Collection More options with relic shards

[Dusty00]

I don’t think anyone likes to get screwed by RNG when pulling relics. The introduction of silver, gold, and diamond shards was very helpful in helping players grow their collection.

The recent diamond conversion function helps a little with Diamond dupes, but it still does not help much towards helping players build their dream setup.

It is really a slap in the face when you still haven’t pulled the one variant you want after playing daily for two years.

One idea is to introduce a selective relic at a much higher shard exchange rate, say 5,000 shards for the selective version instead of the 1,000 random relic.

It takes at least a month for the top players to get 1,000 diamond shards, so 5,000 shards would take roughly 5 months of dedicated playing. I think that amount of efforts for one variant of your choice is not an unreasonable deal. It gives players a very clear goal to work towards, which boost their motivation and keep them playing.

What are your thoughts? Would it make it too easy? Would it be broken to have selective relics? Please discuss.

 

[Tom Kulczewski]

I think it makes a lot of sense, tho it beats the idea of buying a lotta relics to get what you want, which is the essence of gacha games. And 5 months seems way too much, I think even 3 months is fair.

 

[xcapibara]

They’ll never go along with that.

 

[cappatacus]

In the case of characters like diamonds and golds, it may be too much for the devs to let you choose a fighter. Maybe instead, you could get character specific relics of a class, rather than choosing a certain fighter. For example, if I want my fifth Bio for whatever reason, I could save for a Gold Squigly relic and increase my odds without being handed one. (That being said, I do not want another Bio. Please.) Tom makes a good point about the essence of a game like this - something that cuts through the luck system so much might be too far, but I don't mind the concept of some higher shard system.

 

[Lililira]

I think this would be neat, and help folks who're missing specific characters and/or tired of getting dupes.

My idea would probably make it too easy, but we've got character specific relics, element specific relics, and rarity specific relics, right? What if you could 'merge' specific relic combos to get the specific variant you want. It'd have to have additional costs to make it not too easy though, and checks in place so folks don't make 'impossible' combinations.

I'm also a fan of the idea of relics that are both character and rarity specific. Partially because I think that having the same fighter variant available from the prize fights every single time devalues that fighter, and makes it feel disappointing to get that variant from a relic because for folks who can get into top 10% it's A) probably a dupe and B) easy enough to earn more dupes, so it almost feels like a waste of a gold pull. So, I think it'd be fun to have some way to mix up the fighter reward from pfs.

 

[Erick Draves]

PF golds are not really a waste, they are skill points and evolving material. You have to sacrifice almost 100 bronzies to get 5 golds. So each gold is like 20 bronzies or 5 silvers you don´t have to get, level up and evolve to make diamonds....

 

[Disasterrr19]

I don't know, folks... Getting dupes again and again is disappointing, no doubts about it. But this game started as a "gacha" game, and we already have a VERY generous system with shards and different relic types in comparison to some other, more "brutal" gacha games. The more determination is introduced, the less is the excitement of getting a valuable fighter.

Yesterday I finally pulled LSDouble after 1.5 years in the game - and I was SOOO happy about it! Remember Fanghoul's post on his Halloween Diamond relic? If I get a reliable way to get Neuromancer, I will just put all my efforts towards it, stop buying and opening random relics from CoC, stop hoping to get lucky and feeling the thrill of Gold or Diamond Fighter summoning effect... But in this case, if I don't work on my Fighters in the most efficient way, I will never be competitive. There would be two ways to play - having fun and never getting into top ranks or considering the game second work (yeah, Dusty, I like that phrase ) and losing the "game" aspect of it...

Well, obviously, it's only my opinion. I get it that for top players the only reason to continue playing is to try out new variants since they already have all the old ones... But I'm not in that phase of the game yet so I can't completely share your frustration.

