Cap the upgrade cost to improve weapons (or at least do so for Iconic)

[A_Clever_Monocle]

CDPR I really REALLY want to keep using iconic weapons, the problem is that the upgrade cost increases exponentially (eventually requiring hundreds of rare epic and or legendary components depending on when you upgrade that item) there should be some sort of cap in place I often find myself just giving up on and scrapping iconic weapons due to the fact that once you actually get ahold of enough components you have far out leveled the weapon by 2 or 3 level resulting in a vicious cycle where you have an under-leveled iconic weapon.

another option would be to make it so that Iconic weapons can be repeatedly crafted at all rarities but still requiring the same weapon to be used so that you can simply have one at your current level

 

[calsem]

I agree. In my case I prefer to play nonviolently, so I really want to keep my weapon with the PAX mod, but if I can't upgrade it anymore then I'll have to scrap the gun and that would really suck. Also the upgrade doesn't seem to improve the stats that much

 

[allandornothing]

100% agree with this. Also, it'd be nice to upgrade clothing relatively cheaply so I can run around looking cool rather than in this ridiculous clown-suit. Why can't the devs trust us to dress and accessorize appropriately!

 

[Hexipoo]

I agree. In my case I prefer to play nonviolently, so I really want to keep my weapon with the PAX mod, but if I can't upgrade it anymore then I'll have to scrap the gun and that would really suck. Also the upgrade doesn't seem to improve the stats that much

Dude, you can buy PAX mods from like every gun shop for 200E. you can even buy and loot a mod for your eye implant that makes EVERY weapon non-lethal permanently.

 

[allandornothing]

Dude, you can buy PAX mods from like every gun shop for 200E. you can even buy and loot a mod for your eye implant that makes EVERY weapon non-lethal permanently.

True, but what about when you want to buy an expensive mod? It just seems a massive waste. I've only been using cheap mods or ones I can craft.

 

[Hexipoo]

True, but what about when you want to buy an expensive mod? It just seems a massive waste. I've only been using cheap mods or ones I can craft.

There is a crafting perk that gives you mods back when you nuke it. You need lvl16 tech for it, but it's there, and you need 18 to craft yellow stuff anyways.

 

[mcbleak]

Is it just me or are some weapons OP? I crafted an SMG and mods and the dam is over 1300 on a SMART GUN! Also, my armour mods are OP too with a rating over 2500.

 

[Volkbrecht]

I'm not sure if I got this right, but it appears as if the item drops are scaling with player level. I had ignored the shooting range quest for a long time, and now, at level 39, got a very high level reward for it, that's how I got the idea. Do I have that right? The problem is, that would basically mean that in terms of upgrade cost we'd be getting punished for finding legendary/iconic items early in the game.

But be that as it may, I agree with the proposition of not having the upgrade costs increase, and especially not exponentially. Make them solid, but make them fixed. A lot of players are completionists who crawl into every last nook and cranny to find all the cool shit, so it'd be a crying shame if most of that loot just rots away in the stash because the item level is subpar on acount of us not being able to afford the upgrades.

 

[Rik_Sen]

Yeah.. I feel too sad being unable to use Johnny's pistol because it requires WAY too many components to make it useful... And I am not a fan of duplicating..

 

[RedHellion]

I'm not sure if I got this right, but it appears as if the item drops are scaling with player level. I had ignored the shooting range quest for a long time, and now, at level 39, got a very high level reward for it, that's how I got the idea. Do I have that right? The problem is, that would basically mean that in terms of upgrade cost we'd be getting punished for finding legendary/iconic items early in the game.

This does indeed seem to be the case, and makes sense for the game for loot to scale with player level at the time it is generated/found (ignoring the problematic Upgrade system right now). Though I noticed that there are a few areas which have a "baseline" for difficulty/gear level (e.g. killing enemies at NCPD hotspots in Heywood seemed to be extremely difficult and dropped level 28 gear even when I was lower than that level).

So, at the moment the Upgrade system seems broken/useless due to the previously noted issues:

1. Upgrade costs double every time a piece of gear is upgraded, which is especially painful to the point of being prohibitive for Legendary and Epic gear (which would be the gear you'd mostly want to use the Upgrade system for).
2. Upgrade materials of Epic and Legendary rarity are relatively hard to get, and expensive to buy in bulk from traders.
3. Upgrading gear only bumps a single "level" at a time, so upgrading a weapon found near the start of the game would take a ridiculous amount of materials.

My hope is that this gets fixed/patched eventually to actually be usable, since at the moment even with a maxed Tech:Crafting perk tree I find the Upgrade system to be pointless. At least with iconic weapons you can use the Crafting system to bump them to the next rarity, which will also upgrade them to match your current level at the same time - but this means that you're out of luck with iconic weapons which are already Legendary. Also the same issue with any non-iconic gear that you don't have the crafting schematics for.

I'd be happy with any fix similar to these proposals:

1. Upgrade costs are fixed (do not double or otherwise increase) and either decreased slightly or the materials made more abundant, especially for Epic/Legendary rarity materials. It would still be very expensive to keep a favourite piece of gear or two synced to your current level, but not prohibitive.
2. Upgrading boosts the piece of gear to match your current level, rather than a single level at a time, the same way using the Crafting system to bump the rarity of an iconic weapon does. This would make it much easier to keep an entire set of favourite gear throughout the entire game. Upgrade costs could either be kept exponential to keep some tough decisions around how often to upgrade gear, or be fixed to allow players to keep whatever gear they like in sync with their current level basically at all times.
3. Removal of the Upgrade system entirely, making all iconic gear automatically scale with the player level (and making all unique gear iconic which isn't already). Fixes the problem by dumping the problematic game mechanic, and shouldn't really impact normal randomized gear much at all. Replacement of upgrade-related perks with loot-generation-related perks (increased chances of higher-rarity loot, increased base stats of generated loot, etc) in this case would be ideal.

 

[RazerFett]

You basically have to money hack + wait 24 hours, over and over, in order to get materials for upgrades...

Or download a sketchy ass mod from github because they decided to ban the console....