New Upgrade System Suggestions!

Well, I see two competing sides here. One that wishes this version of dbo to be almost identical to the previous one as it would improve everything relating this subject, and another one that wants dbo to move forward and embrace new changes that would seemingly correct the erroneous things that were never truly positive. I personally see one of the most important systems of the game being controlled by randomness completely ludicrous and illogical, which was introduced in the laziest and simplest way possible. Not to mention the fact that very highly upgraded items which only players should work for on their own are tradable. This is actually infinitesimally rare in successful mmos for good reasons.

It's clear where I stand, but I'll remain mostly neutral for multiple reasons. However, I don't think the exact old rubbish system back on retail would actually fix this situation. Looking forward to see how all this feedback you folks leave here will be treated just like in the last thread like this. I'm just here to discuss, not to leave input which would be a foolish thing to do.

Fyi, Daneos already mentioned that he's working on this and already revealed some of the changes that might come true. Funny this comes only now.

Have a blast.

---no cards, higher upgrade=less chance to success.

---broken possible from +5 for armors and +7 for weapons, if you get broken without white stone item is destroyed and you gotta pay zeny to recover it, with white it goes+0.

---fail possible from +4 for armors and +6 for weapons, if you fail with white stone nothing happens, without you get -1.

---make some zeny cost for upgrade, higher upgrade=more zeny, not crazy prices. all the zeny collected by the npc stacks up and every week who upgraded anything can join a"lottery". the winners spare that zeny.

---lower rarity of the item=higher chance to success.

sorry for bad english

Quote from Prometheus

Well, I see two competing sides here. One that wishes this version of dbo to be almost identical to the previous one as it would improve everything relating this subject, and another one that wants dbo to move forward and embrace new changes that would seemingly correct the erroneous things that were never truly positive. I personally see one of the most important systems of the game being controlled by randomness completely ludicrous and illogical, which was introduced in the laziest and simplest way possible. Not to mention the fact that very highly upgraded items which only players should work for on their own are tradable. This is actually infinitesimally rare in successful mmos for good reasons.

It's clear where I stand, but I'll remain mostly neutral for multiple reasons. However, I don't think the exact old rubbish system back on retail would actually fix this situation. Looking forward to see how all this feedback you folks leave here will be treated just like in the last thread like this. I'm just here to discuss, not to leave input which would be a foolish thing to do.

Fyi, Daneos already mentioned that he's working on this and already revealed some of the changes that might come true. Funny this comes only now.

Have a blast.

Display More

love this! making upgraded items non tradeable will make every player actually work for their items.

Suggestion 1: Probability of +3 with purples/greens

With current system is annoying upgrade a +5 weapon with purple and get +6 (same with +3 to +4 armors).

Increase the chance of getting a +3 with advanced upgrade stones at lowers grades and reduce the chance of +3 at higher grades.

Suggestion 2: Balance the stats

The difference between +12 bonus and +14/+15 bonuses are HUGE in both weapons and gears.

It doesnt make sense that a +14 dps class one shots a +12 bulky class, there is no point upgrading to +12 if you are being one shotted anyways.

I am not suggesting making the bonus increase linear but reduce the exponential increase.

This is my suggestions.

I think that the actual system is unfair because many people farm for hours and hours and at time to upgrade all the work is a lost time. So I think that the new upgrade can be a goal system.

• What is needed to upgrade

In the system the upgrade stones are the sames maybe the black are don't necessary in this idea.

• Where you obtain the items you need to upgrade

In this system the ways to obtain stones are the same that now, farm, cashop, token...

• The information regarding the upgrades E.G Blue/Red = +1 Green/Purple = +1-3

Here is the new, for example I want to upgrade my weapon lvl 26. In this system the npc requiered 1 u26+ red to +1 and the same to upgrade +6, but when I upgrade my weapon to +6 I will need a red, 1 purple and 1 whitefor upgrade to +7. Is only an example really can be more stones for example to +14-+15 can be 800 reds 100 purples and 200 whites.

I know that It looks easy to upgrade but is not, you will need farm for hours or pay a lot of zenny/cash for buy the stones but this system is fair because If I farm 4 hours for a week I go to upgrade my armor according to my farm results without a fear to the armor downgrade and I lost my time.

