Starforce Rework with low economic impact

xMrMeow

I think the Starforce system's Downranking and Destruction chance is pretty outdated in the modern day. Many players become intimidated/demotivated to upgrade gear, fearing they will end up weaker than when they started, or even completely losing a piece of equipment for a while.

However I fully understand that Starforce is a very powerful system that if changed, could have major effects on the economy and players' rate of progression.

These changes I think would retain the value of items and progression rate that the current system has, however it would remove the Negative Progression aspect from the game:
- Remove Down Ranking in favor of reducing chance to increase rank, as well as increasing cost, similar to what was done with 12-15 Stars, up to 22 Stars (standard stopping point for endgame)
- Replace Destruction Chance with "Damaged" Chance. Damaged Items would still able to be equipped, cubed, and flamed, however they cannot be Starforced without being Repaired. To repair an item, you need to consume a Spare of the item and the average meso cost to get to its rank in the current system. Items at 20 or more Stars can fail to be repaired equal to the current chance to boom them getting to that rank.


For example, if I have a Twilight Mark at 19 Stars and it is Destroyed, with the proposed system it would instead become Damaged. I can still wear and upgrade the item in other ways besides Starforce, however if I want to continue to starforce it, I must consume a spare Twilight Mark + the average meso cost to get it to 19 Stars to repair it.


With these changes, I believe the Economic value of the items would remain the same as the Average Meso Cost to reach each rank would be the same as the current system, and the Average Amount of Items Sunk to reach a certain rank would also be the same.

The main advantage is that players will no longer lose progress when spending meso to attempt an upgrade, and as a result one of the most important upgrade systems in the game becomes a lot more approachable to more casual players as well as players that don't understand the system very well.

Stacona

How I would adjust from this:

~ You no longer star drop on failed attempts at every single star rank all the way to 25 stars.

~ Mesos per attempt stays the same.
~ Success rate is adjusted so that 15-18 is the same, 19-20 is slightly lower, 21-22 is half the success rate.

~ Booming does get changed into breaking, but breaking reduces star rank by -2 stars from where it was at [instead of going down to 12 stars] and you cannot star on the item until you sacrifice the same equip on it to repair the item. Repairing only costs the same equipment, no added mesos cost is needed.
(With no boom-like system, people would freely get to 25 stars with no risk which would introduce way too much power into the game.)
(Can still use broken items.)

~ For non-Reboot worlds, make it where you can have the option to pay a set amount of Spell Traces (based on the star rank and equipment level) to discount the starforce mesos cost by 50%.

iBundance

The average meso cost to get the star level is a bit much but i do support consuming spares to upgrade