Kubrow Upkeep Cost, Why It's Still Expensive And Not Fixed By The Other Changes

[GhostSwordsman]

So, I'm here to give some of my feedback on the changes kubrows underwent a while back, specifically the change of the DNA decay rate per day.

 

As everyone knows, DE changed the kubrow's DNA decay rate to -10% per day rather than -20%. This was in hopes that it would calm down the majority of players stating that the upkeep cost was too high. 100k credits for 6 stabilizers that restore 40% of the kubrow's DNA integrity. So, you had to pay out 100k credits every 12 days for stabilizers. This change made it so instead of using a stabilizer every 2 days, a stabilizer only had to be used every 4 days, making paying out 100k credits every 24 days for stabilizers.

 

On the surface this looks like an improvement. Currently 6 stabilizers cost 75k credits, a fix implemented that is helping the overall cost of upkeep for your doge.

 

However, if you let your kubrow sit out of stasis for 2 days, it loses 20% loyalty.  I almost always use my huras kubrow (his name is Garrus), and he rarely dies(say I bring him along in missions for two days and he does not die), so how was he losing loyalty? I can only see this happening due to not feeding him for two whole days.

 

Why is this a problem? Well, to be honest, depending on what level of content you're playing, your kubrow could be in real danger of actually dying during a mission. Hypothetically speaking, lets say that I don't feed Garrus for 3 days. He has a +70% bounus to his health and due to the mechanic I mentioned earlier, has lost 20% loyalty towards me. So I pet him and make him feel all better. (Garrus is Excited to see you!) Now I have 2/3 interactions left for the day. (note that each interaction only restores 20% loyalty and a death during a mission results in a loss of 40% loyalty) So if I take Garrus into a T3 survival (please don't ridicule me for saying this, I'm speaking hypothetically mind you) and my squad and I make it to the 50 min mark. At this point, heavy gunners pack a pretty hefty punch. So, lets say that Garrus goes to attack a heavy and gets downed, and lets also say that I can't get to him in time because of the beefiness of the heavies. Boom. Garrus dies. When I return to my ship, he has now lost 40% loyalty towards me and in order to restore the +100% bonus to damage I must use up the rest of my remaining interactions. Therefore, at this point I might be disinclined to use Garrus because of the risk of him dying again. Personally, I like having a kubrow by my side rather than a sentinel over my head, so I like to use my kubrow all the time.

 

The problem here is in order to maintain the maximum efficiency of a kubrow, one needs to feed it every day(use a DNA stabilizer). In doing this, we are wasting 75% of the stabilizer, that is if you want to retain 3 out of 3 interations per day. Perhaps this is what DE intended, real pet owners feed their pets at least once a day. But I feel as if this is keeping the upkeep cost of the kubrows higher than it should be. Maybe if this were changed kubrow upkeep would be a little more friendly to new players, especially since the quest unlocks after killing Jackal, who is the boss of the SECOND planet on the starchart.

 

There are a few good solutions that I can see to in the least help alleviate this problem:

 

1. Raise the number of interactions allowed to restore loyalty. I really don't care by what number, but anything other than three.

 

2. Increase how much loyalty is restored per interaction. I don't math well so I'm not going to even try and type out numbers here.

 

3. Change the decay rate back to what it originally was. Probably not the most popular decision, but I do recall this change receiving both good and bad feedback at the time of its implementation, with the negative marginally winning out. (doing this would also keep from wasting so much of the stabilizers)

 

4. Decrease the amount of DNA integrity restored per stabilizer. With the way it is currently set up, the most cost effective thing to do would be to have each stabilizer restore 10-20% of DNA integrity. If it were to only restore 10%, then the cost of the stabilizer packs would have to be lowered considerably (i'm thinking somewhere between 5k and 10k credits per unit, so a cost of 30k to 60k per pack total). Other wise, the number of stabilizers in a pack needs to be increased in order to compensate the current 75k price tag on a pack. Or go with 20% and balance each of the mechanics out (price per unit, # of units per pack, etc.)

 

Welp, that's my opinion on where the upkeep cost of kubrows stands as of now. Thanks for taking the time to read through that. If you've made it this far, I appreciate any additional thought on this and I'm looking forward to hearing your opinions.

 

Edit: edited for clarity.

Edited September 11, 2014 by GhostSwordsman

[-FrostByte-]

go do sechura 1~2 times or a t3~4 void a few times and you will FOR SURE have more than enough credits to buy stabilizers. I think 100k is a perfect nummber at the moment not very expensive once you get into late game. I can see it getting expensive early game. I wouldn't mind more interactions (maybe with dog age it increases iteractions or gives a bonus perk?)

[GhostSwordsman]

go do sechura 1~2 times or a t3~4 void a few times and you will FOR SURE have more than enough credits to buy stabilizers. I think 100k is a perfect nummber at the moment not very expensive once you get into late game. I can see it getting expensive early game. I wouldn't mind more interactions (maybe with dog age it increases iteractions or gives a bonus perk?)

I actually don't have an issue with credits at all, I'm sitting around 2 mil +. I know of how to make quick cash in-game and as I said before, it isn't a problem for me (I still have a credit booster active from prime access making it twice as easy to amount credits). However, my main concern with this is that a kubrow loses loyalty after two days of not using a stabilizer. To me, that's effectively saying feed your doge every day, especially if you don't want to potentially waste one of your loyalty restoring interactions. If this is the case, then it's a massive waste of stabilizers and credits due to only using 10% of the regeration given by the stabilizers, and you go through 1 pack of stabilizers in 6 days.

Edited September 11, 2014 by GhostSwordsman

[Glaice]

I never realized it costed so much to maintain a Kubrow, I guess it was good for me to not to give into Lotus's pestering on the quest because I want more credits for other things such as crafting.

[(PSN)japaneselonewolf]

OP does have a point about loyalty. Especially when you are leveling up and adding forma four or five times. Losing lots of loyalty so quickly brings down the effectiveness of owning a Kubrow. More daily interactions would be a boost to having a pet.

[MartianJellyfish]

The loyalty thing is plain rubbish and serves no purpose besides punishing players. I don't even know why such mechanics exist. I never let my kubrows die, but apparently if I don't login within 12 hours they lose loyalty. It's almost like DE thinks virtual pet > real life.