Encryption is worse than I ever imagined (PTS experience)

When I first heard about encryption, I didn't care too much. While I knew it would be very bad for players who don't have their perfect weapons, the fact that I have that on my char made it hard to get personally involved in the discussion.

Then I got to experience the system first hand on PTS.

Man, that feeling of complete and utter dread you experience when you log in and see months worth of greens and blues that you kept around to eventually upgrade that are now utterly useless is just indescribable. It's like someone just took a **** on your work over the last few months and there's nothing you can do about it.

But it gets worse.

Part of the new PTS bonus system is that you get a lot of loot boxes and stuff, including those new rep boxes that will be sold in the bit store. Those boxes award 100 rep with a faction and a chance at something extra, which can range from a faction lock box to a caeruleum core (!). We got 3 for each faction on PTS, and of course I went and opened faction lockboxes right away.

And guess what was in one of them! A bio cannoneer hog leg, blue rarity, acc/reload/crit. For those who don't know, Hog Legs are Gunslinger DLC variants of Tachmag Pulsers, with 5% boost to reload, dmg, and fire rate, and a special reload on low health effect. Having one with bio and cannoneer, and a crit boost as well, means it's a ridiculously good gun that would make anyone who knew what they had just got jump through the roof.

Then I saw it. "Encrypted".

Not only does the new system mean that a blue item can never go beyond purple, but this awesome hog leg can't even be upgraded once! Even though I have a orange bio Hog Leg on my main account and what happens on PTS doesn't really matter, that feeling of getting that awesome gun and realizing it's useless was just truly horrible.

After opening more lockboxes and getting a total of 27 pieces of loot from them, I counted the number of encrypted items. 16, of which 4 were orange and as such naturally always encrypted. Of the encrypted items, there was a bio EEC SMG, a Votan Pulser, and a faction Big Boomer (yes, one of those with damage boost).

All I can say after trying it out is this: If you don't have guns that you're 100% happy with by Monday, you might as well stop playing the game. The utter dread you feel when getting something good and realize it no longer has the ability to become legendary is just too much.

You know there was a time when you couldn't upgrade the rarity of items at all and were stuck with what you got.

We survived.

trion curse you delete green n blue n white items from loot then !!!

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Originally Posted by squidgod2000

You know there was a time when you couldn't upgrade the rarity of items at all and were stuck with what you got.

We survived.

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There was a time where there was no electricity in the world. People survived.

That doesn't mean that removing electricity from modern day society is a good idea.

Once you introduce something, taking it away will have a very different effect than not putting it in to begin with.

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Originally Posted by Alexri

Man, that feeling of complete and utter dread you experience when you log in and see months worth of greens and blues that you kept around to eventually upgrade that are now utterly useless is just indescribable. It's like someone just took a **** on your work over the last few months and there's nothing you can do about it.

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Ok, I just might misunderstand what you really mean, so I'd like a clear answer. I'm not here to discuss about your opinion, I just want facts.
I never tried the test servers, so I don't know if you can keep your character's gear from a previous session or not.

I read something there : Introducing Silicon's Valley encrypted items

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All of your weapons and shields of epic or lower tiers will be considered unencrypted. We decided against retroactively setting all rarity-upgraded weapons and shields already in the game as encrypted because that measure felt very punitive to us as players and that isn’t the purpose of this new mechanic.

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So, by "utterly useless", you mean those items were set to "crypted" (so then limited to 1 single rarity upgrade) or, that you couldn't possibly afford the time to grind arkforge in order to upgrade their rarity up to Oj?

I still have a bunch of promising 'greens' and 'blues', and evenif I have quite a good set of OJs, I don't have any 'perfect' ones, they're just 'nice'...
So far, I didn't feel much concerned about "encrypted" loots, but your post made me wonder, you know, "ninja-cryption, really ???"

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Originally Posted by squidgod2000

You know there was a time when you couldn't upgrade the rarity of items at all and were stuck with what you got.

