Watto: A new alternative to the Mod Store
Let's face it: Mods are no fun.
There is no way to earn the mod that you want. The drop rates are low enough that you are forced to Sim a challenge repeatedly in hopes that you'll get what you need. That's not earning it: you're not even playing the level. You can't even target a specific shape unless you limit yourself to Mk2 mods - which are too poor to make a difference unless you really need a specific Set Bonus, and then you just target that shape/set for a temporary mod until your long-term search gets you a Mk5 mod.
Everyone complains about the gear grind, and it's true that the gear grind has problems: I have a Watto proposal for that as well. But at least in the gear grind, you can make progress towards a goal. With mods, you throw the vast majority away. The mod you want might be the first one to come up or it might be the 500th one: and the first 499 mods you get don't make any progress towards what you need: the next one the RNG comes up with the right mod for you or it doesn't. That's it. What comes before doesn't matter.
Some people have proposed revamping the Mod Shop so you can pick exactly what you want your mod to be. That's fine, I guess, if you're only worried about removing the frustration of an RNG that has to come up with a Mk5 mod (1 in 3) with the right shape (1 in 6), the right quality (1-3 in 100), the right primary (varies), the right secondaries (varies, but there are 4 of them and you need at least 2 of the secondaries to be something specific), and the right bump at 3rd level (1 in 4) 6th level (1 in 4 again) 9th level (1 in 4) and 12th level (1 in 4 one more time).
Just getting the right secondary increases gives you 1 in 256. That means that after you get a gold Mk5 mod (1 in 3 from the challenges are Mk5 and 1-3% of those are Gold, so that means 1 in 100 to 1 in 300 just to get a gold Mk5) and after you get the right shape (1 in 6 unless some shapes are more rare than others which I think is actually true, so 1 in 6 is actually best-case since you'll be looking longest for the most rare shapes) you're looking at 1 in 600 to 1 in 1800, then multiplying that by 256 more attempts. And that's still not including the chance of getting the right primary or getting the right secondaries in the first place!
So in order to get a maxed out mod of the type you see Whales sporting, you need to wait a week or two, obsessively checking the Mod store and spending bajillions of crystals, then praying you hit the 1 in 256 roulette slot that gives the right secondary the bumps you need ... OR you need to spend 16 energy times 256 times 600-1800 times any probability of getting your primary & secondary.
For the record, that's 2,457,600 energy to get the right mod before even considering getting the right primary & secondaries.
Really, EA/CG? Ridiculous.
So, what we really need is something that makes us work to get a good mod, but gives a chance to actually earn the thing in a human lifetime.
Toward that end, I propose two of the same things that I proposed for gear:
#1: Increase the drop rate if you play through the challenge instead of simming it.
#2: Double MOD drops on Mod challenges if you play through the challenge without losing any health at all, not even one point (this is different from the gear where I proposed double drops when not losing any health or protection)
Then, you get a mod, and it has specific qualities, but some of those qualities will be customizable in a completely re-done Mod Shop where Watto bargains with you for the work to customize the Mod.
The specifics of that proposal will be my next comment on this thread, but right now I have to cook for my kids.
There is no way to earn the mod that you want. The drop rates are low enough that you are forced to Sim a challenge repeatedly in hopes that you'll get what you need. That's not earning it: you're not even playing the level. You can't even target a specific shape unless you limit yourself to Mk2 mods - which are too poor to make a difference unless you really need a specific Set Bonus, and then you just target that shape/set for a temporary mod until your long-term search gets you a Mk5 mod.
Everyone complains about the gear grind, and it's true that the gear grind has problems: I have a Watto proposal for that as well. But at least in the gear grind, you can make progress towards a goal. With mods, you throw the vast majority away. The mod you want might be the first one to come up or it might be the 500th one: and the first 499 mods you get don't make any progress towards what you need: the next one the RNG comes up with the right mod for you or it doesn't. That's it. What comes before doesn't matter.
Some people have proposed revamping the Mod Shop so you can pick exactly what you want your mod to be. That's fine, I guess, if you're only worried about removing the frustration of an RNG that has to come up with a Mk5 mod (1 in 3) with the right shape (1 in 6), the right quality (1-3 in 100), the right primary (varies), the right secondaries (varies, but there are 4 of them and you need at least 2 of the secondaries to be something specific), and the right bump at 3rd level (1 in 4) 6th level (1 in 4 again) 9th level (1 in 4) and 12th level (1 in 4 one more time).
Just getting the right secondary increases gives you 1 in 256. That means that after you get a gold Mk5 mod (1 in 3 from the challenges are Mk5 and 1-3% of those are Gold, so that means 1 in 100 to 1 in 300 just to get a gold Mk5) and after you get the right shape (1 in 6 unless some shapes are more rare than others which I think is actually true, so 1 in 6 is actually best-case since you'll be looking longest for the most rare shapes) you're looking at 1 in 600 to 1 in 1800, then multiplying that by 256 more attempts. And that's still not including the chance of getting the right primary or getting the right secondaries in the first place!
