What would REALLY improve Star Legends? (Discussion)

[Battlegrinder]

It's still up. I've been working on my computer a bit so I haven't posted another topic for us to discuss on.

Ok. How about for the next topic, we discuss the whole copy-pasted weapons/gear things that a lot of players complain about?

[Cahaun]

It's still up. I've been working on my computer a bit so I haven't posted another topic for us to discuss on.

Ok. How about for the next topic, we discuss the whole copy-pasted weapons/gear things that a lot of players complain about?

That sounds very good. Give me a Sec and I'll see if I can start the discussions again.

[Cahaun]

Discussion #3: Item Uniqueness in Star Legends compared to other methods used in Pocket Legends, Dark Legends, and Arcane Legends

If you don't like long talks, just skip everything I blabber on here and go to the bottom where I summarize everything in a few simple questions to start the discussion.

Since this is something that pops up in all of the games' discussions, I'll take examples of how the devs made items unique in different games while keeping the same base object. In this discussion, we will discuss over the issue that has popped up here and there over the time of SL's life and became a major issue when the second part of the Scorn Trilogy came out.

Main Issue for Discussion
This one is a bit different than the rest so I'll start off by talking about this in the way as I see it.
Before the Shipyard came out for a few months, there was no major concerns over the recycled items that dropped from the mobs or the set pieces which were still the major point that shined in Star Legends which was the uniqueness of the sets. There were a few jokes about the flashguns and a few exasperated looks on how the junk gear is just a copy/paste since the 21 cap, but nothing that completely angered the community has happened yet until... along came a Scorn Spider.
Vuleria is where things really started to heat up in the SL community. People who hated the mines in the Shipyard took it hard when they were introduced to the anti-infantry, proximity mines scattered everywhere in the beaches and mine areas. Vuleria wasn't a super bad content update, but I really think it wasn't started in a really good note. The WORST problem that happened in this cap that is starting the main discussion's issue was the fact that the drop system in Vuleria was completely out of order, and hasn't even been touched on for months after people started to notice how the set pieces dropped like water in a thunderstorm the instant they got level 40. This is where I believe people started to get annoyed and wanted more individuality since everyone had 15 level 40 sets drop in a few runs.
To make this part short: People started to really demand for more ways to individualize themselves and are paying more attention to the fact that the junk drops are being copy/pasted when they could've been more unique items instead. While the devs seemed to have tried fixing this by replacing the usual junk drops with unique, recolored Riven armor, the issue over the devs copy/pasting items has become a major issue in Star Legends also due to the fact that the older Star Legends players expected a bit more from the devs when they were put on a backburner to make room for a game that'd get very little attention in the end anyway. (Dark Legends)

Now that intro story is finished, I'd like to input my opinion on how the devs could improve on this along with references to the other three games and how they deal with items.

Pocket Legends
Pocket Legends was doing completely awesome at keeping the items fresh and new in their game up till Nuri's Circus came to visit. All of the dungeons from the old Forest Haven to the Sewers had their own slow item progression feel as the items dropped in each dungeon showed the nature of the item while being unique. The weapons from Forest Haven to Balefort Castle had a small progression feel to them as weapons were turning from broken swords to iron swords, and from iron to steel. They got a bit darker once the crypts came out, and the items from the yeti-covered mountains really kept the items fresh. The major success that PL had that SL does not was when the Alien Oasis trilogy was out. You could slowly feel the change in setting, mobs, and items the further you went into the story arc. Your items started from being a nomad's spears, daggers, and staffs to showing more ancient designs such as scarab and ancient Egyptian styles being shown through the armor and weaponry. (Level 45 pinks ftw) They then topped the cake with the alien technology and enough space techno to make nerds like me think of it as true endgame. The sewers which came out after AO was great and kept up the nice item uniqueness until Nuri came along and the devs just made everything like it is now in SL.
Arcane Legends and Dark Legends
I can't say too much about these ones as there hasn't been too much to them as compared to PL being out for years, but I can add a few pointers before I finish up with my questions. Arcane Legends and Dark Legends are both getting pretty good on making the random drops a bit more usable and keeping items fresh. If you've played Dark Legends, you can see that the items can all be hugely different with the absence of Sets and more focus on the development of character roles and play style. While I'm pretty afraid that Arcane Legends is already falling down to becoming a less strategic game and losing things that it could've shined in (which I an very sure of), the old version of Arcane Legends seemed to have more fresh ways of keeping the items fresh even if you were stuck to using one weapon type the entire time. I'd say more, but I can never have enough room for anything.

If you are bored by now by my blabbermouth (auto-correct showed me that word and I quite like it), I don't blame you. This was typed from my phone and I get a bit off track at tines when I'm not using my desktop.

What do you think of the copy/pasted items being reused over and over in Star Legends?
How do you think SL can very improved when it comes down to the items?
How far do you think they'll add the Flashguns? (Imagine a Flashgun Type XXIV in a future levelcap That'd take years to get to by our current progress)
What do you think in generally about the entire thing?

[Cahaun]

I was more blabbery with the latest discussion, bit I am a bit tired so I can't keep myself focused too much. Any discussion about what Battle mentioned to me is fair game if you don't want to read my oversized thing I just typed somehow without falling asleep.