Thanks for read

At first, drawn a exp bar. You can call it... juvenile bar or something. Should be green. =)

This bar should go from +1 to +10.

This bar can work with stones, or maybe you can make it work with regular dropped itens.

Every red/blue stone should add 10 exp to the item, purples and greens 100 exp.

//
A regular dropped equip would give 0,1exp.

Now the possibilities are infinite if the bar is complete. You can make like the actual system, just upgrading +1 lvl to the item, but... I think would be cool if the player has the opportunity to choose a personal stat... this could be luck based. I mean, if he wants, he can try getting 1 dexterity in his glove, with luck chances.

Exp bar completion = +1 lvl & some chance of gaining a bonus stat.

Adding a bonus stat or not will depend on the luck, he can get like 1-5 dex on his gloves with 20% chance per completed bar or something. I mean, those are just some ideas, feel free to adapt in your way if you want.

If that fails, the player won't get the bonus stat, but the item will still lvl up. And here comes a nice part: The valorization of Gray Stones.

However, gray stones will also took a random bonus stats if they're used. If the item doesn't have bonus statuses, so whatever, just downgrade.

After +10, the bar will be changed by some other thing. You can make lots of things like the upgraded equipment evolving into something nice.

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+10 - +15 (or more) bar:

That can be called... I don't know. Z exp bar? Dragon bar? Should be purple. =) or Maybe orange. =)

This bar should be fed with LOTS of something rare like... well, only purple/green stones, or just create a new beautiful item. Each time the bar is completed, there are another "infinite possibilities" that can be added. I'll suggest increasing the bonus statuses by 20% per level. The player could choose if he wants phy or energy def too. Or maybe he can have a minor chance to get new completely different: Z-Stats, like "increase dodge rate by 20% while dashing", "Little chance of poisoning/burning the enemy per attack", "Increase buff duration by x" etc.

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(White stones? They can increase the chance of getting bonus statuses).

Like I said, doesn't needs to be exactly like this. Those ideas can be adapted into something you think would be better.

Quote from Mavro

I want only purple and green give min +2 max +3. Cuz more times green and purple give me +1 like red and Blue so that is litle suck.

good idea

Maybe could be like a recipes:

A class stones
B class stones
c class stones

Receive (3c+2c+3c) some stones then craft a B class stone.
Then you again receive (3b+2b+1b) stones then can be craft A class stones.

The upgrade would be 100% success but Finally (if you need high Level +14-+15) you need many many many A class stones.

Quote from Isen

This is my suggestions.

I think that the actual system is unfair because many people farm for hours and hours and at time to upgrade all the work is a lost time. So I think that the new upgrade can be a goal system.

• What is needed to upgrade

In the system the upgrade stones are the sames maybe the black are don't necessary in this idea.

• Where you obtain the items you need to upgrade

In this system the ways to obtain stones are the same that now, farm, cashop, token...

• The information regarding the upgrades E.G Blue/Red = +1 Green/Purple = +1-3

Here is the new, for example I want to upgrade my weapon lvl 26. In this system the npc requiered 1 u26+ red to +1 and the same to upgrade +6, but when I upgrade my weapon to +6 I will need a red, 1 purple and 1 whitefor upgrade to +7. Is only an example really can be more stones for example to +14-+15 can be 800 reds 100 purples and 200 whites.

I know that It looks easy to upgrade but is not, you will need farm for hours or pay a lot of zenny/cash for buy the stones but this system is fair because If I farm 4 hours for a week I go to upgrade my armor according to my farm results without a fear to the armor downgrade and I lost my time.

Thanks for read

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I love this idea, it requires a lot of playtime and offers high reward. Getting 800 red stones is not easy at all, but will show that people who got them deserve their upgrade.

I’m completely against the rng of the upgrade cards, is just horrible to get a broken at +4. With this you are sure you are going to get rewarded for all those collected stones, no matter if you got them with zenni or by playing cause both ways is difficult.

1) Drop advanced stones and white stones in UD and TMQ only. I believe it will be more difficult to use robot to play UD and TMQ. It is also more harder and more interesting to farm in UD and TMQ.

