New Tech Fragment system greatly hinders Tech-Adept

[PyroMancer]

So rather than the old system of being able to craft new weapons for our constructs from extremely abundant crafting materials we now have this extremely limited Tech Fragment system which makes leveling up your constructs cost prohibitive.

The system seems to geared towards builds that only focus on a single construct type. Yet there are builds and abilities which try to encourage the player to use multiple types. Even new turret passive which gives bonus to have all 3 types of turrets out if I'm reading it correctly, along with perk that gives bonus for have 4 specific types of constructs on the field.

If you try to focus on more than one construct type you won't be able to maintain level. With 2 guns types on the heavier constructs and 1 gun type on the lighter ones I have 3 gun types to level and not enough tech points in the mid 40s.

I can't even test out alternate builds because all the other guns are LEVEL SEVEN!!! And would be completely useless.

Also not being able to craft weapons for constructs means they miss out on options they use to have. Like I've seen builds where they equipped construct with weapons that every 10th enemy exploded to do extra damage at higher tiers. Same goes with all those other bonuses that they use to potentially be able to have like extra damage to poison/burn/stun/etc enemies and then your Tech Adept uses a weapon that puts that effect on the enemies.

Losing out of the extra effect potential from crafting weapons for constructs is bad enough but not being able to keep level pace with more than a few construct types really undermines the class.

Since you can't level the guns up past your current level there seems practically no real point to having them cost anything. No other class has to pay separate points to keep their powers on par with their level. It at least made sense when we were gearing the constructs with drops but now it doesn't make any sense to have to pay to keep only curtain skills combat effective.

[Sergeant_Braken]

I kinda agree. I had a level 65 Tech-Adept (66 now), and while all the construct weapons choices have been set to my level, to upgrade them another level would take over 5000 tech fragments each. From what I had before this class overhaul, I only got a little over 1000 tech fragments... And now I have no clue how to get more.

I understand that constructs seem more powerful due to the skill tree changes, but this tech fragment currency system seems unnecessary and over-the-top...

[PyroMancer]

Originally posted by Sergeant_Braken:

I understand that constructs seem more powerful due to the skill tree changes, but this tech fragment currency system seems unnecessary and over-the-top...

Yeah. They should do away with it and simply have the construct weapons auto match your level same as any other class abilities match their character level. Because honestly it just feels like a tacked on side thing since all tech fragments do is increase construct up to your current level.

[Danger-Close]

i just craft a bunch of weapons and scrap them for the fragments now

[tprx]

From what I understand, your constructs' weapon level goes up as you level up.
The tech fragments come into play when you are level 100 and want to level up your constructs weapons up to 150.

[Hobo Elf]

Originally posted by tprx:

From what I understand, your constructs' weapon level goes up as you level up.
The tech fragments come into play when you are level 100 and want to level up your constructs weapons up to 150.

Nah, it's used immediately.

To me it seems like the higher your level the less fragments you get, but the more you need. I'm level 53 or so and leveled up 3 different pet weapons, but soon I'll probably barely be able to level up one. I thought in the notes it said that you get them when you earn XP but maybe its a ratio of XP earned/needed to lvl because it's slowing down.

[PyroMancer]

Originally posted by tprx:

From what I understand, your constructs' weapon level goes up as you level up.
The tech fragments come into play when you are level 100 and want to level up your constructs weapons up to 150.

You are misinformed.

You construct weapons remain at level 7 unless you spend tech fragments on them. I've swapped in weapons I haven't leveled and the damage is pitiful. You also can't increase them past your current level.

I don't know if they unlock it to go higher once you hit 100 but as of now the most you can increase it is your current level. This is a bit of a trap as early levels you appear to get a lot and leveling weapons seems kinda cheap. But eventually it gets into the thousands of fragments per 1 level and you still seem to earn them at a steady rate.

I'm at 58 and my best 2 weapons upgraded are 3 levels behind. At this rate they are going to fall further and further behind. In the previous league I could barely advance if I let my weapons fall 10 levels behind so I would just craft new ones. In this league there is no such option.

If this progression curve continues I can see the constructs falling 10+ item levels behind. And when that happens the class will be barely playable and far weaker than it was in previous league. The more I look at these changes the more I think it's actually a major NERF to the tech and it comes complete from this tech fragment system. All the other changes seem pretty good so far.

[Loken]

Not sure why it changed so much and people were complaining about it? I was doing fine. Enjoyed the complexity, granted that character is still at around 85.

[Hobo Elf]

Originally posted by PyroMancer:

If this progression curve continues I can see the constructs falling 10+ item levels behind. And when that happens the class will be barely playable and far weaker than it was in previous league. The more I look at these changes the more I think it's actually a major NERF to the tech and it comes complete from this tech fragment system. All the other changes seem pretty good so far.

At least it's a relatively simple thing to fix. You just need to reduce the weapon cost scaling or increase the fragment gain.

[PyroMancer]

Originally posted by Loken:

Not sure why it changed so much and people were complaining about it? I was doing fine. Enjoyed the complexity, granted that character is still at around 85.

Yeah same here. I liked having to craft different weapons and gear them up for my constructs. Through since I prefer the tech I can't compare other then builds I've seen online but it seems the other classes could make builds that could clear lvl 125 stuff but the tech struggled to get a lot of levels higher than him.

