The last phase of The Enemy Within heavily favors the antag as well since not only do you need to watch out for the insta-kills from enemies, have to focus the boss during the limited damage phase, but now you have to watch for ambushes from the antag. Overall it felt very cheap instead of challenging.

Part of the fun in Spacelords is playing different characters.  While is does suck when another player picks the character you want to play they also put time/money into unlocking that character so it is only fair that they get to play them. Also, consider that these are characters with names and not just classes so it would be weird for their to be clones in the same match. Sure, you could have color variables and have Alicia and Felicia, but that just cheapens the lore and personalities that Mecurysteam has given to Spacelords.

Just giving the player some gold for a duplicated blueprint would be fantastic compared to what we have now. Just today I ran Alicia and got another Smoking Daisy when I still haven't had a  single RocknRoll yet. At the very least getting some gold would make it feel like I didn't waste my time on that mission.

Hi.

Your idea is interesting but it would force players to build a weapon 30 times to get it to max level which would cost a lot!

An idea I had for the forge would be to allow us to build at any level below or equal to our current one.
For example, I'm currently at forge level 5, so I would be able to build my weapons at a forge level 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5.

This would allow me to test new weapons by building them at lvl 1 or 2 for instance, and if I like them (and get a new blueprint) I could build them at lvl 5.

I clearly agree with OP when saying that the current system hurts the player.
I've simply stopped building weapong because it costs too much for a weapon I don't even know (17k gold for a normal, 66K for a rare).

It's really a shame and I would love a system that encourages players to test weapons and to be happy when they get a blueprint or when their forge level increases; currently, I'm not happy when my forge level increases and I don't build weapon since forge lvl 3 so ...

I'm aware that I am proposing a serious grind, but the gold cost would be severely reduced as a result. Also, the blueprint drop chances would also be changed so that they occur more frequently or could even be guaranteed on a victory. The goal is to give Mecurysteam a grindy progression path that also rewards the player every time they play, unlike now where you just get frustrated as you make no real progress for days/weeks.

I disagree, trying new cards and different tactics and different maps all require an adjustment. The gold cords aren't necessarily the best for every mission  free to play games thrive on player customization. It would be extremely interesting to experiment with different cards at will and as far as "longevity" I don't see how that  trumps  game experience

Don't mistake my reply as what I want, but Mecurysteam have made it clear that they value extensive grind walls over open gameplay experimentation.

Not only do we need to grind for weapon blueprints, but we need to pay gold for them and forge costs continue to increase. And then you have to upgrade the weapons and repeat the entire process over again, including the exorbitant gold fee.

Do you really think the developers that would use this crafting system actually want you to play their game easily? Instead they will use the most obtrusive RNG mechanics possible to force players to grind literally everything the game has to offer hoping to wear them down eventually and encourage the use of Mercury coins, which is ironic considering that they only have 2 things you can actually buy with them (gold and skins).

That's still outrageous considering you need to spend that every time you want to redistribute your points with a higher forge level.

So I wanted to detail how to improve the current forge because right now it punishes players for building weapons before upgrading the forge. Instead make it a weapon leveling system.

Each weapon starts at Forge 0 with no upgrades. The cost to build this weapon is minimal but it does require a blueprint. The next upgrade requires Forge level 1 and another blueprint but the cost is lower than the current system. This continues to the max Forge level, each time it requires a blueprint and costs some gold. No step can be skipped so the gold costs would have to be greatly reduced since every player is paying for every step from level 0 all the way up to the max Forge level.

In addition to this, blueprints can only be acquired once per Forge level. So if the Forge caps at level 20, that means you could only acquire a specific blueprint 21 times (once at rank 0, and 20x for each Forge level).  After that you would never get that blueprint on that character ever again. This provides enough grind, but doesn't punish players for not crafting/upgrading a weapon.

So let's say a new player loves Lycus. They play him for a while and eventually get Spinning Coin. They can craft it and try it out to compare it versus Dolores. Eventually the get Pepper Pot and they want to craft and try it too, except now it is level 0, while Spinning Coin is level 4. They keep playing and eventually get all of the possible blueprints for Dolores even though their Forge is not level 20 yet. This means that any future blue blueprints will be either Spinning Coin or Pepper Pot.

If that player eventually collects all 62 blue blueprints then any time they run Lycus and would get a blue blueprint, they instead get a chance for a 1.5x experience booster. That way treasure hunter works the same and they could fail just like with a blueprint.

This system would accomplish a few things. First the grind would be defined and players could work towards a weapon even if they got the other one since that is one less drop in that blueprint pool. Second, it would give players a better sense of progression as they would constantly be upgrading weapons as they acquired blueprints and their Forge level increased. Third, the cost of the upgrade would be more appropriate for new players since the cost would only increase each time a weapon was upgraded. So it would start out cheap and increase as the item leveled. This would also allow players to try out various weapons before deciding which one to invest in.

Anyway, I'm all for a long grind with some RNG, but eventually a player should max out a weapon and never have to get that blueprint again. It would be nice if players could track their progress and see how many Dolores blueprings they still need and know how many more times it could be upgraded though.

Because making it random adds longevity. Think about it, if a meta revolves around a handful of best cards then players would just purchase those cards and ignore the rest.