 

[cappatacus]

I don't know, folks... Getting dupes again and again is disappointing, no doubts about it. But this game started as a "gacha" game, and we already have a VERY generous system with shards and different relic types in comparison to some other, more "brutal" gacha games. The more determination is introduced, the less is the excitement of getting a valuable fighter.

Yesterday I finally pulled LSDouble after 1.5 years in the game - and I was SOOO happy about it! Remember Fanghoul's post on his Halloween Diamond relic? If I get a reliable way to get Neuromancer, I will just put all my efforts towards it, stop buying and opening random relics from CoC, stop hoping to get lucky and feeling the thrill of Gold or Diamond Fighter summoning effect... But in this case, if I don't work on my Fighters in the most efficient way, I will never be competitive. There would be two ways to play - having fun and never getting into top ranks or considering the game second work (yeah, Dusty, I like that phrase ) and losing the "game" aspect of it...

Well, obviously, it's only my opinion. I get it that for top players the only reason to continue playing is to try out new variants since they already have all the old ones... But I'm not in that phase of the game yet so I can't completely share your frustration.

That's a good point. A certain other gacha game I once played religiously (which will remain unnamed) was brutal with its RNG system. It wasn't impossible to play F2P, but it was incredibly difficult late game. Luckily, that's not an issue with SGM and it's something I really appreciate. Kind of makes me rethink my last post in here.

 

[Sairus]

The ability to choose exactly which fighters you get is unlikely to happen any time soon I'm afraid. Even limiting it to 5,000 shards like you suggest above would still immediately turn the game far too sharply into Pay to Win territory.

Want a Rift Base of 20 Neuromancers? If you're willing to put the money in buying enough essences/shard packs/etc, it can be yours!

Obviously that's an extreme example, but any time you can directly buy high tier fighters in games like this, it almost always immediately descends into abuse.

I say this as someone who's been playing the game since it was in beta and have still not gotten a Surgeon General - I never want to see the option to buy a Surgeon General.

 

[Kurokazeee]

I think this would be neat, and help folks who're missing specific characters and/or tired of getting dupes.

My idea would probably make it too easy, but we've got character specific relics, element specific relics, and rarity specific relics, right? What if you could 'merge' specific relic combos to get the specific variant you want. It'd have to have additional costs to make it not too easy though

Love this idea. But I think it will have to be limited to merging only two relic combos. Three is too specific, since I could just merge gold-relic + double-relic + dark-relic and basically get one xenomorph guaranteed. Two is already quite specific for natural diamonds already (i.e. squig-relic + dia-relic = lovecrafted or plot-twisted) and thus very strong for diamond tier.

To make it not pay-to-win, the merging-relics ability should be given once-in-a-while as a seasonal prize fight top tier reward (such as top 10 or top 100). The reward gives at most 1-2 tries. I think it is reasonable to have up to 1-2 tries for an increased chance for a specific fighter if you are a dedicated player at seasonal prize fights (only 2-3 times a year?)

 

[Dusty00]

The ability to choose exactly which fighters you get is unlikely to happen any time soon I'm afraid. Even limiting it to 5,000 shards like you suggest above would still immediately turn the game far too sharply into Pay to Win territory.



Want a Rift Base of 20 Neuromancers? If you're willing to put the money in buying enough essences/shard packs/etc, it can be yours!

Obviously that's an extreme example, but any time you can directly buy high tier fighters in games like this, it almost always immediately descends into abuse.

I say this as someone who's been playing the game since it was in beta and have still not gotten a Surgeon General - I never want to see the option to buy a Surgeon General.

I get and agree that we don’t want the game to be p2w. I think some sort of limit such as one purchase per account or once a year might be a good middle ground.

Or as lililira suggested, maybe make it character specific would lessen the randomness.

I do want to point out that the Halloween package was almost pay direct to get specific characters- $99 for guaranteed Criminal Mind, Idol Threat, and Thrill Shrieker. I feel that model is pretty close to what a good middle ground is and would personally like to see more of those limited deals.