So. Many. Parts.

[ScrObot]

Re: Unique Parts

I think some unique parts, particularly with quirky properties, would be great if they were few and far between. They don't have to be incredibly overpowered, but I could imagine some witty parts that had relevant AoE patterns (e.g. X pattern 4 squares in each direction, wavy S line, an every other space dotted line, a 3x3 checkerboard pattern), or other non-standard side effects (like the BlasterBot's(?) exhaust flame).

With the limited timespan of a game, there's not that much opportunity to "farm" as you would endlessly in a Diablo-like, so trying to get "THE build" every game isn't really applicable. They'd be a fun little treat you'd see once or twice a game, if at all. This is sounding like an expansion type addition to me.

Plus if there's only a handful of them, there could be an achievement for finding or equipping all of them (over the entire lifetime of your character, not in one game). Everyone loves achievements.

[Taikei no Yuurei]

I have a feel the new additions they're making in how you can sort and compare gear will help some in how long it takes to look through your gear between missions.  It might also be nice to have a new->old sort option, so that you can potentially not go through your gear between every last mission, then go back and still be able to quickly figure out what gear is actually new and what isn't.

[sradas]

To make unique loot interesting, I'd say take a look at ToME and how DarkGod does it.  Really great.  Are unique items better than non-unique? Eh, its debatable.  Unique items usually confer very SPECIFIC bonuses, and thats about it.  Whoa I found an AmmoBox of Doom and it gives +200% ammo and.....its only for pistols? WTF?  Situational.  My pistols usually only get used for those batteries that fit into any slot.

Also there are "rare" and "randarts" in ToME that balance out the mix nicely as well, they again come with nice bonuses, usually pretty interesting, but a lot of the time its not what I am looking for in my current situation.  Plenty of times will I junk a unique or randart or rare in ToME because it dosent fit by build and / or playstyle.

  Uniques dont have to be "+5000% damage!" and become the obvious choice, they can be "Your Assault Bots grenade launcher now shoots Smoke Grenades!  Who dosent love Smoke?  It blocks Line of Sight to save your butt.  Well, if you're the type of person who likes to do damage you probably don't like it. Smoke isnt exactly known for its prowess in inflicting damage": Grenades now make smoke, -80% damage.

See?  How "obvious" is that?  Its purely a panic button.  Cant shoot what you cant see, and you arent doing damage.  But if you are in trouble it will make a quick escape, OR maybe there's that pretty nasty DoomBot pack on one side of the room you don't want to deal with yet, so you smoke them and clear the rest of the room first.  Tactical choices galore!

"Spider Bots! You've manufactured some pretty specific servos, gryros, gears, and other pieces of techosorcery and, well, your turrets have legs now!  Unfortunately in order to make this even slightly effective you had to strip a lot of weight to get it to not collapse on itself, and shielding and firepower to power the legs movment.": Turrets can move.  Turrets have -50% shields, -35% ammo, -40% damage.

Again not very obvious as "better".  My turrets can move, oh joy, too bad I've gimped their offensive output.  But maybe they're good for scouting / taking a few shots, or just being a minor source of additional damage instead of the towers of death they currently are.

Alternate power source: "Stealth drains at twice the rate, but will add one round to a random Energy weapons current ammo"

Remarkably, Stealth isnt just for using Virus and opening doors.  Now it can replenish your precious ammo stores.  Suddenly Stealth becomes a lot more interesting because now you have more choices.  Do I burn it for power, or do I keep it for survivability?

Or even less specific: "+50% weapon damage, -40% weapon ammo due to increased ammo size"

"Unique" dosent have to mean "omgwtfzorz I kill everything in 1shot uber, lawl nubz aint got no 1337 lootz gon die"

[BobTheJanitor]

If they were to make a change like that, my best suggestion would be to make a whole seperate mode out of it.

I don't know if I'm really bad at conveying a point or what, but that's totally the wrong takeaway from it. My point is that BD is already a game with a huge loot-and-upgrade component. It's not different from that genre, it is that genre. I'm suggesting ways to fix the fact that it's such a poor example of that genre. How could you think otherwise when you have 4 exos with 25-30 loot equip slots a piece? Arcen hasn't invented an entirely new genre here; this is well trodden territory.

If you wanted to take the loot out completely, though, that would be another fix. Again, not one I'd advocate. But as long as the loot and optimization is a part of the game, it is begging for improvements.

[Necro_Man_Ser]

@ Unique loot: I said my suggestions were cheesy, didn't I. I would expect the unique pieces to come at a price, like a drawback or huge power usage so you would have to let go of other high mark equipment. I still think it would be a good idea, since unique abilities, balanced well by drawbacks you have to accept when using them, could enhance the game through more possibilities to traverse the world in missions and more options when fighting enemies.

But I admit it's not high on my wishlist, and before any dev is going to consider it, there will be major fixes in other areas anyways.

