No More Prime/vandal Weapons

[Dipstick]

OP, it would be a decent idea to remove the spoiler warning so more people read that post, it said many important things/ideas

[LunaMoff]

I just want to throw my cents in to support this idea. I was using the Latron, Bronco, and Orthos when each of those weapons had the prime version come out. My reaction wasn't joy over the getting new weapon and raising an arbitrary "mastery rank" any further it was more frustration that now upgrading my weapons with formas and stuff was a waste of time. No matter what I did to it, the Prime at the same level with the same mods would just be better, so I didn't see any sense in using the forma upgrade system. I'd rather just wait until I have access to the better weapon and use my upgrade mods there. I don't play this game all the time, I have other things to do so I can't just hop on and spend all day doing Void runs until I have all the parts. If it was included as an upgraded skin of the Vanilla weapon then I'd be able to upgrade my gear and collect parts at my own pace, then switch to the Prime when I can get it. I think it'd make Primes significantly more interesting, especially for casual folks.

 

A lot of people in here seem to be saying this couldn't work because the primes aren't made by the Tenno, they're made by the Orokin. Well then let's look at the Fragor and the Brokk, the former a hammer made by the Tenno and the latter a hammer made by the Grineer but they are functinally identical so they just made the Brokk a skin for the Fragor. The same goes for the Scindo and Manticore axes. Under that logic we would have to split both of them into two weapons that are essentially the same and it just clutters things up. Avoid needless complexity.

[__Kanade__]

I don't really care for the mastery, I just use whatever weapons look cool, besides you still level up anyway, I'm using 3 maxed weapons and frame and still leveling just as fast as I would with new weapons and frames, so the whole "new weapons for mastery" is really just a pointless statement.

 

Prime weapons should be more of a skin than a new weapon altogether

[Alphascrub]

Let me break down what the author is saying. Maybe this can make more sense but considering they most people probably didn't read the first post, they probably wont venture into this one. Oh well, lets go.

You would keep all your prime, and vandal weapons variants in the form of skins or attachment setup. Some skins like the Brokk hammer would become standalone items. All potatoes you spent on said weapons would be refunded to you. The new skin system would be similar to how you equip tails and wings to your sentinel, except they would directly impact the way a weapon works. To break down what this actually means we will look at the the Braton weapons currently as they are in game.

Current Braton Models

Braton

Braton Mk1

Braton Prime

Braton Vandal

Now instead of imagining these different unique Braton Models imagine that they are all the same gun, with a different unique attachment setup. The Braton byself is a basic short barrel rifle, no attachments to alter how it preforms in battle just a basic rifle. Now add the Prime attachment set to your Braton. Your fire-rate been lowered, but your bullet caliber has been increased, you've also gained a slightly larger clip, but the clip is also a tiny bit heavier increasing your reload time slightly. Its still your Braton, still has the same basic mechanisms but its overall performance has been altered. Your affinity with this model of the same weapon won't be as high as it used to be. Who knows maybe your lucky and have around half the affinity with the weapon you used to, after all you mastered the base variant.

@ the Op. I like your idea, I think its great. I would also like to get your opinion on tacking something on if you will. Ak variant weapons could act in a similar fashion. Meaning instead of crafting a ak variant you craft the basic weapon, master it and then would be permitted to use dual wield them. You would still craft another pistol just like the one you have except it would now be like a skin. It would act the same but now turn into a variant of the base weapon. This would save inventory space, and allow for great levels of customization. On a later note as you may of guessed from the hints about affinity in the paragraph above this one, I think variant skins (attachment setups, bad name?) should level up faster or start at around level 15 affinity. Not only would this make more sense than the current system it would also keep plenty of mastery points in the game for whatever future systems rank bring.

[Luminati07]

To me it's a definite +1.

I, personally, don't mind. I don't use any prime/vandal weapons. (Sobek, Miter, Gremlins, Lex).

 

But, several of my friends do get very annoyed when they have either crafted, or spent plat on weapons, only to have them effectively replaced by their Prime counterparts.

 

So, yeah. +1 to that.