Zaws and Kitguns retooled like Zariman weapons

[(PSN)PheonixFontaine]

Conceptually, dated weapons, could use a quick retouch. So, using new systems to fix old ones, I'd propose:

Each Vendor; Hok, Zuud, Father, now feature a screen like Cavellero.
The 2nd (handle) and 3rd (modifier) parts all are now swappable via this screen.
The 3rd parts are altered and simplified to reduce redundant options.

The core weapons and parts all will need built still, with the blades being the "weapon" in the case of zaws for example and the other built parts being modifiers permanently unlocked.

This allows more fluid changing of these tools, without the strain of rebuilding them every time. This allows new and old players to also engage the zaw/kitgun systems without stress. This also may allow for new perk variety to spice up some of these weapons. Most importantly, this streamlines systems to work in a similar way so people can learn/engage with them earlier.

[Drasiel]

This would completely null any reason to make multiple kitguns, I like the zariman system but I by no means want it to replace the kitweapon system.

[(PSN)PheonixFontaine]

4 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

This would completely null any reason to make multiple kitguns.

Yes, but also no. That is partly the intent.

Primary parts would still have individual weapon identities, this means you'd need 6 kitguns. (Catchmoon, Gaze, Rattleguts, Sporelacer, Tombfinger, Vermisplicer)
You'd still need 1 of each primary part and it would be the equivalent of the Phenmor, Felarx, etc.

Grips (10 options) and Loaders (20 options) would be fluid swappable parts. (Hopefully modified for clarity and functional ease-of-use.)

People tend to lean heavily into very specific variations as-is and experimentation, while desirable, as-is heavily gates player access to the experimentation and oftentimes makes them more disinclined to engage in the first place.

[Drasiel]

23 minutes ago, (PSN)PheonixFontaine said:

Yes, but also no. That is partly the intent.

Primary parts would still have individual weapon identities, this means you'd need 6 kitguns. (Catchmoon, Gaze, Rattleguts, Sporelacer, Tombfinger, Vermisplicer)
You'd still need 1 of each primary part and it would be the equivalent of the Phenmor, Felarx, etc.

Grips (10 options) and Loaders (20 options) would be fluid swappable parts. (Hopefully modified for clarity and functional ease-of-use.)

People tend to lean heavily into very specific variations as-is and experimentation, while desirable, as-is heavily gates player access to the experimentation and oftentimes makes them more disinclined to engage in the first place.

Kit guns aren't just one gun to begin with though You can't have fluidly swappable parts when one of the other parts sets whether it is a primary or a secondary.

[Tyreaus]

41 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

Kit guns aren't just one gun to begin with though You can't have fluidly swappable parts when one of the other parts sets whether it is a primary or a secondary.

Then restrict it based on primary / secondary. If it starts as a secondary, swappable parts include all secondary-eligible parts. So you could swap loaders, or change a Haymaker grip to a Ramble grip, but you couldn't swap Haymaker into Brash. Similar for primary variants.

[Drasiel]

39 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

Then restrict it based on primary / secondary. If it starts as a secondary, swappable parts include all secondary-eligible parts. So you could swap loaders, or change a Haymaker grip to a Ramble grip, but you couldn't swap Haymaker into Brash. Similar for primary variants.

How do you lock in to primary or secondary, A new "part" or menu item separate from the stats of the grip? Why does that have to be a permanent choice? doesn't it go against the spirit of what you are trying to do? since now they still have to build 12 chambers and however many different types of weapons the zaw strike can become?

If you absolutely had to have this work with a system it wasn't designed for the Grip would have to be the permanent part since the grip what defines whether the gun is primary or secondary and what type of melee weapon you actually can make but even that's not perfect because the modular weapons systems is more modular and complicated than the weapon evolution systems.

I don't think there is a way to make them cleanly mesh because the systems have different end goals and core systems. I think an easier to implement system that would remove some of the issues with ease of use for making kit guns would be if you turn in a kitgun/zaw to the store it gives you new copies of the blueprints you used to build it on top of the standing.

[Tyreaus]

1 hour ago, Drasiel said:

How do you lock in to primary or secondary, A new "part" or menu item separate from the stats of the grip?

You first build the weapon, as primary or secondary, and then can return to the vendor to swap out compatible parts.

1 hour ago, Drasiel said:

Why does that have to be a permanent choice?

Um...

2 hours ago, Drasiel said:

You can't have fluidly swappable parts when one of the other parts sets whether it is a primary or a secondary.

Cause you said so?

