Weapon upgrades and material grind

[Alreech]

Dear Frontier Development,

After killing and pillaging a whole base of innocent NPCs that never did any harm to me I found one Weapon Schematic.
And it felt like "meh, only nine others to get to upgrade my Grade 3 weapon".

I know you don't wanted to spend too much money on the game design of Odyssey, but the cost for the Weapon & Suits upgrades look like you don't even try to hide that:
It's just more of the same material / good / data / tech ect... for each grade.

Grade 2 Suit Upgrade

1 Suit Schematic​

1 Health Monitor​

1 Power Regulator​

1 Manufacturing Instruction​

Grade 3 Suit Upgrade

5 Suit Schematics​

5 Health Monitors​

5 Power Regulators​

5 Manufacturing Instructions​

Grade 4 Suit Upgrade

10 Suit Schematics​

10 Health Monitors​

10 Power Regulators​

10 Manufacturing Instructions​

Grade 5 Suit Upgrade

15 Suit Schematics​

15 Health Monitors​

15 Power Regulators​

15 Manufacturing Instructions​

The problem with that:
It looks and feels like you didn't put much efford into designing that part of the game.
It makes mission rewards like 1/2/3 Suit Schematics ect... not very special, but just a reminder that you have to grind more .

Using materials with Grades 2/3/4/5 instead would be the obvious solution to that problem:
Grade 2 Suit Upgrade

1 Grade 2 Suit Schematic​

1 Grade 2 Health Monitor​

1 Grade 2 Power Regulator​

1 Grade 2 Manufacturing Instruction​

Grade 3 Suit Upgrade

1 Grade 3 Suit Schematic​

1 Grade 3 Health Monitor​

1 Grade 3 Power Regulator​

1 Grade 3 Manufacturing Instruction
​

Grade 4 Suit Upgrade

1 Grade 4 Suit Schematic​

1 Grade 4 Health Monitor​

1 Grade 4 Power Regulator​

1 Grade 4 Manufacturing Instruction
​

Grade 5 Suit Upgrade

1 Grade 5 Suit Schematic​

1 Grade 5 Health Monitor​

1 Grade 5 Power Regulator​

1 Grade 5 Manufacturing Instruction
​

Lower grades could be bartered at the Barterkeeper as any other materials.

 

[metatheurgist]

Weapon schematics are common as dirt in irregular markers 2+. Suit schematics....

 

[Vardaugas]

Suit schematics....

Are common enough in power plant lockers and the large security locker upstairs in a big command building. Also found as mission rewards.

And on the topic: Adding grades of schematics would only make the inventory more incoherent than a nice big pile of one type of material. And you would do that only for the "feeling" of not having to grind as big a number. Which would in the end only lead to frustration when you can't find high grade schematics whatsoever. Then you have to add schematics upgrading and we are essentially where we are now after you streamline the whole process.

 

[metatheurgist]

Are common enough in power plant lockers and the large security locker upstairs in a big command building. Also found as mission rewards.

Still less common than weap schemes. Mission rewards for them are kinda laughable, also mostly for jobs I don't want to do.

 

[Vardaugas]

Still less common than weap schemes. Mission rewards for them are kinda laughable, also mostly for jobs I don't want to do.

And there are far more weapons than suits you can upgrade. The difference in rarity is clearly intentional.

 

[Screemonster]

Yeah, this sounds like the reason you didn't get any was that you were looking in the wrong place, rather than them being difficult to obtain. Like mining in a platinum hotspot and complaining that you didn't find any low temp diamonds.

I have my issues with some of the material-gathering needed for odyssey, but schematics aren't one of them.

 

[CMDR X]

The Great Pre-Upgraded Gear Sharing is Caring Thread

Thanks to @anthonycsheehy, @Darkman Returns and @CMDR Charybdis (and others!) in this thread, we've got a working theory about how the pre-upgraded weapons and suits work in Pioneer shops. I wanted to start this thread as a way for the community to share when they find these items so others can...

forums.frontier.co.uk

Best thread on this forum. I have every single item, all G3+double modded, without collecting a single mat.

 

[Alreech]

And on the topic: Adding grades of schematics would only make the inventory more incoherent than a nice big pile of one type of material. And you would do that only for the "feeling" of not having to grind as big a number.

"Feelings" are important in video games.

And as I said in the first post: i got the feeling that Frontier don’t even bother with hiding their grind based game design for handheld weapons and spacesuits in Odyssey.
Many players criticised the material grind for engineer upgrades introduced 2015 with Horizons until Frontier reduced it with material traders in 2018 in the Beyond updates.
Fast forward to Odyssey 3/6 years later:

Frontier made material grind the only way to upgrade and modify hand weapons and suits. Even basic stuff like better scopes for the weapons or nightvison for suits can’t be purchased at the weapon trader, but must be grinded with materials...

How should I feel as a fan of the game – and customer?

Traders for some of those materials are in Odyssey (each barkeeper is a criminal fence, no one sells drinks), but some critical materials can’t be traded.

To be honest: masking the grind cost with less boring and lazy names for the materials would not make the grind better. It would only slightly reduce the impression that Frontier just went the cheap and lazy way while design Odysseys hand weapon and suit system.

Frontier showed in Elite Dangerous that they can do better with the customisation system for ships that was praised by many players and game journalists as deep and interesting, because it allowed multiple choices, each with their own advantages/disadvantages.

 

[Factabulous]

I like it as it is. Ofc I get stuff by playing the game rather than grinding. Poor grinders

 

[Alreech]

I like it as it is. Ofc I get stuff by playing the game rather than grinding. Poor grinders

Good for you.

For me it's not only the material grind (a thing I hated in Horizions) but the whole cheap & lazy design that makes Odyssey unplayable.
Gun & suit customisation is simple and boring, not on the same level of the game mechanics for ships.

The game play with the weapon switching is “unique”, but not good.

Prices for weapons and suits don’t fit with the prices for ships, no concourse at fleet carriers and engineer workshops (too much work to add them?), no visible NPC crew (despite the feature is in the game for APEX & Frontline), Frontier didn’t bother to prevent base camping with ships in ground conflict zones...

For me that’s just obvious that Frontier didn’t bother to go the extra mile and instead decided to deliver the bare minimum, without much effort in design and testing of the game mechanics.

I originally planned to upgrade my PC for Odyssey and get a VR Headset, but Frontier won’t improve the VR experience in Odyssey...

I guess it’s time for me to move to a different space game.