So, I think many of us are not completely satisfied with how weapons are upgraded, even before they changed the system to require more effort to achieve a fully upgraded weapon. There are also some upgrades that don’t make complete sense (I have already made a topic requesting the removal of damage buff upgrades). In light of this, I have been thinking of ways to improve the current system while also adding some depth to it, and think I have thought of something interesting.
My idea is to split the weapon upgrading process into two parts: the first is dependent on the soldier using the weapon (familiarization), and the second being the actual physical upgrades to the weapon itself.
Weapon Familiarization:
This process will be soldier specific, and so improvements made on the weapon with one soldier will not pass on to another. The idea behind this is that as a soldier uses his weapon, he will become more skilled in aspects regarding the handling or use of his weapon over time. Different progressions can then be made for different aspects of weapon handling, such as:
- Recoil control: as your character continues to make accurate shots, he will learn how to better control his weapon over time.
- Decreased weapon sway while moving: making shots on the move will train the character to be more accurate on the move over time.
- Hold breath time: as the character makes shots while holding his breath, he will be able to hold his breath for longer over time.
- Reloading: as the character reloads a certain weapon over and over again, he gets used to the process and is able to speed it up over time.
Of course, with all of these skills, there will be an upper limit to how good they can get, but in my eyes, this would be a welcome change as it actually makes the player feel that his character is improving progressively, rather than just going from poor too great in just one upgrade. It also adds more to your characters than just what overall level they are.
Weapon Upgrades:
This part is fairly self explanatory and honestly would not change too much from how it is currently. The player can upgrade his weapons by spending parts, and of course since the upgrades are tied to the weapon, they can be transferred from character to character.
The way a player might receive weapons parts would be the same as before, except for the removal of much of the RNG for how many parts you get when scrapping a weapon, and when gotten from a weapons crate, you would receive as much parts as you would get from disassembling a rifle (currently you only get one part iirc).
Spending the parts on an upgrade also should eliminate the punishing RNG. If the developers would still like to have a failure system in place, I suggest that a “failure” should still give you half of the benefit of the upgrade, and you can try again for full benefits at half the price of parts.
I believe the upgrades should be as follows:
-
Repeating rifles: new barrel (higher accuracy and better damage falloff), lubricated action (faster rate of fire, eliminates jams), and rifle bedding (increases accuracy, maybe lower recoil).
-
Self loading rifles and machine/submachine guns: new barrel (higher accuracy and better damage falloff), operating system maintenance (lower recoil, higher cyclic rate), and stock bedding (increased accuracy, lower recoil randomness).
-
Handguns: new barrel (higher accuracy and better damage falloff) and new springs/new grips (lower recoil, increased cyclic rate for pistols).
-
Single shot weapons: new barrel (higher accuracy and better damage falloff)
One of my ideas here is to limit the upgrading of the weapon so that the player is only able to choose two of the three available upgrades (or one of the two, in the cases where I have currently only thought of two upgrades). This will make it so that the player has to choose what aspects of the gun he may want to prioritize, and what aspects he is willing to forego. This would make it so the player can fit the weapon more to his playstyle rather than just simply having every single upgrade possible for it.
So, that is about all that I have in mind for the upgrade system right now. I’ll probably think of some other upgrades later, but I think the ones I have thought of so far should be adequate. I’d love to hear your feedback on what you think about this suggestion. Do you like it, or are there things that you don’t like and think you should be changed?
[poll type=regular results=on_vote chartType=bar]
- I support this suggestion
- I like this suggestion, but I think some things should be changed
- I do not support this suggestion
[/poll]