Want to fix the current game state? Make talents crafting compnents!

One of the more beautiful elements the dev team incorporated is the sheer variety of viable gear builds. We have numerous talents and brand sets to play with to fine tune our character to maximize performance based around how we want to play. Unfortunately, in the current game state, the path to this feels a bit unrewarding, and even a little incomplete. One main problem players are finding, is that variety is strangled by minor nuisances like stash space, making it difficult to collect more than one or two specific builds. The other problem is our current path to obtaining desired stats is all achieved through RNG grinding. This has players sinking time farming for rolls, which can start to limit playstyles, prioritizing the fastest ways to collect the largest amount of slag instead of playing how they'd like to.

My proposed solution: Make gear talents be harvestable rare crafting components.

If you break down junk you have a small chance of a talent being saved as a component in addition to the rest of the bits you get, or you can extract a specific component for a material cost at the recal bench. These would retain all their base properties from the gear they came from. I.e. an offense talent, like breadbox, from an ilevel 475 SMG gives you an ilevel 475 component that can only take an offense talent slot on another SMG. This would still leave the current recalibration system in-tact, and allow players to "bank" specifics like they want without mitigating any of the soft caps in the current progression system. Add their own inventory that functions like the gear mods inventory, so trait components you decide you don't want later can still be deconstructed for a diminished return of resources, or sold for coin, but also couldn't be hoarded infinitely.

This would also let players craft gear with specific talents, vastly improving the current crafting system that most players are currently avoiding. Now if you want a Vector with killer/jazz hands/wastically, you simply need to find 3 SMGs with those talents and extract them, then have the corresponding blueprint. Now when you go to construct the weapon, you can either slot up to 3 talents, or allow them to be rolled randomly. Not only would this incentivise players to craft items, but it would also stem the currently approaching gear grind burnout players are going to run into when the only path to viable equipment is farming specific encounters over and over, hoping for the right thing to finally drop. Implementing this gives concrete elements to work towards, so builds can be deliberate and more easily accessible across a wider player base, rather than only allowing for power gamers to min/max simply from volume of time sunk. Having ilevel incorporated into these components would also allow crafting of gear above the workbench's softcap, making crafted gear viable at all levels of gameplay.

This solution solves some of the bigger problems the current end game has. Stash space is cured because trait components have a separate cache. Crafting immediately becomes viable and rewarding. Recalibration becomes voluminously more important and integral, rather than just being a needed nuisance to bump over a soft cap. The end game grind is cured because players are now given multiple pathways to achieving a desired build that's not entirely centered around RNG. Having goals that can be achieved intentionally are much more rewarding, helping cement the longevity of the player base.

This would take quite a bit of revamping to achieve, however I feel it's currently the best option available.