There likely is a way to allow players to swap a kitgun from primary to secondary if DE really wanted, even swapping chambers and strikes. It does, however, make things more complicated with needing to remove mods, and also figuring out the transition in the back-end. Doing it from a fresh kitgun, without worrying about forma or catalysts, is easy. With those, it gets a bit trickier to maintain.

1 hour ago, Drasiel said:

the Grip would have to be the permanent part since the grip what defines whether the gun is primary or secondary and what type of melee weapon you actually can make

Well, I had just pointed out that you could keep it as primary / secondary and swap parts within that class. That could follow with one-handed / two-handed grips with zaws, as well. That would mean that the strike / chamber is the static piece, but that matches with mastery. Not to mention that making the strike fluid would mean working through the issues of changing the weapon type.

1 hour ago, Drasiel said:

I don't think there is a way to make them cleanly mesh because the systems have different end goals and core systems.

I'm bewildered you think that when OP and I describe how this could work, fairly smoothly at that. It's not perfect in allowing total freedom, but 1. it's better than the nil freedom at current and 2. a constrained version is easier to both imagine and implement.

1 hour ago, Drasiel said:

I think an easier to implement system that would remove some of the issues with ease of use for making kit guns would be if you turn in a kitgun/zaw to the store it gives you new copies of the blueprints you used to build it on top of the standing.

As long as you get crafting materials, catalyst, forma, blueprints, and standing returned, and the crafting time is reduced to zero, sure that could be an equivalent. But maintaining all those things doesn't seem particularly easier compared to allowing part swaps that alter only stats and appearances.

[Drasiel]

2 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

You first build the weapon, as primary or secondary, and then can return to the vendor to swap out compatible parts.

Um...

Cause you said so?

There likely is a way to allow players to swap a kitgun from primary to secondary if DE really wanted, even swapping chambers and strikes. It does, however, make things more complicated with needing to remove mods, and also figuring out the transition in the back-end. Doing it from a fresh kitgun, without worrying about forma or catalysts, is easy. With those, it gets a bit trickier to maintain.

Well, I had just pointed out that you could keep it as primary / secondary and swap parts within that class. That could follow with one-handed / two-handed grips with zaws, as well. That would mean that the strike / chamber is the static piece, but that matches with mastery. Not to mention that making the strike fluid would mean working through the issues of changing the weapon type.

I'm bewildered you think that when OP and I describe how this could work, fairly smoothly at that. It's not perfect in allowing total freedom, but 1. it's better than the nil freedom at current and 2. a constrained version is easier to both imagine and implement.

As long as you get crafting materials, catalyst, forma, blueprints, and standing returned, and the crafting time is reduced to zero, sure that could be an equivalent. But maintaining all those things doesn't seem particularly easier compared to allowing part swaps that alter only stats and appearances.

So the vendor has two screens then, build kitgun which lets you craft a kitgun and then modify that lets you swap out pieces while restricting it to parts you also have built that would not change the weapon type? Because that was not clear to me from the last response.

I think it should be a permanent choice, you guys seem to think we should have all of the choices with very minimal investment. So basically I guess it's more a question to you both, if everything else is free to switch why not weapon type? Ignoring for right now the complications that adds I'm just curious what you think about it.

It didn't seem like a smooth system to me at all considering we have two different parts that influence the nature of the weapon and only one pure stat affecting component while evolving weapons are just stat affecting bonuses.

You don't need Catalyst and forma to figure out if you like a modular weapon or to get a good gauge of how well it will perform. The crafting time is 1 hour and the resources are negligible but the game could give back built versions of the parts you used instead if people feel it's too onerous to rebuild.

[(PSN)PheonixFontaine]

16 hours ago, Drasiel said:

So the vendor has two screens then, build kitgun which lets you craft a kitgun and then modify that lets you swap out pieces while restricting it to parts you also have built that would not change the weapon type? Because that was not clear to me from the last response.

This theoretical screen requires you to have the primary part built. It requires you to have 2 other components. This screen would display as the current one does. The resulting usable weapon does not actually occur until you have all 3 slots filled and confirm. Selecting a primary component, lets say you have 2 Catchmoon. One Catchmoon (A) is a newly built weapon base, the other Catchmoon (B) has Gibber and Slap. Selecting A in your list gives you 2 empty slots in the build menu. Selecting B pre-selects the parts you already have built and attached to it. These are effectively no different than having 2 Stubba in your inventory.

For the player, visually the only change is the ability to change pre-assembled kitguns. Gilding still applies to the base primary component.

