Upgrading Mods: Why Credits Aren't The Problem

[Buddlschlumpf]

Right now, a lot of people rightfully complain over the exorbitant cost of upgrading mods, especially those with 10 levels. Most of these complaints focus on the credit costs of fusing mods though I think that's not the issue. The lack of credits is the most noticable one because everyone has like a gazillion fusion cores lying around.

Now imagine you didn't had those.

You wouldn't be able to upgrade the artifacts not due to a lag of one ressource, like credits, but because the exponential growth of the cost for upgrading mods is insane. For the lvl10 mods, which are basically health, shields and damage, this means that upgading to lvl10 is 1024 times as expensive as the first lvl. Thus you do not only have to sink several hundred K (as you have less fusion cores that credit costs sink significantly) into those mods but 1024 matching cards as well (2048 if they do not match)!

The exponential cost growth needs to be changed in either of the following ways:

1. Reduce the cost growth to from being exponential a ln or root function or anything similar. This way the first upgrades would still have a steep cost increase without the later levels being ridiculously expensive

2. Change the later levels to feature more than linear effect growth. Grinding for days or even weeks to get that lvl10 would be worth it, if you'd gain an increase from e.g. 700 to 1000% in shield capacity (400-500 for lvl8, 500-700 for lvl9 to make the example more clear).

Edited March 22, 2013 by Buddlschlumpf

[rotekz]

Maybe the idea is to prevent people easily maxing out? Before this having a maxed frame was in no way special. Now it is.

Edited March 22, 2013 by rotekz

[Grinstone]

The guys at DE probably don't want mods maxxed out easily, but the system could use a bit of tweaking. If Buddlschlumpf is accurate, or at least not engaging in too much hyberbole, maxxing out mods is going to take a very long time. It may even be functionally impossible in the time that the average person will stay with the game.

If / when people realize this it'll also devalue the mod pack. I can't really see people spending that much platinum on a mod pack when it'll barely advance the mod at higher ranks.

[Adagio]

it's good to make it harder to max but reading what the OP states it .. indeed is too much, too, i think.

[Buddlschlumpf]

I'm not exagerating. For lvl1, you need two lvl0 cards. For lvl2, you need another two lvl0 cards or a lvl1 card. For lvl3, you already need 8 lvl0 cards. 4-16 -> 5-32 -> 6-64 -> 7-128 -> 8-256 -> 9-512 -> 10-1024.

As I kinda support the idea of preventing people from maxing out so fast, I'd prefer my 2nd suggestion. Make it extremely hard to max out mods but at the same time make it worthwile.

Who's going to spend days of actual ingame time on another 50% health what in the end gives you less than +10% bonus on your actual health?

Edited March 22, 2013 by Buddlschlumpf

[Wellwisher]

it's good to make it harder to max but reading what the OP states it .. indeed is too much, too, i think.

You wont be able actually max all the mods your want to use anyways, only a few until you hit the Energy Cap, will be somewhere in the mid range. What the scaling does right now is that it shafts people who would like to Maximise their health and shield, while people who choose to focus on Mods with max level 5 have much more reasonable expenses.