SO Upgrade cost

[lemming]

An idea from another thread, but can be it's own suggestion:

 

Instead of the full cost of upgrading SOs,.  if you use that method it would be cost of what you are upgrading minus what the cost is of your existing enhancements.

 

Example: If you're level 22 and you have a level 20 Damage enhancement slotted, the cost currently to bump up to a level 25 is the full cost of 30,000.

 

Instead I suggest we deduct what a 20 would cost (24,000).   So to upgrade from 20 to 25 would be a cost of 6,000.

[Psyonico]

Basically you'd only ever have to pay for an enhancement once that way, which I suspect is not going to happen.

 

You slot a level 5 for the level 5 price, then you upgrade to level 10, but you only pay the difference, then you upgrade to level 15, again only paying the difference, and so on.

 

Basically this would mean you'd only ever pay the price of the highest SO you upgrade to and not have any recurring costs.

[srmalloy]

4 hours ago, lemming said:

Instead I suggest we deduct what a 20 would cost (24,000).   So to upgrade from 20 to 25 would be a cost of 6,000.

No. As others pointed out, this would have you paying only the incremental cost of your SOs forever, so leveling a Damage SO from 5 to 30 would only cost you what the 30 does. If you're going to do something like this, deduct what you can sell the current SO for, which is considerably less than the price you pay for it -- checking just now, buying a level 50 Damage SO costs 60,000 inf, but when you sell it you only get 15,600 for it. You would be spending less money than if you burned unslotters to remove each of the SOs to replace them, then sold the old ones, but you're still paying the incremental cost of the upgrade plus, effectively, 3/4 of the cost of the SO you're replacing. Not as bad as the raw cost of replacing it outright, but you're not getting the 'free ride' you would with your suggestion.

[lemming]

5 hours ago, Psyonico said:

Basically you'd only ever have to pay for an enhancement once that way, which I suspect is not going to happen.

 

You slot a level 5 for the level 5 price, then you upgrade to level 10, but you only pay the difference, then you upgrade to level 15, again only paying the difference, and so on.

 

Basically this would mean you'd only ever pay the price of the highest SO you upgrade to and not have any recurring costs.

Ok, I can see that and is a good point.   Probably then for whatever the replaced SO would sell for to a vendor could be the discount.

[Psyonico]

SOs are a bit of a trap once you hit 22 or 27 (depending on your preference) so I could see *something* changing to make them a little less of a waste.

[lemming]

9 hours ago, Psyonico said:

SOs are a bit of a trap once you hit 22 or 27 (depending on your preference) so I could see *something* changing to make them a little less of a waste.

Yep.   And the upgrade button is tempting, but usually wasteful.   I'm just trying to make it so that it's more viable without being a drain.

[Ghost]

8 minutes ago, lemming said:

Yep.   And the upgrade button is tempting, but usually wasteful.   I'm just trying to make it so that it's more viable without being a drain.

What?!?

That upgrade button is the greatest invention since toilet paper!

 

Now I never have to worry about my enhancements going red smack dab in the middle of a TF

[lemming]

3 hours ago, Ghost said:

What?!?

That upgrade button is the greatest invention since toilet paper!

 

Now I never have to worry about my enhancements going red smack dab in the middle of a TF

That really is the greatest thing about it.  And the convenience is really the only reason for it being an expensive use.  Frankly, it's not a strain on most of the experienced players since they have inf to burn, but for some people it can feed into the being constantly poor.

 

[Ridiculous Girl]

personally i think it is fair... it simply costs what it would cost for the replacement SO, minus the possibility of combination failure.

 

remember the old days? where you had to either buy incrementally SOs and hope they combine correctly? or wait until you could just install new ones, replacing the red/almost obsolete ones? SOs perform better than IO generics, until about lvl 30+, you pay for that performance. if you upgrade often, you are paying even more for that performance.

 

personally, i am a SO convert and prefer that price paid. 🙂

[MTeague]

Admittedly, I do use the Black Market / Wentworth's a lot.  But I think the last time I had trouble massing influence was back in Live, circa 2006.

 

If you have no interest in crafting at all, you may still find it very helpful to post your orange salvage and yellow/orange recipes on the AH. They'll sell well.  If you do not want to use the Auction House period, another option can be (Heresy alert!!) using the "No Xp" button to deliberately delay your levelling, so you can spend more time with your current enhancements before you need to upgrade them. This can let you fit in more story arcs, do more Safeguard / Mayhems, get in more TF's as you're levelling up, as well as letting you pile up the currency.