We survived.

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True, but generally it's perceived much worse if something gets implemented and removed than if it never gets implemented.

No one would have missed the upgrade if they never implemented it, but money got into the way of good judgement and now they're just making it worse.

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Originally Posted by Psyclown

Ok, I just might misunderstand what you really mean, so I'd like a clear answer. I'm not here to discuss about your opinion, I just want facts.
I never tried the test servers, so I don't know if you can keep your character's gear from a previous session or not.

I read something there : Introducing Silicon's Valley encrypted items


So, by "utterly useless", you mean those items were set to "crypted" (so then limited to 1 single rarity upgrade) or, that you couldn't possibly afford the time to grind arkforge in order to upgrade their rarity up to Oj?

I still have a bunch of promising 'greens' and 'blues', and evenif I have quite a good set of OJs, I don't have any 'perfect' ones, they're just 'nice'...
So far, I didn't feel much concerned about "encrypted" loots, but your post made me wonder, you know, "ninja-cryption, really ???"

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Well according to the live stream about 80% of purple drops and 50% of the blue drops will be encrypted when you pick them up
meaning you can never upgrade the rarity. Lockboxes are said to have a higher chance at non encrypted stuff.
Encrypted means no upgrade ever at all.(well or more likely until the inevitable remove encryption arkforge options becomes available)

None encrypted Items will only be able to be upgraded once because they become encrypted after the first rarity upgrade.
You should bring the blues and greens you wanna keep up to epic quality before august 5th.

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Originally Posted by Psyclown

I never tried the test servers, so I don't know if you can keep your character's gear from a previous session or not.

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You can, and most of us who are on PTS have copies of our characters. Not up to date of course, but close.

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Originally Posted by Psyclown

So, by "utterly useless", you mean those items were set to "crypted" (so then limited to 1 single rarity upgrade) or, that you couldn't possibly afford the time to grind arkforge in order to upgrade their rarity up to Oj?

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Any orange item in your inventory becomes encrypted on first login. Any non-orange item becomes a normal unencrypted item. That means that it has one rarity upgrade in them before it becomes encrypted.

In practice that means that with this patch, any purple items and above will be unaffected, while anny white/green/blue items will become trash as they won't ever be orange capable.

Anything you want to potentially ever get to orange needs to be purple by the time this patch hits.

And yes I confirmed this by upgrading a old blue item. It became purple encrypted.

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Originally Posted by Pandur

Well according to the live stream about 80% of purple drops and 50% of the blue drops will be encrypted when you pick them up
meaning you can never upgrade the rarity. Lockboxes are said to have a higher chance at non encrypted stuff.
Encrypted means no upgrade ever at all.(well or more likely until the inevitable remove encryption arkforge options becomes available)

None encrypted Items will only be able to be upgraded once because they become encrypted after the first rarity upgrade.
You should bring the blues and greens you wanna keep up to epic quality before august 5th.

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I would think that this would promote the purchase of lock boxes once again if this is the only real way to get unencrypted guns.

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Originally Posted by Pandur

None encrypted Items will only be able to be upgraded once because they become encrypted after the first rarity upgrade.

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Thanks, that was the piece of info my mind had actually forgotten about... Because that means I will have to make some choices. And forget about some ideas/testing with weps and rolls... So, here we all are finally might be stocking arkforge, even more than before, untill that Dead-line, august 5th...

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Originally Posted by Alexri

You can, and most of us who are on PTS have copies of our characters. Not up to date of course, but close.



Any orange item in your inventory becomes encrypted on first login. Any non-orange item becomes a normal unencrypted item. That means that it has one rarity upgrade in them before it becomes encrypted.

In practice that means that with this patch, any purple items and above will be unaffected, while anny white/green/blue items will become trash as they won't ever be orange capable.

Anything you want to potentially ever get to orange needs to be purple by the time this patch hits.