[gison]

I think that sts needs to stop being lazy and give us some new(not reused) content.

I can't imagine being lvl 76 and having to use those crappy scorn guns. (Example)

[Battlegrinder]

I think that STS has actually gotten much better with this over time. From Numa prime to Voleria, the only unique armor was the rare, top tier suits (titan-tech, meganaut,sandstorm), and while Voleria did make epic-grade armor available to everyone, you were still stuck with the standard stuff until them. There's nothing wrong with the standard gear, and in fact I kinda miss the blocky UC armor, but the lack of customization was an issue. Crusade mitigate it a little, but not as much as some players say they want (engineer and operative sets are recolored Scorn, only Commandos get unique armor).

Weapons are a little dicer, but also improving. SL has finally broken out of the "pistol+shield for everything" stagnation period, and hopefully the new cap will find a way to add in new shields without returning to that era (I do miss that phase of SL a little bit, I used to be able to get really high level rifles and arc cannons for a song). The Alien Oasis weapons system was probably the best system of any STS game. All the weapons were close enough that if you wanted to use one of the mid-tier pinks like a Kopesh or Luminous Harpoon, you would not suffer a severe reduction in capability because of that choice. You might have had any easier time if you'd grabbed a Limbchopper or Shock Lance, but playing wasn't impossible without those weapons. In the SL endgame, using pistols and rifles is nearly impossible, especially for commandos.

Regarding the Nuri's Hallow thing, I don't really have problem with that. Statwise, it wasn't such a huge difference between purple and pink items, so the unique design existed to give players something to strive for, without punishing the ones who elected to save their time/money. I'd certainly love to have more stuff with unique designs, but with 4 games, eventually STS will have to scale back the amount of energy devoted to any given game (granted, AL is getting most of STS's attention right now, but that will burn out eventually).

Here's my thoughts for what should be done in the Tarasa expansion.

1. Make any weapon load-out viable. Players shouldn't be punished because they prefer to use pistol+shield or rifles instead of class weapons.
2. Relating to the above, don't let any one weapon set become dominate. Pistol+shield was ubiquitous in the pre-Crusade era, and I really don't want to see that system come back. Extra armor and DPS is fine, but those aren't the only stats that matter.

[Cahaun]

I think that STS has actually gotten much better with this over time. From Numa prime to Voleria, the only unique armor was the rare, top tier suits (titan-tech, meganaut,sandstorm), and while Voleria did make epic-grade armor available to everyone, you were still stuck with the standard stuff until them. There's nothing wrong with the standard gear, and in fact I kinda miss the blocky UC armor, but the lack of customization was an issue. Crusade mitigate it a little, but not as much as some players say they want (engineer and operative sets are recolored Scorn, only Commandos get unique armor).

Weapons are a little dicer, but also improving. SL has finally broken out of the "pistol+shield for everything" stagnation period, and hopefully the new cap will find a way to add in new shields without returning to that era (I do miss that phase of SL a little bit, I used to be able to get really high level rifles and arc cannons for a song). The Alien Oasis weapons system was probably the best system of any STS game. All the weapons were close enough that if you wanted to use one of the mid-tier pinks like a Kopesh or Luminous Harpoon, you would not suffer a severe reduction in capability because of that choice. You might have had any easier time if you'd grabbed a Limbchopper or Shock Lance, but playing wasn't impossible without those weapons. In the SL endgame, using pistols and rifles is nearly impossible, especially for commandos.

Regarding the Nuri's Hallow thing, I don't really have problem with that. Statwise, it wasn't such a huge difference between purple and pink items, so the unique design existed to give players something to strive for, without punishing the ones who elected to save their time/money. I'd certainly love to have more stuff with unique designs, but with 4 games, eventually STS will have to scale back the amount of energy devoted to any given game (granted, AL is getting most of STS's attention right now, but that will burn out eventually).

Here's my thoughts for what should be done in the Tarasa expansion.

1. Make any weapon load-out viable. Players shouldn't be punished because they prefer to use pistol+shield or rifles instead of class weapons.
2. Relating to the above, don't let any one weapon set become dominate. Pistol+shield was ubiquitous in the pre-Crusade era, and I really don't want to see that system come back. Extra armor and DPS is fine, but those aren't the only stats that matter.

For the blocky UC armor that we used to have as about our regular gear, I still think we can continue on them with one exception.
From levels 1-31, the UC armor has been pretty dependable items to use until it seemed that the devs ditched them and started to only push people into thinking "set pieces are the only gear that we need to play in the current cap and next one" and just neglected the item drops as worthless, unviable items that are only there to make you money. While they were on to it again with the current cap, I think it can be improved. I'd like to see Tarasa to have the UC armor included but not just statistically-improved-level-1-looking pitiful pieces of armor, but with the small and subtle changes that they had from levels 1-21 that made the player feel like they were improving along with the stats. I'd also like the item and set stats to be like it was in Alien Oasis where, as you stated, a player could use any item with good results instead of being forced to use one set that they are predestined to have to use. I'd also like there to be as it was, in AO again, where there were soo many different variations of items and procs that really let players have such a high customization ability. (Just look at how many different staffs and wands the mages were given in AO and you'll see what I mean)