[srmalloy]

On 6/9/2025 at 11:07 AM, Ridiculous Girl said:

SOs perform better than IO generics, until about lvl 30+, you pay for that performance

And this is exacerbated by making SOs available all the way down to level 2, where you can buy level 5 SOs -- back when you had to start with TOs, then start upgrading to DOs around level 7, level 15 IOs were about as good as the DOs you could slot, and level 20 IOs were better than DOs, which would carry you up to level 22, where you could either go to SOs for the 22-27 range (or even to 32 if you could afford the upgrading) before switching to IOs, which wouldn't need replacing until you started slotting IO sets. Now, IOs below 25 are essentially worthless, because you're so much better off with SOs until 22 or 27 that the first two tiers of IOs are pretty much make-work deadweight for the crafting badges and progress for the 'free' workbench that most people just pay the 10M inf to get it.

[lemming]

On 6/9/2025 at 11:16 AM, MTeague said:

If you have no interest in crafting at all,

This is really just about the SO upgrade cost and since I'm currently doing an SO only char, I did notice the issue.   I can afford it, but there are a few bits that if I wasn't flush, would be more annoying.

 

Where I really see it is if I upgrade to a non divisible by five.   Say I have a level 23 char.  I put a level 25 enh in somewhere, and then remember I want to upgrade all my lower level enh already slotted.  If I hit upgrade, everything goes to level 26 including the brand new level 25.  It would have been cheaper to put a level 20 in there as a placeholder before upgrading.  Or do the upgrade, then slot the 25.

[Ridiculous Girl]

2 hours ago, srmalloy said:

back when you had to start with TOs

if you're feeling nostalgic, you can buy and equip TOs... 😁

[MTeague]

22 minutes ago, Ridiculous Girl said:

if you're feeling nostalgic, you can buy and equip TOs... 😁

if I'm hungry for pain, agony and suffering, I can always do an Ouroborus "No Enhancements" badge. 

[Ridiculous Girl]

10 minutes ago, MTeague said:

if I'm hungry for pain, agony and suffering, I can always do an Ouroborus "No Enhancements" badge. 

taste the nostalgia! 😄

[MTeague]

7 hours ago, Ridiculous Girl said:

taste the nostalgia! 😄

Yup, lol.  I'll still file that under "pain, agony, and suffering." 🤕

[Psyonico]

10 hours ago, lemming said:

Where I really see it is if I upgrade to a non divisible by five.   Say I have a level 23 char.  I put a level 25 enh in somewhere, and then remember I want to upgrade all my lower level enh already slotted.  If I hit upgrade, everything goes to level 26 including the brand new level 25.  It would have been cheaper to put a level 20 in there as a placeholder before upgrading.  Or do the upgrade, then slot the 25.

 

you can still combine enhancements.

 

I don’t slot SOs until level 7, the I upgrade at level 14 when they all become red, that gives me level 17 SOs.  So for my level 16 and 17 slots, I buy level 15 SOs for each slot and upgrade them to 17.  Those last until 21, where I upgrade again, I upgrade a second time at level 21 once I train/slot and that gives me level 24 SOs which I use until 27.

[lemming]

4 hours ago, Psyonico said:

you can still combine enhancements.

Well yes.  Though not in the example I provided (which I may not have clearly labeled as a different slot possibly in a different power)

Like I mentioned, it has to do with the upgrade button and refining it a bit.   It's limited in scope anyway, but it's a simple change request with probably not a huge code modification.  It's just to make it a cost effective method or at least not an overly costly method.   Once you hit the 30s, it's way more cost effective to just use IOs.  And even before, a level 25 IO outperforms a -3 SO. Level 30 IO is better than an +0 SO, level 35 IO is equal to a +2 SO, and a level 40 IO is always better.

 

So, this is just to make the upgrade button not very punishing for being a very convenient way of upgrading existing SOs on a build.

 

update: Apparently, not as simple of a code mod as I thought.  Rethinking how the cost is calculated.

Edited Wednesday at 08:06 PM by lemming
yikes

[Psyonico]

1 hour ago, lemming said:

So, this is just to make the upgrade button not very punishing for being a very convenient way of upgrading existing SOs on a build.

Oh, I know, and in an earlier post I said that SOs feel like a trap and something should be done

[Skyhawke]

On 6/11/2025 at 1:18 AM, Ridiculous Girl said:

if you're feeling nostalgic, you can buy and equip TOs... 😁

 

I did an Ice/Rad Brute like this. TOs til 12, then DOs til 22, SOs from then on with IO sets added where I can. Kept costs down for a good while, but yeah...felt like old times in the power department. Ice Patch is soooo good to keep you alive, though.