2) If the above suggestion is implemented, please remove time token stone. Otherwise, no one will play low level UD and TMQ.

3) Reconfigure the levels of UD and TMQ. Currently, most TMQ and UD are just for fun. The armors and weapons can only be used for a very short period of time. Most of the players only play once or even do not complete TMQ2 to TMQ6 and UD3 to UD5. It may be set, for example, UD1 to UD3, are for Kid budo. UD3 drops something a little bit better than UD2, but UD3 is much harder... Or different UD and TMQ drops different useful and consumable items (e.g. seal coin, white stone)... The aim is to encourage more people to play other UD and TMQ, which are actually quite interesting. It can also increase play-ability of the game.

4) It may not be directly related to upgrade system. Set a upper bound level constraint for UD and TMQ. For example, only Lv29 or below can enter UD1. It will have more fun for playing UD and TMQ using a team rather than using Lv60/70 for farming or power-leveling ... (Additional suggestion: beside normal and hard mode in UD, add a free mode, so that high level player can still enter, but no legend items drop. It allows players who want to have a look).

5) For the upgrade, I hope the success rate can be accumulated. It is very frustrating when you spend over 100 advance stone and 100 white stone on the same item, and you are still +12 or even worse+0... If the successful rate can improve when we use more advance stone and white stone on that item, at least, we know that we are not doing something pointless (and better display the rate to the screen). I can agree to have a very low chance to get +15, like 0.1%. But I hope that when we spend more stones on it, the successful rate can increase. The overall number of +15 items can still be the same as before. It will not destroy the current balance and difficulty. But it will encourage player work harder and improve their playing experience. It is not fun for farming all the day and get nothing.

Sorry for my poor English and thank you for your time.

Some ideas to make the upgrade system less rng and more hard

- You could use a upgrade level requeriment to improve your chances of succefull upgrade a weapon.

- To increase the upgrade level use some kind of stone (you should choice betwen use a white stone to aboid the broken or use the exp stone and gain exp of upgrade) This way you to reduce yout rng playing the game.

- Upgrade anythig need cost zenni and "upgrade level" in relation with the weapong level.

- Delete all the "dowgradeable stones".

- Downgrade a gear (having bad luck ) weapon should always reduce your "upgrade level"

- Use "broken" to downgrade your weapon to +0 always or at least -6.

- Put a counter in all gear

Give +1 to that each time that the gear has been downgrade,

Wich each counter the weapon gain more "resistence" to the upgrade (reduce the chances of succefull upgrade). This make new drop more value and keep alive the farm in time.

-Make a "increase chances of succefull" stat for gear.
You should need to craft your own "upgrade gear" to get better chances.


  

Quote from jack123

make humans stronger especially fighters , change tmqs so one person can complete it themselves , change dragonball hunt so you don't have to grind to get dragonballs instead make an adventure in which at times when you are about to get the last ball you will face an opponent aka a super character or boss who is like 3 or 5 levels above you. don't let stones break your weapons . add new races

Lmao fighters. Nerf ulti, sk, karma and buff swordsman.

Personally, I think it's too late to change the upgrade system, this should have been done before Open Beta. The main problem was botters going unpunished and being unbanned multiple times for no valid reason. That's the reason you see so many +15s.

Majority of them already upgraded their CC90 items to +15, making it unfair for anyone who doesn't have this luxury; so basically making it any harder is no option. Only reasonable idea would be to revamp the whole upgrade system without the RNG aspect.

En

Quote from jack123

make humans stronger especially fighters , change tmqs so one person can complete it themselves , change dragonball hunt so you don't have to grind to get dragonballs instead make an adventure in which at times when you are about to get the last ball you will face an opponent aka a super character or boss who is like 3 or 5 levels above you. don't let stones break your weapons . add new races

Wtf, how do you have to have you have more have, have have to extremely good damage, they are fine like this.

Quote from jack123

haz que los humanos sean más fuertes, especialmente los luchadores, cambia los tmqs para que una persona pueda completarlos ellos mismos, cambie la caza de la bola de dragón para que no tengas que moler para obtener las bolas de dragón en lugar de hacer una aventura en la que a veces estás a punto de obtener la última bola que enfrentarás un oponente, también conocido como un súper personaje o jefe, que está como 3 o 5 niveles por encima de ti. No dejes que las piedras rompan tus arma

En

En

Quote from jack123

¿Alguna vez has jugado un luchador que no es tan fuerte que necesitan beneficios solo para mantenerse al día con otras razas?