16 hours ago, Drasiel said:

I think it should be a permanent choice, you guys seem to think we should have all of the choices with very minimal investment. So basically I guess it's more a question to you both, if everything else is free to switch why not weapon type? Ignoring for right now the complications that adds I'm just curious what you think about it.

"We should have all the choices with very minimal investment"
No, but the investment I did put in shouldn't be undercut by a bad investment here. The components are all viable in themselves and build independently anyways. We change guns we use all the time, how is this different? Ultimately, this is as viable as swapping out Ember for Frost in your loadout.

Personally, I feel changing weapon type really doesn't hurt the player. Once set from Zuud/Father in the case of Kitguns. (Stance for Hok) A prompt in this theoretical system will ask you "do you want to do this, all mods will be removed", this fixes any issues with mod from primary-secondary. (stance for melee) They share weapon slots mechanically in your inventory, maybe deleting the weapon and creating a new copy in the backend.

The catalyst and forma issue is as easy as tacking those on the primary component. The forma alignment would maintain placement on the core component, even if you switch the primary/secondary variable. This is basically the same issue people hit with normal weapons anyways, so it's not too functionally extra to have to re-forma some spots.

What I'm not understanding is why you actually think that's bad in particular.
 

16 hours ago, Drasiel said:

It didn't seem like a smooth system to me at all considering we have two different parts that influence the nature of the weapon and only one pure stat affecting component while evolving weapons are just stat affecting bonuses.

You don't need Catalyst and forma to figure out if you like a modular weapon or to get a good gauge of how well it will perform. The crafting time is 1 hour and the resources are negligible but the game could give back built versions of the parts you used instead if people feel it's too onerous to rebuild.

I'm not sure if I'm reading your interpretation correctly. Backend programming is definitely gonna need some work, it's a system that was introduced almost 4 years ago. Front-end user-experience, the concern is viable, but a player reads the weapons as exactly what they have, but with the option to change them as they may enjoy subtle variations to stats or intent.

It's no different mechanically to a player, but without the added investment of rebuilding every time one wants to test a variation. There are like 200? variations to potentially try for each of the 6 core kitguns. Which are then modded for uncountable variations on top of that. What you're telling me is that to get what I feel is "best", I have to go through a portion of each of those until I get the feel for what I want? What if I change my mind? What if I take a weapon built for status and decide "maybe crit instead"?

The usage of kitguns is also weighted against every other gun in the game. Why would I use this "okay" gun I built wrong over this cool Prime weapon or this rocket launcher tenet weapon or this... The list goes on.  I feel like, the customized attachment to these is not really an investment for a player except in naming them. And I could even extend it to Amps and MOA. Predasites and Vulpahyla are the only narratively problematic thing to change from what I see. (Though the Orokin changed themselves all the time, so maybe even those.)

It's nice to have those customized variations on how people interact with the system, but the current system, I'm getting heavily the vibe that people are very much picking the meta they found on google and never really experimenting. It's more punishing than actually fun to play with the current system.

[Drasiel]

2 hours ago, (PSN)PheonixFontaine said:

This theoretical screen requires you to have the primary part built. It requires you to have 2 other components. This screen would display as the current one does. The resulting usable weapon does not actually occur until you have all 3 slots filled and confirm. Selecting a primary component, lets say you have 2 Catchmoon. One Catchmoon (A) is a newly built weapon base, the other Catchmoon (B) has Gibber and Slap. Selecting A in your list gives you 2 empty slots in the build menu. Selecting B pre-selects the parts you already have built and attached to it. These are effectively no different than having 2 Stubba in your inventory.

For the player, visually the only change is the ability to change pre-assembled kitguns. Gilding still applies to the base primary component.

"We should have all the choices with very minimal investment"
No, but the investment I did put in shouldn't be undercut by a bad investment here. The components are all viable in themselves and build independently anyways. We change guns we use all the time, how is this different? Ultimately, this is as viable as swapping out Ember for Frost in your loadout.

Personally, I feel changing weapon type really doesn't hurt the player. Once set from Zuud/Father in the case of Kitguns. (Stance for Hok) A prompt in this theoretical system will ask you "do you want to do this, all mods will be removed", this fixes any issues with mod from primary-secondary. (stance for melee) They share weapon slots mechanically in your inventory, maybe deleting the weapon and creating a new copy in the backend.

The catalyst and forma issue is as easy as tacking those on the primary component. The forma alignment would maintain placement on the core component, even if you switch the primary/secondary variable. This is basically the same issue people hit with normal weapons anyways, so it's not too functionally extra to have to re-forma some spots.

