I do want the same thing you do as it would really enable more gear to be crafted and all of that business that I've described at some point- more radiant fire crystals, but why hide them behind a recipe? Why not just petition for them to be cheaper in the depot and more common in the arcade?

Regarding your points, many of which are fair-

Introducing a new recipe like this isn't an easy decision at all. These kinds of recipes must be meticulously planned out or they won't work well at all- that in itself requires work. The drop rates must also be planned in the same manner, but are at least more straightforward than theorycrafting about these kinds of prices.

Having an overabundance isn't necessarily a reason to get rid of a currency. I have an over abundance of ecto drops- why can't I exchange those for fire crystals? Because it's apples to oranges, and the way ecto drops are earned conflicts with the way fire crystals are found. This is even more apparent when it comes to fire crystals. Radiant fire crystals are found at the end of the clockworks, and are an end-game currency. The other fire crystals are found before this point- allowing players to skip out on end-game content is detrimental to providing them a reason for farming those end game areas, just as allowing players to trade between jelly gems and crests of Almire would be disastrous.

The energy market is highly regulated by the developers. Whenever it starts to look truly gruesome, they step in and do something like introduce a crown sink or sell energy for a cheaper price. This guarantees that the prices will never be 100% out of reach.

Rather than exchange everything ever...

What I am suggesting instead is just making them common (a good 95% drop rate) starting at D25 and available at D24 (around 50% drop rate), so that players can craft an unprecedented amount of gear. I think that this would really benefit endgame players and make the game much more enjoyable overall.

SEGA can try to rely on gear crafting and radiant fire crystal buying, but in the end I fear that it costs them more than it's worth and I think that they should too. They could lower the prices on radiant fire crystals (and other crystals) in the depot to add incentive to buy those kinds of things. If I craft 2 sets and buy half the radiant fire crystals, that's the same as buying 20 sets at 1/10 the price and worse than buying 100 sets at 1/20 the price. Even if that fails, the endgame still has unique variants to absorb a monumental amount of crowns that can be purchased with energy, and that benefits hugely from having players craft those hundred sets.

"Note: No, I will not move this thread to the cesspool otherwise known as the Suggestions sub-forum. I feel that my idea would attract more attention here, and since it would apply to and benefit a lot of players, such attention is warranted."

Glad to know you are special. Since you think you are special, I will give my classic "this is a horrible suggestion" review.

"Bottom line is that radiants are not readily available"

Factually wrong. They are readily available in the supply depot and fairly common on depths 26+. Rare on depth 25. The only crystal that can drop on depth 30 [shadow lairs].

"1. Introducing a new recipe is much, much easier than altering loot drop tables."

Factually wrong. They've edited the tables quite easily before. The difficult is that fine line of "balancing". The recipe that you suggest is not exempt from this "balancing" requirement. What makes you think that your recipe costs are balanced?

"2. Many end-gamers have an over-abundance of lower starred fire crystals. Since (bound) fire crystals are unable to be traded or vendored, this provides a means by which to consume them (other than forging)."

Fun fact: If you only play on elite, you never get cracked fire crystals in the arcade. I found this out when I was heating and testing 0* weapons and promptly ran out. When you say "lower starred fire crystals", you mean shining fire crystals.

"3. Players do not feel constrained to play T3 (and specifically FSC) all the time, because they can now play lower tiers, collect lower level fire crystals and STILL progress their 5* equipment."

They already can with the supply depot purchasing of radiant fire crystals. It isn't as time efficient as going to depth 26-28, but if you want to argue that... refer to my comments on #6.

"4. Defender Elites, who do not have easy access to S6, can now obtain radiants to upgrade their 5* equipment (provided this recipe is not a mission reward and is made available to everyone)."

Fun fact, S5 with a 4*/unheated 5* weapon is logistically [eg: monsters die faster due to the damage of weapons vs hp of enemies] easier than S4 with 3* weapons. Using 3* weapons in T3 is pretty bad. Of course a defender elite probably has at least 1 set of 5* since you need that to get the rank.

"5. Obtaining radiants via monetary means is independent of the energy market (which is effectively monopolised by a super-rich minority)."

I'll give you this one. But if you are removing the uses for energy, what can energy be used for? Right now it is restricted to purchasing extra rarities [crafting/heating/SoLs], saving time on crafting weapons/armor [but wasting money], and the occasional supply depot sale [super rich merchers].

