Possible Cortex Overhaul?

[ben1982]

In light of the recent, very successful items overhaul we just received. I would to like to know the chances of a cortex overhaul.
After the balance update, the meta of the game is in a much healthier state than it was before. Every single ship serves a decent purpose , while some ships may still appear lackluster compared to others, the degree to which this is the case is so much lower than it was before.
I wonder if there is any chance on re-balancing cortexes in this regard. Right now it seems that the main "good" cortex is the Asura cortex and the other cortexes arent really all that valuable to have. Even the ifrit cortex is now extremely hard to get value out of since the damage items have been buffed keeping under 30% for long enough and not dying is harder than it was before. Sometimes people will even try to brute force through your yellow graviton if u are under 30%.
But back to the point, other cortexes are underpowered. Eagle Eye serves almost no purpose as there is no practical scenario where you would stand still for 5seconds. The effect being blaster range is certainly good however having extra range does not help when you are a literal sitting duck thanks to the cortex condition. Nephilim Cortex isnt useless by any metric however its certainly a far cry from the versatility of the asura cortex. The issues with nephilim in my opinion are that condition isnt exactly easy to meet - not only u have to be in blaster range of 6 enemies who will shoot at you, u have to stay in range for 5seconds . And the proc only gives +15 repair boost to repair droid only. If you are healing up with an asura active, every 1% of HP is effectively worth 1.33 % HP with the dmg reduction factored in.
I understand that reworking the cortex balancing will be much harder to implement smoothly than reworking items. Cortexes cannot be freely removed or transferred meaning that to change the cortexes on your ships requires you to permanently delete cortexes and this will slow down progress significantly.
I believe in the ideal world, there should be room for customization of cortexes and ideally the restriction on cortex removal will be lessened if not entirely removed. For example, you might be able to get a 100% refund of cortex parts for removing a cortex only 1 time every 2 weeks, and the reason one may consider changing cortexes could be for different scenarios or for trying different tactics. For example if i wanted to try playing more agressively than normal i may be interested in using Asura+Nephilim so i can have better security going into the enemies faces. But if i decided the next week that i wish to play more passively then perhaps I could try using a reworked version of the Eagle Eye cortex so i can hit enemies from behind the front lines. Something like that.
Before i close out i wanted to address some concerns people may have if the cortexes were to be balanced out.
1- Asura Cortex requires missions and level to unlock therefore it should be better than other cortexes-
This logic is flawed as all cortexes require you to be competent in the reactor and cortex parts are won , not grinded. If the asura cortex was transferred to vega without any changes, you still have to beat the same people in order to win the cortex parts. In fact this is a reason why I would advocate for the removal of the SM requirement to unlock the reactor in the first place tbh.
2- Ifrit Cortex is event-gated and I dont want to have to deal with the implications of changing out my ifrits whenever i feel like i want to use something else-
This is very much a problem without a real solution at the moment. I think ideally this would be adressed like i mentioned earlier where the penalty for removing cortexes would either be lessened or removed.
3- I don't want to feel forced to have to compete for other cortexes if they were buffed to suddenly be good like asura is-
Personally i dont think this should be a problem, if giving people advantage for having asura is a thing players are okay with, then it shouldnt bother players all that much if the other cortexes were balanced to be around the same level of value of asura is. I don't think it is healthy for the game if the mindset is "grind the game until i have asura because its the best thing i can have" over "i have X and Y cortex let me see what i can do with it"
4- Reactor runs are so time consuming i dont want to do them if the cortexes are changed-
I suppose this this can only be solved by a reactor overhaul xd , im talking about Phobos and Arkon of course.

Of course none of this matters if a cortex rework isnt in the making. Just thought i would make this post. The item changes have given me hope for the future of the game , at least where balancing and meta is concerned.

 

[Vesperion]

Imo Eagle Eye Cort does have its place but of course is very limited. For PvP i agree Eagle Eye is pretty much useless while for PvE it is rarely required to fly around that much.

The most use can you get from Eagle Eye is against stationary units like Rock; Stun and Cloud turrs cus if you even combine it with a lvl 5 Division drone thise turrs can´t do anything against you while you can take them out from a save distance without taking any dmg.

In case of Reactor runs they are time intense and most players only do them on the last day before the rest. Iirc Ractor runs always took 2 weeks before they concluded for the part distribution and always has the risk that you get no parts if not enough registrations are in and another group snatched your place. I know that a slight overhaul was made in terms of the ranking but the risk is still there.

One possible solution i see here could be something like a weekly mission in the corresponding system we could do and rewards us with X cortex parts like maybe 13 so that it would take in compare to reactor runs also 2 weeks to get the required parts to install the cortex. Players who then still prefer the reactor runs and/or want to try and get additional parts by the ranking can still do so.

