starting as Recon Scout, so just spam Light upgrades instead.

[Asherogar]

Originally posted by Cor.:

Really.

lets look at that.

10% damage to a specific gun VS 10% damage to all guns.

!0% damage also LEVELS UP YOUR WEAPON.

10% damage to all guns does absolutely NOTHING for leveling a weapon.

Congrats. You just made getting to an overclock that much harder

Don't you see it's my entire problem?

By going boring you're getting much more power right now and make it much easier to get further. By trying to go for an overclock, you're getting far less impact now in hopes that in the final 2 minutes of the run you will be able to see some cool lvl18 overclock. Most likely you will fail the run, because trying to focus on a single gun will leave you too weak to even progress further. Or even if you do reach the lvl18, you'll get a dud instead of an overclock you were hoping for.

I have several completed hazard 4 runs where I literally don't have a single weapon with level above ~10-12. And they were significantly easier than trying to hit 18 on even a single gun.

And on top of it, if you want to get some weapons to 18, you need to sift throught and endless sea of upgrades you have no interest in. 8 levels, 2 shops and 7 reroll later and you still don't see an upgrade for your lvl 17 gun. Fun, right?

[Cor.]

Originally posted by Asherogar:

Originally posted by Cor.:

Really.

lets look at that.

10% damage to a specific gun VS 10% damage to all guns.

!0% damage also LEVELS UP YOUR WEAPON.

10% damage to all guns does absolutely NOTHING for leveling a weapon.

Congrats. You just made getting to an overclock that much harder

Don't you see it's my entire problem?

By going boring you're getting much more power right now and make it much easier to get further. By trying to go for an overclock, you're getting far less impact now in hopes that in the final 2 minutes of the run you will be able to see some cool lvl18 overclock. Most likely you will fail the run, because trying to focus on a single gun will leave you too weak to even progress further. Or even if you do reach the lvl18, you'll get a dud instead of an overclock you were hoping for.

I have several completed hazard 4 runs where I literally don't have a single weapon with level above ~10-12. And they were significantly easier than trying to hit 18 on even a single gun.

And on top of it, if you want to get some weapons to 18, you need to sift throught and endless sea of upgrades you have no interest in. 8 levels, 2 shops and 7 reroll later and you still don't see an upgrade for your lvl 17 gun. Fun, right?

Then change how youre playing.

its up to you.

[Kuro | Box of fish. because.]

Originally posted by Asherogar:

TLDR: Weapon/damage type upgrades are way too powerful compared to improving a single weapon and massively bloat the upgrades pool, which results in ignoring fun and exciting overclocks in favor of stacking boring global +dmg% as far more effective option the game seems to be balanced around.

-snip-

While I do agree with you mostly here, I think there's a balancing act, I've done quite a few runs where I've run one gun up to 18, left the others at 6 and then focused down the 'keyword' boosts, and those have been the most satisfying/effective runs. I think the fact it (seems) impossible to push all the guns to 18, 18*4=72, so you'd need to hit level 60, getting a gun upgrade every level *and* get gun upgrades for most of your shop options. means that the keyword upgrades stand above.

I think the solution is to split the upgrades in to 2 'sections' You get 6 upgrades to pick from per level, 3 are a 'dwarf' upgrade(movement speed, health, mining, a keyword upgrade) and the other 3 are weapon levels, And you pick one from each section. Sure they'd have to buff badguys but I'd rather have more oomph and the badguys be incresed to compensate.

Also, ignore the cor guy, he's trolling.

[Kazzius]

On the one hand, I agree: Overclocks are a much more fun way of upgrading than just stacking percentages on everything. However, I disagree that across-the-board or tag-specific upgrades are so strong that Overclocks are either impossible to get or not worth taking.

I've just finished a Hazard 4 run on Scout Marksman with M1000 fully Overclocked by... midway through Stage 4, I think? All my other weapons were merely for support and all Lv6 or less (Boomstick for close-range clearout, Cryogrenade for crowd control, Nishanka because... well, it didn't really matter at that point). I did pick a bunch of tag and global upgrades, but they were all to boost my M1000's damage, making its maximum Overclock (the short-range multishot option) synergise really well with my Electric Boomstick to get that sweet, sweet crit. It feels like dual-wielding sawn-offs and it's great. The M1000 ended the run with RIDICULOUS overall damage, more than all the other weapons put together by a wide margin.

I don't think I've ever had a run in which I've gotten two weapons to max Overclock, but if you build right you don't need it: you make your 1st or 2nd weapon your Overclock focus, pour levels into it (sometimes even when there are better options, unless they're WAY better) and build all your other weapons to support or complement your build. Sometimes the number of Common upgrades you have to take to get a weapon to max Overclock can be fixed later by taking tag or global buffs, which makes them a nice way to patch up your build after the fact.

I would not be against a game mode in which tag or global stat buffs are dumped completely in favour of going MAXIMUM OVERCLOCK. It would be a chaotically fun way of playing the game, although it almost certainly wouldn't be balanced.