Weapon power or reaction core power?
I liked that part of the design. That you have to be mindful of how much power each part on your omniframe will cost on the reaction core. I know crafting will play a role in how strong that is... but if that reaction core strength is also connected to the player's progression/level that it makes it interesting to me.
But if the direct power increase is just sent to weapon damage or something then it gets less interesting to me. That's just Shotgun+0 has evolved to Shotgun+1. Just revelant to the shotgun. But an increase to reaction core power is a different story.
Like in the first Amored Core if the player actually ran themselves into debt enough times and way over, the game will give you an internal engine that was essentially a one time permanent +% to any of the swappable mech's engine part. That meant you can bolt on more stuff or movement boost longer than normal. It gave you a slight edge.
Quoting from V.B.
"Unlocking Tiers
There is no leveling in Em-8ER. Instead, advancement is more about
giving the player options than huge power increases. You can develop
your Omniframe’s abilities, weapons and armor as you progress
both individually and as you help advance the world state.
Abilities, weapons, and such are arranged in tiers. Each tier gives
more options and
sometimes more powerful upgrades to craft.
Players unlock tiers by gathering resources and using them to reach
higher tiers up to the maximum. The maximum is determined by
how far the players have progressed in the world goal."
Also this.
"Advanced Crafting
Players can improve their items and tune them after their basic
creation. There are two main aspects that can be tuned. The first is
raw stats, called traits: things such as defense ratings, damage ratings,
and other item specific aspects such as power consumption,
cooldown rates, etc. The second is adding secondary characteristics,
called effects, to items such as procs or secondary effects.
Standard traits are modified directly. Each item will have a number
of traits such as damage and rate of fire or others. Each of these
traits can be increased
up to 50% of their original value. Each trait is
tied to a specific isotope. The overall percentage of improvement of
all traits (combined)
is capped at 50%. If a player improves an item’s
damage by 50%, they cannot improve its other traits such as power
savings or reload rates, for example, but if they were to improve it
by 25%, they would have 25% left to improve among other stats. The
more a player wishes to improve a stat, the more of that isotope is
required.
Effects can be added to many crafted items. Effects can range from
additional effects that fire on critical hits, such as immobilization
or targeted damage, to knock-back effects, or bonuses against
creature types. These effects come in the form of upgrade modules.
Each item has a certain number of upgrade slots available to them.
Modules are created from phased ore and have their own set of
recipes.
Players who do not wish to engage in advanced crafting can
have other players modify their equipment for them, or purchase
modules off of the future player marketplace. There will also crafting
NPCs in the world that can improve items randomly for a price,
sometimes even beyond what players can accomplish."
So if V.B. is still relevant (assuming it is), then there is gonna be a bit of vertical progression, and at the same time isn't.