I was in the mid 80s as well and there wasn't much to boost the constructs power other than better weapons and rolling them out. It was surely a challenge and felt they needed more ways to buff them. I was kinda surprise there was only TWO Psalms which effected constructs back in Warp League. Thankfully they have increased the number of options but kinda wish they would do more as a lot of the Psalms would be nice if they also effected your Constructs.

The Offensive modules change to flat damage boost rather than % is nice cause I feel like it gets more out of it though don't have the old numbers to compare. And the passive tree re-work I think is nice as feels more focused and navigate for the build you want.

While I do miss the ability to roll different bonuses on the weapons for constructs I think overall the only thing ruining the new system is the Tech Fragments. Drop that completely and I'm pretty happy with the new setup.

Originally posted by Hobo Elf:

At least it's a relatively simple thing to fix. You just need to reduce the weapon cost scaling or increase the fragment gain.

Not really. There is a deeper problem with the system.

Pretty much every other class can easily respec they just buy a few mind wipes for cheap and redo their passive tree. Then change around their gear and skill picks then they are ready to go.

The Tech though CAN NOT RESPEC because there is no way to get the tech fragments back after you spent them.

So even if the reduce the cost and increase the gains the tech will be stuck unable to change out his abilities (aka construct loadout) without massive work. And if they make it so cheap and easy to get fragments this isn't an issue then it begs the question why even have it in there? This is why I think they just need to drop it and have the construct weapons level with your character naturally.

[Hobo Elf]

Originally posted by PyroMancer:

This is why I think they just need to drop it and have the construct weapons level with your character naturally.

The problem with this suggestion is that the TP will scale worse then as now the pet weapons can go up to 150. Leveling new weapons shouldn't be much of an issue if they fix the fragment scaling and only make it grindy for the 100+ levels as it's probably intended.

[proba 1 2 3]

Admittedly the numbers might be a little off. The initial purpose was to give a need for specialization. You won't get all weapons, the initial goal was to have around 8 weapons you can upgrade narrowing down to 3-4 at higher levels.
We are still collecting data and direct player feedback on which we should act. I must state though that removal of the system will not happen, "give me everything at no cost" kind of changes will not happen.


Originally posted by Hobo Elf:
At least it's a relatively simple thing to fix. You just need to reduce the weapon cost scaling or increase the fragment gain.

Hobo elf is onto something, as I mentioned before the solution will be something like that. Or increasing the droprate, based on map level or something along these lines.

About Respecing...
The amount you need to level up a weapon to 100 is equal to leveling another from 1 to 87. You can choose to do that or focus on a single one. As I said before "giving everything at no cost" is not how any of the systems should work. We don't want to force the Tech-Adept into an unreasonable grind but with all the other changes, lvl 90-ish modules should be able to up to 108-110 depending on the player skill, while you always have the option to just farm more.
That being said, this is also an issue where we collect community feedback, if many of you think that there should be a respec option, there will be a respec option.

[PyroMancer]

Originally posted by proba 1 2 3:

About Respecing...
The amount you need to level up a weapon to 100 is equal to leveling another from 1 to 87. You can choose to do that or focus on a single one. As I said before "giving everything at no cost" is not how any of the systems should work. We don't want to force the Tech-Adept into an unreasonable grind but with all the other changes, lvl 90-ish modules should be able to up to 108-110 depending on the player skill, while you always have the option to just farm more.
That being said, this is also an issue where we collect community feedback, if many of you think that there should be a respec option, there will be a respec option.

Ok if the it just levels with you is off the table, I'd be fine with respec? It doesn't have to be free. You could charge for it somehow.

I mean you can buy mind reset items to respec a passive tree and that's how most classes respec. Even the attribute points and Perks can be freely moved around. Mind Reset are 20K credits which is nothing late game but they do only respec one tree. So how about and some way to reclaim the tech points from a single weapon? Say you leveled up flamer and found you don't like, so now you have to grind away more tech points to level up some other gun, it makes the Tech a lot more grindy than the others. This way you still have to specialize but it'd be more like passive system where you can reallocate if you find you've gone down the wrong path.

[Granite]

A new consumable item that would work just like mind reset consumable would be a way to go. Consuming it would add reset button in the construct setup screen and it would allow you to reset one weapon to its basic level, i.e. the level at which the weapon unlocks. You could get it from drops (maybe with a chance to drop reduced to zero for other classes) from time to time, and it would regularly appear in the merchant's stock

One problem though, existing characters that were already high level (mine was 89) have all their wepons unlocked already and upgraded to match their level, which would be exploitable.

[Mr. Fibble]

The option to farm more should always be present but if the amount per run is pitifully low compared to the cost to do a single upgrade, never mind a full batch, then it's not going to be the preferable option.

I much prefer the old way of having weapons with easy to understand perks/talents/stuff that did a little bit extra compared with what seems to be no more than a basic incremental tickle to damage and nothing else.

[tprx]

Every level, a tech adept should at the very least be able to level up 3 constructs' weapons, bordering on 4, up to level 80-90.
From level 90 on, grind mechanics should start to appear gradually, until level 100.
Then go all out for grinding those extra levels!