Hay luchadores +9 que me derrotaron de un nedle siendo +12 con def físico wtf

En

Haz que la espada tenga daño similar al luchador.

So here are my ideas to upgrade the system away from the game except the white ones. You get stones by crafting as materials are up to you. The upgrade system itself would be so that there are no cards more special a view that one sees the success rate. For example +1 had 100% success rate + 2- +4 or +5 still 100% but from +14 to +15 only 5% the white stones no longer protect against the destruction of the item instead there is success rate on it. You could make another 2 set of stones that have darker colors so you can then divide the light set lvl 1-40 the dark set 41-70. So that you can fix the problem with the bottern that you then need crafting materials for stones that are all easy for everyone to get for +15 itmes you need what luck for 5%.

Keep the old Upgrade System but remove the cards.

Keep just one card but with 1/3 of succes 1/3 of failure and 1/3 of broken,having 3 cards is just stressful for the player,cuz if the player fails he thinks something like " Why I didnt choosed that card?" and with just 1 card that problem will be solved,beeing just a pure luck system instead of a "pick the right" system.

Ps: I don't really know how to speak(and write :v) English,so sorry for any mistake

Fix the upgrade system as a whole revamp it and add a multiple different types of hard to get stones to make a summoning circle to upgrade something making the overall drive and toughness of getting the stones means it’s not just mean less upgrading and it will feel more rewarding then in turn the success rate should be turned up

► System 1: NoRNG

• Add new UD/TMQ Boss Drop Item called "Shining Stone".

This Item would only drop on Hard difficulty (or higher?) when the party's Level Range suits the UD/TMQ.

• Increase normal Upgrade Stone drop rates by a lot. They need to be more common.

• Remove Advanced Upgrade Stones and White Stones from the common drop pool and put them into the TMQ & UD drop pools.

UDs for Advanced Armor Upgrade Stones and TMQs Advanced Weapon Upgrade Stones.

• Increase Advanced Upgrade Stone rarity from Normal to Rare, so parties can easily set Looting to "by Dice" for these.
• Change it so it costs Zeni to perform upgrades. The higher the rarity, equipment level & upgrade level, the more Zeni it costs to upgrade.

• Make it so equipment can only be sealed a limited amount of times. How often would be based on rarity.

E.g.: Normal: 5, Superior: 3, Excellent: 2, Rare: 1, Legendary: 0.

From +0 to +10, for example, you'd need a lot of normal Upgrade Stones. You could farm them on the overworld and could easily go to +10 if you work hard enough.
But here's the catch. To go further than +10, you'd need Advanced Upgrade Stones, White Stones & the new hypothetical Shining Stones.

With the aforementioned changes and a system like this, you'd not only remove RNG from upgrades entirely, you'd also resurrect UDs & TMQs, since they're necessary if you want to upgrade to higher levels.
Also, by limiting sealing you prevent people from farming one set of high-level equipment to share with friends/alts.

Upgrade of a level 70 weapon could look like this:

+10 to +11

x35 Advanced Upgrade Stone Lv.70

x5 White Stone Lv.70

x3 Shining Stone Lv.70

Cost: 10,000,000 Zeni

+11 to +12

x50 Advanced Upgrade Stone Lv.70

x10 White Stone Lv.70

x5 Shining Stone Lv.70

Cost: 20,000,000 Zeni

+12 to +13

x80 Advanced Upgrade Stone Lv.70

x20 White Stone Lv.70

x10 Shining Stone Lv.70

Cost: 30,000,000 Zeni

+13 to +14

x100 Advanced Upgrade Stone Lv.70

x30 White Stone Lv.70

x15 Shining Stone Lv.70

Cost: 40,000,000 Zeni

+14 to +15

x150 Advanced Upgrade Stone Lv.70

x60 White Stone Lv.70

x30 Shining Stone Lv.70

Cost: 50,000,000 Zeni

※Example Statistics.