So in order to get a maxed out mod of the type you see Whales sporting, you need to wait a week or two, obsessively checking the Mod store and spending bajillions of crystals, then praying you hit the 1 in 256 roulette slot that gives the right secondary the bumps you need ... OR you need to spend 16 energy times 256 times 600-1800 times any probability of getting your primary & secondary.
For the record, that's 2,457,600 energy to get the right mod before even considering getting the right primary & secondaries.
Really, EA/CG? Ridiculous.
So, what we really need is something that makes us work to get a good mod, but gives a chance to actually earn the thing in a human lifetime.
Toward that end, I propose two of the same things that I proposed for gear:
#1: Increase the drop rate if you play through the challenge instead of simming it.
#2: Double MOD drops on Mod challenges if you play through the challenge without losing any health at all, not even one point (this is different from the gear where I proposed double drops when not losing any health or protection)
Then, you get a mod, and it has specific qualities, but some of those qualities will be customizable in a completely re-done Mod Shop where Watto bargains with you for the work to customize the Mod.
The specifics of that proposal will be my next comment on this thread, but right now I have to cook for my kids.
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So let's think of Mods differently. The shape is fixed. The set bonus is fixed. Mk 1 - Mk 5 is fixed. "Quality" in the sense of color is fixed. However, the primaries and secondaries can be customized. The Mod Store - now Watto's - would become the place to do that.
So you go through the challenges, you still roll the dice to get the shape you want and the quality is still just as random and finding a Gold mod is still just as hard. This means that only 1-3% of your mods will be gold and only 1 in 6 will be the right shape, with 1 in 2 to 1 in 3 or so being Mk5 when you play the top level Mod challenge(whatever it is right now, I'm not suggesting this changes). You're still looking at spending 16 energy per attempt. The drop rate is the same for simming (I think it's either 1 in 3 or 3 in 10, but the exact number is unknown, it could be anything from 25% to 35%), though somewhat better for play-throughs (as I suggested improving the drop rate above).
Be generous and say the drop rate is 50% on play throughs and 50% of mods that drop on the top-tier Mod challenge are Mk5.
We then get 1 in 4 times 1-3% times 1 in 6. 1%/24 to 3%/24 = 1 in 800 to 1 in 2400 will be that optimal mod. 16 energy per attempt gives you 12,800 to 38,400 energy spent to find that optimal mod. At 120 cantina energy per day, that's still 100 to 300 days to get that optimal mod. No, it's not easy. It's ridiculously difficult and in most cases you'll have to settle for a purple mod. But it's possible to do in a human lifetime.
Now, you still would get a primary on each mod. You'll still get secondaries and you'll still get new secondaries/upgrades at level 3, 6, 9 & 12. But now, if you visit the Mod store, you can have Watto pull a primary or secondary off of one mod and stick it on another.
All those "wasted" mods can be upgraded to see if they have useful secondaries (or just take the secondaries if they have high quality and started with some). You can go back to the Mod battles and get a Primary by focussing on the specific Shape/Type where that primary is found. You can upgrade Mk1s you don't want to use: it costs the same # of credits it always cost, but now you can take those secondaries off that mod and put them on your new Mk5 mod.
So after you've collected a Mk5 mod of the right shape and quality (purple or gold), and after you pay to level up your Mk5 Mod, you go to the Watto's Mod Shop and pay more credits to have primaries and secondaries removed from one mod and placed on your Mk5 Mod.
The amount of credits you pay to swap in your primaries and secondaries should be a lot, but not as much as buying a mod for credits is right now: at the low-end for a Mk5 mod it should be about 300k. At the high end, maybe 1M.
In the new scheme one secondary can function as granting a secondary ability OR it can upgrade a secondary ability. But it's the exact same secondary processor - if you can use it as a secondary ability, you can use it as a secondary upgrade and vice versa.
Leveling grants you one secondary/upgrade slot at levels 3, 6, 9, & 12 (just like now)
Quality of the MOD now grants you 2 things:
1. Initial slots (up to 4 for Gold mods)
2. Maximum number of slots that can be wired in series, for upgrades (gold allows you up to 5 slots in a single series, which gives a maximum of 4 upgrades to a single secondary, purple allows up to 4 in one series, etc.)
The dots of the MOD (whether t's Mk 1 , 2, 3, 4 or 5) determine the value of the boost that the primary & secondary give. This is still randomized within a range for quality as it is now. The same speed secondary that provides +1 Speed when in a Mk1 mod can provide a +5 speed in a Mk5 mod.
Primaries:
There's not much to say here. A primary is all or nothing, but remember that the performance of the primary (the value of its boost) is dependent on the Mk of the mod (number of dots). So you can take a primary from a Mk 2 or Mk 4 mod and install it in a Mk5 mod and it will perform like any other Mk5 primary.
This means that you can make progress towards getting the mod you need even when you don't get a Mk5 to drop - a mod challenge at the top tier can still drop Mk4 mods, but now if it has a primary you need, you can transfer that to a Mk 5 mod of the right shape later. It's no longer all or nothing, which should make a lot of people happy.