"6. Obtaining radiants does not involve a minimum 20 minute time investment to travel down to d26 (which is more feasible for casual players)."

So instead of 20 minutes to get to D26, you need an extra 90 minutes to gather all the variety of fire crystals and crown cost.

i saw this recipe yesterday and i was asking myself "really would worth the time faming those 3 radiants? how much time will take?" at first i imagine would take so much time compared with a T3 Run Arcade what least could net me between 3 rads to 21 rads with the plus of the cr earned trough the run, or do a another boerd run to vanaboring but at least could be again 12-24 rads plus cr.

so in order to get just let say 30 rads i should play like....90 or 120 minutes of the games to craft them it just plain...wrong, i would wasting my time and wasting crown just to craft 30 rads while in those minutes i would have made around 30-120 rads and not only that, i would earn more crowns which can be used to get energy and buy them from supply depot or just plain buying them from AH.

Honestly? i dont support this recipe it just plain wrong and waste of time and resources. i much prefeer rads start dropping at depth 24 and 25 with 50% chance to drop and 100% chance to drop in 26 to 28 rather to trying to collect all the items to craft just 3 radiants that will take too much time that would be used to get more radiants (more than 3).

Dim and cracked fire crystals, really?
They're at vatel, how do you not know that?

"You may consider the current state (aka moderate radiant drought) fair,"

I direct you back to the exact wording of my comment: "as fair as it was before the forge update".

You might wanna check out the second post in my suggestion from over half a year ago here. Stating why suggestions like these don't address entire issue gets repetitive.

Really nothing short of just removing the forge system would be an actual "solution" in my eyes. I wouldn't want a recipe, however...

"they're in the supply depo!"

"being able to get half the crystals you need to level one 5* item once from FSC counts as 'readily available' to me!"

Are you serious? Have you ever seriously bought fire crystals from the supply depo? Do you know how much CE would be sunk if the majority of this games population used that to level their 5* items? You think combining random dropping with grinding is a good idea? You don't need to be a psychic to see that you literally have 0 reason to defend the forge system, or even the need for heat in general aside from forcing players to bind items for leveling.

Why would give the whole "don't use terms like 'readily available,' give me the numbers" talk, then do a full turnaround and use equally subjective terms like "fair" and "too easy" ? Why do you even trust your data when OOO clearly isn't above manipulating? I mean look at the prize wheel; how often are you one off of a lockbox? How often do you get one? A little misrepresentation on OOO's part, don't you say? Hell, I really wouldn't even be slightly surprised if OOO altered drop rates on stuff like orbs for people waiting to get through the HoH. The forge system hurts every single player in the game.

The current rate at which radiant crystals drop is entirely unreasonable. Both fire crystals and alchemy orbs are obtained by the same means, and will be used up while upgrading the same gear, but you receive too few radiant fire crystals compared the amount of eternal orbs you can obtain. If a player uses up all of the eternal orbs they obtain, they will inevitably end up with a supply of 5* gear they have no hope of heating to level 10. I think that the drop rates of heat crystals and alchemy orbs should be balanced so that a player can reasonably get enough crystals to heat all of the gear they can craft. No other star level seems to have this problem. If there was more than one thing to do with these two resources, it would be okay if they weren't obtained at approximately the same rate, but both fire crystals and alchemy orbs have only one use.

Buying fire crystals from the supply depot is just a joke. They're expensive to an absurd degree. Are you going to pay 700 energy for enough radiants to level a single item one time?

I like the idea of changing fire crystals from a set of separate resources for each star level into a single resource; it would prevent players from building a stockpile of useless lower level fire crystals while at the same time being desperate for a higher level fire crystal, and also help to remove the incentive for players to play the same levels over and over for a certain type of heat crystal. Being able to gain useful crystals no matter what you choose to run would help improve the variety of gameplay, i think. Maybe the same could be done with alchemy orbs? (That would be sort of what it was like before alchemy orbs were added, i guess, since all tiers just used different amounts of energy.)

Buying rads from the supply depot has not once crossed my mind, after I saw the cost (though this is the item I most need to progress).

It would be nice if the balance was shifted a bit (I have 1.5k shinings, which is steadily growing, regardless of the fact that I regularly heat 4* items).

Or, maybe the problem here is forge costs. For each tier of gear, both the quality AND quantity of fire crystals increases - this doesn't make sense to me (I can understand either option on its own, but not both at once)! Also, the quantity increase is massive (3* -> 4* is 2x, and 4* -> 5* is 1.5x).