And yes I confirmed this by upgrading a old blue item. It became purple encrypted.

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I can vouch for this, just been there and ouch...none of our current equipment will be encrypted, but none can be upgraded more than one time.

And the lockboxes sucx big time, most of the items you get are encrypted be them green blue or purple...

As much as the idea of implementing something and then nerfing it into the mud leaves a bad taste in people's mouths. Does anyone really think that upgrading rarity was a good idea? Of course, making oranges so easy to attain in the first place was a bad idea.

The old fart from MMO land in me remembers when purples were epic. I know that wouldn't work in RNG loot grinders like this one. There are terrible oranges in this game, as hard to imagine as that is.

But I can dream, can't I?

What do we spend our arkforge on after the patch?

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Originally Posted by duction

What do we spend our arkforge on after the patch?

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Only very good purples i guess.
Or very good blues that will never be Legendary...

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Originally Posted by duction

What do we spend our arkforge on after the patch?

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Indeed. The next change will be in response to plummeting arkforge sales. So expect something even worse to come.

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Originally Posted by duction

What do we spend our arkforge on after the patch?

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That's the strange part, if ark forge was going to be the cash cow for the game, nerfing it's capability seems counter productive. Even though, as I've previously stated, I'm not a fan of rarity upgrades.

Maybe this is in preparation to launch a new, deep, engaging, and robust weapon customisation system. One based on questing, drops, ark forge and new weapon skins and models.

HAHAHAHA I almost typed that with a straight face.

This will be an hard blow on their AF sales. If they don`t sell now, they wont sell more after this shtako deal.

Instead of doing this, they should have lowerd the drops of AF (like they did) and make the chase harder.
This!? i don`t get it...

Maybe like said above its to pave the way to a new system,

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Originally Posted by Ruinne

That's the strange part, if ark forge was going to be the cash cow for the game, nerfing it's capability seems counter productive. Even though, as I've previously stated, I'm not a fan of rarity upgrades.

Maybe this is in preparation to launch a new, deep, engaging, and robust weapon customisation system. One based on questing, drops, ark forge and new weapon skins and models.

HAHAHAHA I almost typed that with a straight face.

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Cash cow didn't work out, need to find new cash cow is my guess.

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Originally Posted by Pandur

Cash cow didn't work out, need to find new cash cow is my guess.

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Well the arkforge cash cow didn't live for very long at all.

Maybe there will be a new use for keycodes, makes sense for decryption and all. I bet you need the amount of keys equal to the EGO rating of the weapon. Keycode capacity, scrip and salvage boost sales would go up. :p

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Originally Posted by duction

What do we spend our arkforge on after the patch?

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Lockboxes per the livestream will have the highest chance to drop non-encrypted loot.

Hopefully improved also! ;)

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Originally Posted by Marshal Law

Lockboxes per the livestream will have the highest chance to drop non-encrypted loot.

Hopefully improved also! ;)

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Or not...don`t be fooled by smooth words.
I`ve been on the PTS and most of the items from lockboxes are encrypted, and the ones that aren`t just plain suck.

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Originally Posted by Ruinne

Does anyone really think that upgrading rarity was a good idea? Of course, making oranges so easy to attain in the first place was a bad idea.

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I do. I quit Defiance back around DLC 2 and only came back due to rarity upgrades. Playing the game for months and months without seeing any truly good guns was NOT fun. Rarity upgrades provided new life to the game for me by allowing me to mass farm low rarity items, upgrade them, and hope for the best. It was a lot of work to get the good low rarity items and AF for upgrades, and more often than not they didn't get perfect rolls. Eventually I started getting a few unicorns and it felt GREAT.

Now...meh

If they would take the time to fix and remove the broken and functionally useless stats before implementing encryption it wouldn't be so bad.

I am tired of grinding away for hours for garbage. At least with being able to upgrade I had a better chance at finding a decent weapon.