EDIT: Just read what sradas wrote, that's exactly what I meant. I have no desire for epic loot which becomes the only worthwhile stuff to farm for, I'm thankful that Bionic dues is not that kind of game. I'm talking about specific bonuses which may only be useful for certain playstyles or in certain situations.

[nas1m]

To make unique loot interesting, I'd say take a look at ToME and how DarkGod does it.  Really great.  Are unique items better than non-unique? Eh, its debatable.  Unique items usually confer very SPECIFIC bonuses, and thats about it.  Whoa I found an AmmoBox of Doom and it gives +200% ammo and.....its only for pistols? WTF?  Situational.  My pistols usually only get used for those batteries that fit into any slot.

Also there are "rare" and "randarts" in ToME that balance out the mix nicely as well, they again come with nice bonuses, usually pretty interesting, but a lot of the time its not what I am looking for in my current situation.  Plenty of times will I junk a unique or randart or rare in ToME because it dosent fit by build and / or playstyle.

  Uniques dont have to be "+5000% damage!" and become the obvious choice, they can be "Your Assault Bots grenade launcher now shoots Smoke Grenades!  Who dosent love Smoke?  It blocks Line of Sight to save your butt.  Well, if you're the type of person who likes to do damage you probably don't like it. Smoke isnt exactly known for its prowess in inflicting damage": Grenades now make smoke, -80% damage.

See?  How "obvious" is that?  Its purely a panic button.  Cant shoot what you cant see, and you arent doing damage.  But if you are in trouble it will make a quick escape, OR maybe there's that pretty nasty DoomBot pack on one side of the room you don't want to deal with yet, so you smoke them and clear the rest of the room first.  Tactical choices galore!

"Spider Bots! You've manufactured some pretty specific servos, gryros, gears, and other pieces of techosorcery and, well, your turrets have legs now!  Unfortunately in order to make this even slightly effective you had to strip a lot of weight to get it to not collapse on itself, and shielding and firepower to power the legs movment.": Turrets can move.  Turrets have -50% shields, -35% ammo, -40% damage.

Again not very obvious as "better".  My turrets can move, oh joy, too bad I've gimped their offensive output.  But maybe they're good for scouting / taking a few shots, or just being a minor source of additional damage instead of the towers of death they currently are.

Alternate power source: "Stealth drains at twice the rate, but will add one round to a random Energy weapons current ammo"

Remarkably, Stealth isnt just for using Virus and opening doors.  Now it can replenish your precious ammo stores.  Suddenly Stealth becomes a lot more interesting because now you have more choices.  Do I burn it for power, or do I keep it for survivability?

Or even less specific: "+50% weapon damage, -40% weapon ammo due to increased ammo size"

"Unique" dosent have to mean "omgwtfzorz I kill everything in 1shot uber, lawl nubz aint got no 1337 lootz gon die"

If adding unique loot ever becomes an option for Arcen I would like to see it implemented *exactly* like this. Cool stuff !

[Misery]

If they were to make a change like that, my best suggestion would be to make a whole seperate mode out of it.

I don't know if I'm really bad at conveying a point or what, but that's totally the wrong takeaway from it. My point is that BD is already a game with a huge loot-and-upgrade component. It's not different from that genre, it is that genre. I'm suggesting ways to fix the fact that it's such a poor example of that genre. How could you think otherwise when you have 4 exos with 25-30 loot equip slots a piece? Arcen hasn't invented an entirely new genre here; this is well trodden territory.

If you wanted to take the loot out completely, though, that would be another fix. Again, not one I'd advocate. But as long as the loot and optimization is a part of the game, it is begging for improvements.

Ehhh.  That one will be up to the individual to decide for themselves, wether it's a good part of the genre or not.

In my case.... I can get into this game BECAUSE of it's differences. If it had a loot/equip system more along the lines of the usual, I dont think I'd be touching it whatsoever.  Thus the mode suggestion.  Granted, that's a rather vague suggestion, but I'm lazy and randomly came up with it on the spot, so there you go.

As for being bad at conveying a point..... neh.  Much of it is likely just due to the fact that I can be kinda airheaded at times, haha.

To make unique loot interesting, I'd say take a look at ToME and how DarkGod does it.  Really great.  Are unique items better than non-unique? Eh, its debatable.  Unique items usually confer very SPECIFIC bonuses, and thats about it.  Whoa I found an AmmoBox of Doom and it gives +200% ammo and.....its only for pistols? WTF?  Situational.  My pistols usually only get used for those batteries that fit into any slot.

Also there are "rare" and "randarts" in ToME that balance out the mix nicely as well, they again come with nice bonuses, usually pretty interesting, but a lot of the time its not what I am looking for in my current situation.  Plenty of times will I junk a unique or randart or rare in ToME because it dosent fit by build and / or playstyle.

  Uniques dont have to be "+5000% damage!" and become the obvious choice, they can be "Your Assault Bots grenade launcher now shoots Smoke Grenades!  Who dosent love Smoke?  It blocks Line of Sight to save your butt.  Well, if you're the type of person who likes to do damage you probably don't like it. Smoke isnt exactly known for its prowess in inflicting damage": Grenades now make smoke, -80% damage.