Wiring a primary is more expensive in Mk5 mods than Mk 3 or Mk1 mods. The cost to remove a primary safely is always 10k credits. The cost to install a primary in a new mod depends on the dots (Mk) of the mod:
Costs to install a primary in a:
Mk 1 Mod: 28k.
Mk 2 Mod: 46k.
Mk 3 Mod: 75k.
Mk 4 Mod: 124k.
Mk 5 Mod: 200k.
Secondaries:
Wiring secondary slots together in series costs more money the more you wire together in the same series. To see how this works, let's take an example:
You could have a gold Mod that starts with 4 slots, then gain 4 more slots by leveling up the mod. You now have 8 slots.
Unlike the previous system, you can actually put 8 different secondaries in those 8 slots with not a single secondary getting an upgrade. But you can upgrade if by paying Watto for wiring them in series.
Create a series: 20k credits.
(wires 2 slots together: after being wired in series, these slots can only contain one type of secondary, but it can be any secondary you want and you can leave some of the series empty - you just can't have something different).
Add a 3rd secondary slot to an existing series: 40k credits.
Add a 4th secondary slot to an existing series: 80k credits.
Add a 5th secondary slot to an existing series: 160k credits.
Total to create a 5-slot series: 300k.
Now, if you don't want 4 different secondaries, you don't have to have them. You also don't have to wire up the maximum number of slots possible as a series.
Take the gold Mk5 mod: with 8 slots total, you could chose to have only 2 secondaries, but upgrade each of them 3 times (2 x 4 = 8) or upgrade one of them 4 times (uses 5 slots) and one of them 2 times (uses 3 slots).
You can have 3 secondaries, where two of them are upgraded twice (2 x 3 slots = 6) and one upgraded once (2 more slots, 6+2 = 8).
Filling an empty slot with a secondary from another mod costs 6K times the number of dots on the Mod (Mk5 mods cost 30k to fill a slot, Mk 2 Mods cost 12k to fill a slot). Removing a secondary from a mod while keeping it intact costs 2k regardless of the number of dots on the mod. This cost is already factored in to the cost of transferring a secondary from one mod to an open secondary slot on a new mod. However, you add this cost if you are trying to transfer to a slot that's full if you don't want to destroy the secondary that was in that slot before.
Quality:
Grey: No starting slots, 4 total slots when leveled up. Max number of slots that can be wired in series = 2.
Green: 1 starting slot, 5 total slots when leveled up. Max slots in a series = 2.
Blue: 2 starting slots, 6 total when leveled up. Max slots in a series = 3.
Purple: 3 starting slots, 7 total when leveled up. Max slots in a series = 4.
Gold: 4 starting slots, 8 total when leveled up. Max slots in a series = 5.
Total cost:
Primary: 200k
Secondary Wiring: On a gold mod, the most expensive wiring job is 300 k for a 5-slot series + 60k for a 3 slot. Total = 360k
Filling one secondary slot on a Mk5 mod = 30k, 8 total slots on a Gold mod = 240k.
So if you get exactly the primary you're looking for, and at least some of the secondaries are already filled, you're still going to have to wire the secondaries for series (up to 360k) and spend some money @ 30k a slot to install the correct secondaries.
you also still have to level the mod up, which is a little over 500k, but the mods you buy in the mod shop now always start at level 1, so that doesn't change. So you directly compare about 800k + various costs associated with removing primaries and secondaries from other mods at the top end (to high-end Mk5 mods costing 3.5 M right now).
You could still get lucky and have some of your secondary slots show up as series-wired with the correct secondaries, but you're not out of luck if that doesn't happen and the upgrades are spread among the 4 starting secondaries. Just pay the normal cost to re-wire. Still, unless you have the ridiculous luck we were talking about above, you're looking at a cost of at least a couple hundred thousand credits.
this is how it should be: Like gear uses salvage, mods allow you to collect over time, and that work replaces some of the credits in the Mod shop (where you do literally no work, you just buy the mod outright, even if you don't have access to the Mod challenge you would normally have to play to get it). This rewards the people who manage to complete Mod challenges - right now b/c the correct mod is so rare, completing a mod challenge means very little: the best way to get your mods is still to buy them outright in the store.
Now, EA/CG can still allow people to buy fully fabbed mods outright in the store. You'll get the quality and shape and even (if you're lucky) the primary you want for no effort save gathering credits. But you save credits by actually working to build your mod through the mod challenge system.
I think that this system is a good compromise between what EA/CG need & want and omething that will work for players and, importantly, reward playing the game.
It would still require a lot of time and luck to get a gold mod of the right shape to drop, and getting the right set bonus would still require you to build specific teams to win specific mod challenges. All that still gives whales a reason to spend money. But this system of ripping primaries and secondaries, filling slots, and wiring series rewards the people who actually play the game.
A new Watto's Mod Shop is the answer to the completely whack economics generated by current mod probabilities that favor spending real-world currency on crystals over actually playing the game.