Hi Mercurysteam and community,
For what it is worth; Let me start this off by saying that I am having a lot of fun with this game. The visuals are great, characters are varied and the combat (for the most part) is polished. Very little concern from me in terms of the core gameplay provided.
However, between the recent news of the rebranding and the interviews that followed, I think this is a better time than any to discuss the card system and recruitment in general.
Arguably the biggest and the most important part of the game are the Raiders themselves, throughout my time playing the game I never felt that one character was stronger than the other (only that some were more effective than the other in certain situations) so I always found it rather odd that some were level restricted more harshly than others.
I understand that level restrictions can drive users to purchase XP boosters however, with the mention of adding level requirements to the missions themselves can be a good excuse to allow players to choose the Raider they wish to play as and not the one they are encouraged to play as.
The recruitment price of Raiders could be equal, rather than encouraging players to recruit Hans, then Dr Kuzman then Doldren then Hive etc. Don’t get me wrong, this is great for players who want to play those particular Raiders in that particular order or for people who don’t care who they play as but for newer players who want to play as a particular Raider (let’s just say Mikah) will be disappointed to know that the grind for that Raider wouldn’t have been so long if the raiders were priced evenly. However, doing this I imagine would bring the average price of a Raider to around 90K gold, which is a tall order for any newcomer.
A “Raider Token” would fix this I think, the ability to recruit any Raider with a “token” of increasing cost after every use (first use costs 9000 gold, second use costs 15,000 gold etc) this will not only retain the systems current new player friendly approach but will allow the freedom of choice for other players to pick their most visually appealing hero.
I may hold an unpopular opinion here but the card system is my favourite part of the game, cards that can completely change how you play a raider, cover their weaknesses or further maximise their strength lies within this system but I feel this is held back by being a “non-profit slot machine” that uses up your Faction Points. I think that cards should individually cost a certain amount of Faction Points to acquire. I don’t mind the inclusion of its level restrictions, however I suspect the issue is the lack of incentives to farm Faction Points after obtaining what the player thinks is the best card for the Raider which could explain the inclusion of this functional slot machine.
I understand that Faction Points need a use but I don’t think this is a good way to utilise them. What makes this especially weird to talk about is the fact that I don’t really have a solution to the use of Faction Points. Perhaps I’m overthinking it, perhaps at that point the player should just move on to the next Raider?
Oh, a little thing about weapon farming (fighting over weapon blueprints shouldn’t be a thing) is that the affinity of some weapons do not match the method of farming. I find it pretty jarring to play as a Raider to acquire a weapon blueprint but be forced to play as an Antagonist just to build it (or vice versa).
TL;DR: Remove level restrictions from Raiders, Have a flexible unlock (Token System) instead of a semi-fixed unlocks, allow cards to be brought directly via Faction Points, find more uses for Faction Points, Weapon blueprints should not be fought over.
Overall I am looking forward to these new changes and I wish this game the best.