A system like this would allow everyone to just buckle down and farm the upgrade levels they want from UDs and TMQs. No RNG and no Cash Shop required.

Would it be a good system for an F2P MMO, though? No, it wouldn't be. Not in the long run.
Resets & breaks are part of a lot of F2P MMO's Upgrade Systems because they incentivise players to cash for EQ protection and/or restoration items. If players aren't incentivised to cash, revenue goes down and the game will eventually die because it can't support itself.

► System 2: Realistic

~▷ Changes to Items:

• Add new Cash Shop Items called "Shining Stone" & "CC Restoration Machine Fuel".

Shining Stone: Prevents an Item from being destroyed during Upgrade.

CC Restoration Machine Fuel: Fuel for Upgrade Merchant's Restoration Machine. Restores destroyed Item.

• Increase normal Upgrade Stone drop rates by a lot. They need to be more common.

• Remove Advanced Upgrade Stones from the common drop pool and put them into the TMQ & UD drop pools.

UDs for Advanced Armor Upgrade Stones and TMQs Advanced Weapon Upgrade Stones.

• Increase Advanced Upgrade Stone rarity from Normal to Rare, so Parties can easily set Looting to "by Dice" for these.

• Make it so equipment can only be sealed a limited amount of times. How often would be based on rarity.

E.g.: Normal: 5, Superior: 3, Excellent: 2, Rare: 1, Legendary: 0.

• Advanced Upgrade Stones give 2 to 3 levels again.

• Change White Stones so they're only able to prevent resets during upgrades.

~▷ Changes to Upgrade System:

• "Broken" Card puts your item into a "Destroyed" state. The item keeps its effects but is unusable until it's restored.

• Add "Reset" Card to the Upgrade System. If you draw the Reset Card, your item is reset back to +0.

• Add "Restore Machine" Function to Upgrade Merchant.

• Change safety zone for both types of equipment to +7.

• Change it so it costs Zeni to perform upgrades. The higher the rarity, equipment level & upgrade level, the more Zeni it costs to upgrade.

Breaking during upgrades incentivises players to enter instances if they don't want to spend money or zeni for the new Cash Shop Items that would prevent or revert breaking.

The routine for a player would be to farm multiple copies of each of the equipment pieces they'd want and then upgrade them until they get to the upgrade level they want. One breaks? Upgrade the next one. That one breaks, too? Upgrade the next one. And so on and so forth.
Safety Zone would be +7, which would mean that +8 to +9 are easily attainable with +10 at least on the horizon.

Sure, there's a chance of breaking, but that's the risk if you want to reach higher upgrade levels. And when it works out and you're not satisfied with the random effects, you could just change them with Equipment Boxes if you really wanted to.

Of course people would need a lot of Upgrade Stones for this to work, so normal Upgrade Stone drop rates would have to increase.

The safety zone would have to increase so newer players could catch up to the players that played during the NoBreak Era.

Yes, cashing Players would have the advantage. It's the same in any other F2P MMO/Game out there. There must be a insentive to cash so a server stays alive. Just deal with it.

That wouldn't be the only the things I'd change, though. To compensate for the RNG during upgrades, you could change how equipment works.

Simply put: There are too many RNG walls players have to climb.

Getting the right equipment with the right rarity, the right stats, right random effects, getting/using Upgrade/White Stones, using Equipment Boxes, etc. It's just too much.

Here are the changes I'd make to Equipment:

• Unify all instance-based & crafting armor so it's wearable by anyone, regardless of race.

Stats could change depending on who's wearing the armor.

• Add Fixed Effects & Set Effects, so people don't have rely solely on RNG/Equipment Boxes for good Effects.

• As I mentioned before, make it so equipment can only be sealed a limited amount of times. How often would be based on rarity.

E.g.: Normal: 5, Superior: 3, Excellent: 2, Rare: 1, Legendary: 0.

New equipment info could look like this:

※Example stats & effects.

This would at least eliminate a few of the RNG Walls and would allow players, especially new ones, to get the ball rolling a lot sooner.

Not sayin' that this would be the perfect solution for everything, but it'd at least a step in the right direction to fix DBO/G's biggest Problem: Accessibility.