I don't understand how Trick thinks all the stats are fine. When we initially pointed out to them how they broke the shield stats he called us greedy, selfish and we take advantage of players instead of acknowledging the problem.

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Originally Posted by duction

Well the arkforge cash cow didn't live for very long at all.

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they've been trying to milk this cash cow for 2 months now.... turns out it was a bull...lol

Firstly, let us not be overly dramatic about this “Encryption” nonsense. It is a simpleton’s solution to a problem that we players saw coming a mile away. We even tried to bring the problem and a myriad of good, solid, easy-to-implement solutions to the “devs’” attention and were ignored.

This will only affect the Blue, Green, and White (?? Really?) weapons that you were hoping to upgrade because they had good “starter” stats.

All of our Orange gear will now be “Encrypted” and ever so slightly buffed; +3% DMG (which imo, is completely unnecessary as the enemies are way too easy as is.)

Secondly, and far more importantly, I think they’re just setting us up for the real introduction of a new weapon class – black, cyan, magenta, rainbow with glittery sparkles – whatever it is – I am convinced it is on its way.

Think about it – we will all have Legendary weapons that will be Encrypted and thus unable to be raised to whatever new level of rarity they come up with.

And waddya know, just like that they reintroduce the “chase”.

Yep I can see new stuff coming too.

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Originally Posted by Overtkill21

Firstly, let us not be overly dramatic about this “Encryption” nonsense. It is a simpleton’s solution to a problem that we players saw coming a mile away. We even tried to bring the problem and a myriad of good, solid, easy-to-implement solutions to the “devs’” attention and were ignored.

This will only affect the Blue, Green, and White (?? Really?) weapons that you were hoping to upgrade because they had good “starter” stats.

All of our Orange gear will now be “Encrypted” and ever so slightly buffed; +3% DMG (which imo, is completely unnecessary as the enemies are way too easy as is.)

Secondly, and far more importantly, I think they’re just setting us up for the real introduction of a new weapon class – black, cyan, magenta, rainbow with glittery sparkles – whatever it is – I am convinced it is on its way.

Think about it – we will all have Legendary weapons that will be Encrypted and thus unable to be raised to whatever new level of rarity they come up with.

And waddya know, just like that they reintroduce the “chase”.

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I believe this is exactly where they are headed with this! Why else would the Legendaries, already in our inventory, become Encrypted? They are already the highest RARITY that is CURRENTLY available in-game and therefore could not be upgraded anyways. Decryption available for bits only is the next step. My weapons are fine for the next 40 days.

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Originally Posted by MAMGRIZZLY

My weapons are fine for the next 40 days.

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...our destiny wait for us then...

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Originally Posted by Overtkill21

Firstly, let us not be overly dramatic about this “Encryption” nonsense. It is a simpleton’s solution to a problem that we players saw coming a mile away. We even tried to bring the problem and a myriad of good, solid, easy-to-implement solutions to the “devs’” attention and were ignored.

This will only affect the Blue, Green, and White (?? Really?) weapons that you were hoping to upgrade because they had good “starter” stats.

All of our Orange gear will now be “Encrypted” and ever so slightly buffed; +3% DMG (which imo, is completely unnecessary as the enemies are way too easy as is.)

Secondly, and far more importantly, I think they’re just setting us up for the real introduction of a new weapon class – black, cyan, magenta, rainbow with glittery sparkles – whatever it is – I am convinced it is on its way.

Think about it – we will all have Legendary weapons that will be Encrypted and thus unable to be raised to whatever new level of rarity they come up with.

And waddya know, just like that they reintroduce the “chase”.

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Eh at EGO level 5000+ we need stronger enemies before we need better weapons lol.
Oh yeah trion, fix your scaling system......

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Originally Posted by Ruinne

As much as the idea of implementing something and then nerfing it into the mud leaves a bad taste in people's mouths. Does anyone really think that upgrading rarity was a good idea? Of course, making oranges so easy to attain in the first place was a bad idea.