See?  How "obvious" is that?  Its purely a panic button.  Cant shoot what you cant see, and you arent doing damage.  But if you are in trouble it will make a quick escape, OR maybe there's that pretty nasty DoomBot pack on one side of the room you don't want to deal with yet, so you smoke them and clear the rest of the room first.  Tactical choices galore!

"Spider Bots! You've manufactured some pretty specific servos, gryros, gears, and other pieces of techosorcery and, well, your turrets have legs now!  Unfortunately in order to make this even slightly effective you had to strip a lot of weight to get it to not collapse on itself, and shielding and firepower to power the legs movment.": Turrets can move.  Turrets have -50% shields, -35% ammo, -40% damage.

Again not very obvious as "better".  My turrets can move, oh joy, too bad I've gimped their offensive output.  But maybe they're good for scouting / taking a few shots, or just being a minor source of additional damage instead of the towers of death they currently are.

Alternate power source: "Stealth drains at twice the rate, but will add one round to a random Energy weapons current ammo"

Remarkably, Stealth isnt just for using Virus and opening doors.  Now it can replenish your precious ammo stores.  Suddenly Stealth becomes a lot more interesting because now you have more choices.  Do I burn it for power, or do I keep it for survivability?

Or even less specific: "+50% weapon damage, -40% weapon ammo due to increased ammo size"

"Unique" dosent have to mean "omgwtfzorz I kill everything in 1shot uber, lawl nubz aint got no 1337 lootz gon die"

That sounds like a more interesting way of doing it, definitely.

Though, definitely also something that'd have to wait for an expansion, since that'd be a pretty big addition.   

But it's a good set of suggestions.

Seems I need to try out this "Tome" as well, considering the sort of game it is, now that I look at it.

[Oralordos]

Tome is awesome since it has a global chat in-game. So you can easily get help or advise if you are stuck. The community is fairly friendly too.

[tigersfan]

If you consider yourself a fan of the roguelike genre, you really need to try TOME. It's a fantastic iteration of the genre.

[Necro_Man_Ser]

If you consider yourself a fan of the roguelike genre, you really need to try TOME. It's a fantastic iteration of the genre.

Thx for the tip, I tried it and now my backlog grows even larger. It's all the wrong way: in my youth I had much time but too few games. Now, I have tons of games and even more I need to buy, but not enough time. Somebody go tell this to evolution's superior, whoever that might be.

[sradas]

If you consider yourself a fan of the roguelike genre, you really need to try TOME. It's a fantastic iteration of the genre.

Thx for the tip, I tried it and now my backlog grows even larger. It's all the wrong way: in my youth I had much time but too few games. Now, I have tons of games and even more I need to buy, but not enough time. Somebody go tell this to evolution's superior, whoever that might be.

Irony, maybe? 

[Misery]

If you consider yourself a fan of the roguelike genre, you really need to try TOME. It's a fantastic iteration of the genre.

Thx for the tip, I tried it and now my backlog grows even larger. It's all the wrong way: in my youth I had much time but too few games. Now, I have tons of games and even more I need to buy, but not enough time. Somebody go tell this to evolution's superior, whoever that might be.

I found that extra time..... really doesnt help the situation, haha.   I have nothing BUT free time, and more damn games than I can count.  .....yet no way do I have enough time to play through many of them in the period of a month or so.  There's just THAT freaking many of them.  And then I sit there and stare at them for 30 minutes agonizing over which one to choose on a given night.  The backlog.... it clears so slowly...

Doesnt help that I'm a total impulse buyer.  Also, Steam sales.  GAH.  They may as well just have a specialized vaccum that sucks up your money and then sprays candy at you. 

[keith.lamothe]

They may as well just have a specialized vaccum that sucks up your money and then sprays candy at you.

That's basically it, yea.  With the spraying device being the Heavy's minigun.

[Necro_Man_Ser]

Lol That's exactly it. We're in a lucky position today, if one is able to accept certain trade-offs like less graphics and emotions (there are too many emotions anyways), the indie scene just keeps growing and evolving, supplying several games a month for unreasonable prices where many of them, especially rogue likes and strategic titles, can last you forever. It's actually a good thing which still needs to be managed by the gamer, because luck can turn to bad luck if you let the tide of interesting games overwhelm you. One at a time, I'd like to say, but that would be lying... I'm playing like 10 games at once in the course of weeks and months, the oldest ones often fading into darkness.

[Admiral]

I think the best way to go about it is to have some general idea of what you want to pump up for each exo and just concentrate on those stats only and don't worry so much about what "secondary stats" you are getting.

As I read through Mick's focus for each mech I was surprised at how closely my use of each Exo was to his plan!

I guess it is clear to any gamer to play to each one's strength... And here I was thinking how clever I was.

Cheers!