Transmute. Small Balance Tweaks.

[aldershot]

Dear Digital Extremes.

Thanks for adding the transmute option to our mods. The more we can do with our mods the better.
However I feel as though transmute could use some tweaks to make it more appealing to players from a "risk-reward" standpoint.

Currently transmute takes 4 mods that'll form a new random mod. The balancing issue is the risk seems to out weight the reward. If I was looking for say "V" mods, and have a bunch of "D", or "=", etc, and transmute them i have a chance of getting a "V" mod to help fuse mods of the same type. This is redundant since it'll take 4 unlike symbol mods to equate to a single same symbol mod any ways, while running a rather high risk of getting a mod that's not even a "V" at all. So transmute will not help in the fusing process of the mods, while at the same time costly in credits as well.

Others may use the transmute in an attempt to receive an elusive rare mod they don't yet have. Unfortunately, because of how valuable mods are to players, for the sake of fusing and upgrading. It's more efficient to grind defense missions until the wanted mod drops, since you'll receive resources, new mods, and credits, instead of costing mods, and credits.

I think DE is onto some thing that can prove to be useful, but as it stands now, transmute is proving to be redundant, and feels extremely "alpha"

I recommend allowing us to fuse for new mods with less mods. 2 instead of 4. This will prove to be much more appealing for players chancing the lose of mods and credits for return of a symbol of like value (possible 2 mods for full fusing potential instead of 4) while still balanced since you're chancing on a specific value to show up. This will also be more appealing for those trying to get new mods, as losing 2 mods for 1 but still having a fairly large chance of not getting what you want. You'll still lose mods and credits in the process as a form of payment for transmute, with out it being so harsh as losing 4 mods and probably getting a mod you don't need/want.

Of course my tweaks are only suggestions, i am not a game designer, im sure DE can think of some thing more elegant than what i've suggested, but designer or not, i think many of us can recognize that transmute is still very early and so far has not proven to be very appealing in use.

Edited August 12, 2013 by aldershot

[DaveC]

How about simply improving the Mod UI first....lets get the basics right before we worry about functions like transmute.

1. List mods by name and quantity when in the weapon/warframe mod screen, click a mod to drill down to that specific mod type....will help a lot if you have a lot of mods. Instead of pages and pages and pages and pages and pages....of mods, you will simply have 15-30 mods along the bottom, with a number against each.

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2. Shift click to fuse lots of mods, rather than click, click, click......click (possibly 300+ times to increase serration by 1 point)

It's not rocket science is it....instead we get transmute.

[Destro6677]

I think transmute is fine as it is, but the problem I have with it is the amount of credits.

 

It's too expensive to fuse 4 ammo drums and get back a warframe ability.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

24k or whatever it is does seem a bit absurd.  You're already trading in four mods that you could have used as a poor man's fusion core.  Why do you need to pay so much for a shot at getting one decent mod back?

[JerichoFayne]

Considering that you can take the same 4 useless mods you originally had, and use them in a Fusion rather than throw them away for a huge change of getting something equally worthless (not to mention the cost), I really don't see the benefit.