I posted something about this a short while back, and the general response I received was that the imbalances were designed to funnel users towards the supply depot (I have the same rarity problem with 4* alchemy orbs).

most people only have a limited supply of heat crystals.
(warning, excessive rounding incoming)
I for example have about 1.6k shining, 1.2k glowing and 800 warm.
according to your recipe, I could only make 159 rads before I had to get more. that would cost about 42kcr.
after making the 159 rads, I would have about 1.4k shining, 700 glowing and no warm.
I could of course go farm them, but that would mean I need to do stratum 2 and 3, which pay relatively badly.
I could also downcraft the glowing to warm. to get the most out of the glowing I have left, I need to get them into a 2:3 ratio.
this means I have 1.4k shining, about 369 glowing and about 550 warm. crafting them took 10cr each, so 5.5kcr.
now to craft radiants. I can make 37 sets, or 111 radiants. this costs about 30k and leaves me with 1.2k shining.
I already spent 80k, used up all my lower fire crystals and still dont have enough to heat one weapon.
so I will now turn all my shinings into radiants by downgrading them. there is a good chance I messed up my calculation, so excuse me for that.
the perfect ratio would be 1:2:3. the ratio of crafting is 3:5 for shining to glowing and 3:5*3:5 or 9:25 for shining to warm.
so the optimum ratio, when crafting from shining, would be 25:30:27. to be generous, I will just say that I have enough to multiply all by 15.
so I have 375 shining to be used raw, 450 shining to be turned to glowing and 405 shining to be turned into warm.
the first one doesnt cost anything, the second costs 200/3 per shining, the third costs 200/3 per to turn them into glowing, then 50/3 to turn those into warm.
so the total cost is 30k+27k+11k.
then I make 75 sets of radiants (or 225 rads) for 60k.
I just burned up all my fire crystals to make just a little over what is needed to heat one weapon. it also cost me over 200kcr.

I need this, I can't run vana over and over just to get what, 20 rads per run?

admins plz make a rcipe i have literally TWO rads ive been playing for 3 years

TL;DR I agree rads need a solution. The rad drought is better after they dropped it another depth, but it could still use some help. With a little tweaking it could even be a boon for the game.

I accept that newer players need the D26 rad limit so that they have enough depths to earn shinings. But that does push 5* heating into a very awkward place.

I like the idea of alternative methods of earning Rads. I wouldn't mind turning (mats, shinings, whatever) into Rads somehow.
I definitely think that the cost should require Cr and NOT CE or any CE purchasable components (like other rarities); the game needs more Cr sinks for post-game players.
Removing more Cr from the economy would lower the CE price as well as benefit OOO.

ALTERNATE IDEAS:
= A recipe would be OK, as long as the cost and mat requirements were reasonable. Not the best plan though.
= Maybe distribute rads via content--prizes at an in-game casino, perhaps? Or trading Winterfest tokens for them?
= Here's a thought: a daily mission that appears only for Champions--instead of prestiege it gives rads (Donate 200 Bronze Bolts and you'll get 15 rads. Donate five Jelly Shields and you'll get 50 rads--no 5* gear donations, that was a stupid idea for prestiege). Just once a day.
= Do it like a pet food machine with lots of options. Feed three 4* mats into a machine, give it 500cr, get 3 rads; OR feed five 3* mats into a machine and give it 1000cr, get 5 rads; OR feed 20 2* mats into a machine, give it 5000cr, get 8 rads. Something like that.
= How about a new NPC in Haven who gives you tasks to complete--NPC says, "go from D23 to the core without dying and I'll give you 20 rads." "Complete the 'Chittering Burrows' level on Depth 25 and I'll give you 10 rads." "Help a Defender Elite complete The Gauntlet mission and I'll give you 15 rads." (Coding: use the code for the "achievement" system for this task monitoring)

I know my ideas aren't all practical. They would all take a moderate to high amount of dev time.
I agree Rads need help. But let's consider options that would add a bit more to the game.
--Cheshireccat

I like the NPC task giver for rads, but what OOO could also do is make it to where rads can drop still in depths 23-28, and keep shining spawns in this area as well, glowing crystals drop where warm crystals would, so they can do the same for rads and shining.

Glowing fire crystals also drop in t3

Yeah, I think Cheshireccats ideas would work better than a recipe, it also seems the NPC could help bring back arcade runs