What I'm not understanding is why you actually think that's bad in particular.
 

I'm not sure if I'm reading your interpretation correctly. Backend programming is definitely gonna need some work, it's a system that was introduced almost 4 years ago. Front-end user-experience, the concern is viable, but a player reads the weapons as exactly what they have, but with the option to change them as they may enjoy subtle variations to stats or intent.

It's no different mechanically to a player, but without the added investment of rebuilding every time one wants to test a variation. There are like 200? variations to potentially try for each of the 6 core kitguns. Which are then modded for uncountable variations on top of that. What you're telling me is that to get what I feel is "best", I have to go through a portion of each of those until I get the feel for what I want? What if I change my mind? What if I take a weapon built for status and decide "maybe crit instead"?

The usage of kitguns is also weighted against every other gun in the game. Why would I use this "okay" gun I built wrong over this cool Prime weapon or this rocket launcher tenet weapon or this... The list goes on.  I feel like, the customized attachment to these is not really an investment for a player except in naming them. And I could even extend it to Amps and MOA. Predasites and Vulpahyla are the only narratively problematic thing to change from what I see. (Though the Orokin changed themselves all the time, so maybe even those.)

It's nice to have those customized variations on how people interact with the system, but the current system, I'm getting heavily the vibe that people are very much picking the meta they found on google and never really experimenting. It's more punishing than actually fun to play with the current system.

I mean you can say the same thing about how players are choosing which pre-designed guns to build: they aren't trying them for themselves, they are just looking up what the meta ones are.

I don't agree with view that  kitguns and zaws should be just 1 weapon per chamber/strike/grip. I like that they are all different weapons. The zariman evolving weapons don't feel like a natural progression of this to me but instead a completely different system.

I do agree the system should be less punishing for trying out parts. If you turn in a gun/moa/zaw/hound you don't like you should get either the built parts or blueprint back and can try again. If you want to compare a modular item with different parts then build it and try it and turn in the one you like less.  While some unifying of systems like group pickups of all medallion types is good I don't think the homogenization of modular weapons and evolving ones is necessarily a good thing.

[Tyreaus]

On 2022-08-18 at 12:29 AM, Drasiel said:

So the vendor has two screens then, build kitgun which lets you craft a kitgun and then modify that lets you swap out pieces while restricting it to parts you also have built that would not change the weapon type? Because that was not clear to me from the last response.

Well, it was just a general concept, I wasn't going too far into particulars or building an entire system. But yes, that's the vague idea.

On 2022-08-18 at 12:29 AM, Drasiel said:

So basically I guess it's more a question to you both, if everything else is free to switch why not weapon type? Ignoring for right now the complications that adds I'm just curious what you think about it.

Again: you're the one who brought that up, and I was providing a straightforward solution. As I mentioned, there likely is a way to include weapon type, if DE so wanted.

As far as my opinion goes, however...I don't really care. If you want to include weapon type, go for it. If it's too much of a hassle to implement, then don't. It genuinely does not matter to me, as I think it's perfectly acceptable and understandable in either case.

On 2022-08-18 at 12:29 AM, Drasiel said:

It didn't seem like a smooth system to me at all considering we have two different parts that influence the nature of the weapon and only one pure stat affecting component while evolving weapons are just stat affecting bonuses.

Yet, as I pointed out, you can delineate between weapon types so that the components you could swap to would affect only the stats. Which falls in line with Incarnon weapons having stat-affecting bonuses. The only way in which that isn't "smooth" is that you can't just swap to anything. But that would be akin to saying that the arsenal screen isn't "smooth" because there's a restriction on the weapons that can go in the primary or secondary slots. That may be something to improve (or not), but "smoothness" isn't really the right metric to describe a limitation.

On 2022-08-18 at 12:29 AM, Drasiel said:

You don't need Catalyst and forma to figure out if you like a modular weapon or to get a good gauge of how well it will perform. The crafting time is 1 hour and the resources are negligible but the game could give back built versions of the parts you used instead if people feel it's too onerous to rebuild.

You don't need to, no, but the option exists and ought to be accounted for in some way. That could mean either a warning screen saying that weapon parts cannot be swapped after inputting a Catalyst or Forma, or refunding those items when swapping, or designing the swapping system in a way that avoids the lock-out / refunding issue altogether. However done, it ought to be done, as I don't think quietly deleting those investments - whether or not they're necessary - is a terribly good look.