The old fart from MMO land in me remembers when purples were epic. I know that wouldn't work in RNG loot grinders like this one. There are terrible oranges in this game, as hard to imagine as that is.

But I can dream, can't I?

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Actually, I do think it was a good idea Ruinne. I started playing the game when this was already in effect and the idea to upgrade like that makes perfect sense to me. It did have it`s downside though. For it to be 100% effective you need to have the perfect weapon, rolls and synergies to make the weapon worth upgrading to orange. If you didn`t you were just throwing arkforge away like I did myself on my first character because I truly did not understand the upgrade system and imagine trion would pull this kind of trick with arkforge.

Plenty of times I have inspected low ego players to find them having a full legendary loadout and me wondering how much they paid for it and how they will maintain it. I play like a fiend and I still don't have a perfect weapon. I have a few close ones but not worth sinking 500 arkforge into to make it orange, except for one I did just to see what kind of damage difference the weapon would get from going purple to orange.

Since I started playing I have found and received about 20 oranges, perhaps more. But not a single one of them had good rolls on them. I`m talking about getting shotguns with double accuracy rolls along with lobbers and smg`s with reload rolls. All junk not worth investing an arkforge into.

Sorry if this has already been covered. For those on PTS - was it just OJs in your inventory already that became encrypted or did some purples become encrypted? Thanks :)

I'm still fine with this...Though green items being encrypted is pretty dumb. It's just auto scrapped, if it isn't for most people already.

I think a better system would be that Encrypted items let you upgrade to epic quality, but not orange.
It would make greens and blues still useful, but gives you that "chase" you oh so want. lol

Mav, haven't got any natural purples encrypted but I upgraded one double crit blue pulser after 2.200, I got on PTS before 2.200 went live and it becomed encryped. It looked to me like a complete waste of arkforge, even if I got it from the reward PTS code.

Edit: added after 2.200

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Originally Posted by TriGlav 2000

Mav, haven't got any natural purples encrypted but I upgraded one double crit blue pulser, I got on PTS before 2.200 went live and it becomed encryped. It looked to me like a complete waste of arkforge, even if I got it from the reward PTS code.

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They said nothing currently in our inventory besides legandarys would be encrypted. They better fix this but considering this goes live Monday I doubt it.

You have to keep in mind that down the line that synergies and weapons bonuses will be able to be re-rolled.

So when you do get a unencrypted purple gun to make it into a orange, or just a orange gun as is then that's going to have some major value since you will have a top gun that you can shape to be your own.

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Originally Posted by Nefarious

You have to keep in mind that down the line that synergies and weapons bonuses will be able to be re-rolled.

So when you do get a unencrypted purple gun to make it into a orange, or just a orange gun as is then that's going to have some major value since you will have a top gun that you can shape to be your own.

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I wouldn't be surprised if they make it so we can only change ONE roll. OR make it so you can not change any rolls on an Encrypted item.

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Originally Posted by Atticus Batman

I wouldn't be surprised if they make it so we can only change ONE roll. OR make it so you can not change any rolls on an Encrypted item.

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I am sure they will add something to the store so you can purchase the ability to change more rolls if you wish on the gun. For a low low price of 40 dollars! Act now while supplies last.

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Originally Posted by Alexri

There was a time where there was no electricity in the world. People survived.

That doesn't mean that removing electricity from modern day society is a good idea.

Once you introduce something, taking it away will have a very different effect than not putting it in to begin with.

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/thread

Seriously, I was there when you couldn't upgrade rarity or EGO level/ranking of weapons. I managed, but after a long hiatus and I came back to play a couple months ago and realized using AF to upgrade weapons like that. I was ecstatic. Now that this system is severely gimping it if not outright just neutering it? It's a painful realization. My interest to enjoying this game dies bit by bit until that fateful patch day (August 5th right?) when everyone gets screwed over by this asinine change.