Of course this would still benefit mostly the players who love to do reactor runs and invest all the time they can to reach a high ranking all the time but it would help those who simply not like to spend hours upon hours for reactor at all.

 

[Jackal]

You are right, Eagle Eye is useless in almost all scenarios specially if you compare its effect with other Cortex like Asura or Ifrit, so it would be nice if they make it better, but most people won't be interested in changing an item that gets destroyed in the process to install the new upgraded Eagle Eye. I think that's the biggest problem so yes, I would prefer swapable Cortex than what we have right now. Now some ships even have the wrong Cortex installed due to the new changes!

One possible solution i see here could be something like a weekly mission in the corresponding system we could do and rewards us with X cortex parts like maybe 13 so that it would take in compare to reactor runs also 2 weeks to get the required parts to install the cortex. Players who then still prefer the reactor runs and/or want to try and get additional parts by the ranking can still do so.

I don't think giving half of any Cortex for free is a good thing, the weekly mission should be really difficult to not devaluate the effort of other players who actually compete in the reactor.
I would prefer 1 week reactors than 2 week reactors for the normal ones to increase the chances of other players who want to compete, instead of giving Cortex parts as a mission reward.

 

[Vesperion]

One possible solution i see here could be something like a weekly mission in the corresponding system we could do and rewards us with X cortex parts like maybe 13 so that it would take in compare to reactor runs also 2 weeks to get the required parts to install the cortex. Players who then still prefer the reactor runs and/or want to try and get additional parts by the ranking can still do so.

I don't think giving half of any Cortex for free is a good thing, the weekly mission should be really difficult to not devaluate the effort of other players who actually compete in the reactor.
I would prefer 1 week reactors than 2 week reactors for the normal ones to increase the chances of other players who want to compete, instead of giving Cortex parts as a mission reward.

I don´t think that it would devaluate the effort of those who compete in reactor at all cus they would still get more parts in return in compare to those who only do the weekly missions.

In the end those who compete in the reactor challenge can also do the weekly mission so that they could in theory complete 2 cortex items every 2 weeks (if we assume they always take 1st place) so they are still rewarded properly imo.

Of course i´m a bit known of throwing rndm numbers and those can always be adjusted and i simply looked for a number that would fit the 2 week reactor cycle for a full Cort (again assuming you always get 1st place).

It can of course also be just 5 cort parts each week but then it would take 5 weeks for just 1 Cortex to install and not all players are that fond of Reactor runs espacially due of the time you need to burn for it to have a possible chance for geting parts.

In the end i think it would the players more willing to switch a Cortex every now and then if they know they don´t need to spend hours just on one planet and still have to hope to get the parts at the end.

Another option of course would require an change in the Cortex handling so that we could remove them but not get destroyed in the process. Let it cost maybe 250k of Cryonite (cus let´s be honest geting this amount in Siri or TC is no big deal) and treat the Cortex then as item that can be used and installed again in another ship.

 

[Redthorne]

Interesting topic here.

First, about how they work.
It's pretty clear that Asura is way above all the other cortexes, both because its effect is busted and its condition is easily met and very reactive. All other cortexes need their conditions fulfilled for at least 5s before taking effect while Asura (almost) instantly activates when the condition is met. On one hand I'm glad because it means rapid blaster can used to abuse this, on the other hand I feel it's really unfair for other cortexes.
So, the first change I'd like to see would be to have all cortexes be as reactive as asura when conditions are met. Stop for a second to take a shot, boom eagle eye; you're ambushed by 6 ennemies, boom nephilim; you're low and need to turn the tide asap, boom ifrit.

Second, about how we obtain these.
I think it would be good to have rewards based on 2 factors: score and ranking.
Score means that your highest score of the 2 week period will grant a specific amount of parts depending on your score (e.g: reach wave 10 on armene get 5 parts, reach wave 13 get 10 parts, etc...) regardless of ranking.
Ranking means the top squad gets bonus parts for being the best squad (perhaps 10 parts).
With a balancing like W14 completed = 15 parts and 1st squad = 10 parts, you could still obtain 25 parts on a single cycle, but if some other squads are also able to reach W14 but not to beat your score, they still get their 15 parts for their score.

Third, we need more of these!
I'd love to have more options and more creativity for builds. Having only 4 (and currently only 2 really worth) means they are just a straight upgrade to acquire and has 0 room for creativity.
Maybe even have cortexes that offer tradeoffs such as "permanently increases ship speed by X% but decreases armor by Y%"
I'm sure the community has a lot of ideas to pick from

Finally, the inability to remove cortexes without breaking them.
I really wish we could get a system that lets us move cortexes around.
Perhaps do something with Pirate Mode Bounty...?