Avatea strike target of the week? Your kidding...

Wait wait....I am pretty sure I am not the only one who is confused by all of these threads popping up about the incarnate system, double xp, merits reward, etc. stemming from the original post from Avatea shown below:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=251519

I know if your toon is not level 50 and you have not completed Ramiel Mendel's arc, you will not receive any incarnate shard drop from any level 50+ mobs you kill. How do I know this?? The hard way of course! (grumbles and remembering the LGTF I ran when the new incarnate system first came out)



As I understand it, if a level 50 toon with their alpha unlocked and you do the Sister Psyche TF:

1. You will not receive any incarnate shard drop because the mobs are not level 50+.
2. You will get Notice of Well upon completion.
3. Will we get automatically get double merits since no other shard choices are available for selection like the other TFs (e.g. Hero DNA)?

1. You will not receive any incarnate shard drop.
2. You will get double xp.
3. Will we get double merits automatically since we haven't the alpha arc?
4. Will we get Notice of Well since the toon is not level 50 and has not completed the alpha arc?

I am very glad that they are doing the lower level S/TFs as well. Did people really think that the devs would rotate between the miniscule number of level 50 S/TFs?

So according to those two new letters even non-50 enemies will drop Shards in I20. Problem solved, huh?

Wow. I didn't read that letter yet apparently, that's awesome.

Mmm...

I like the concept of the weekly special TF, but I expected it to be level 50 material TFs not a lowbie Sister TF, that is plainly wrong, especially when there are other level 50 TF material available!

I worked hard to get my incarnate powers, I want to use them!

I am working on more of alts to go up the ladder, so I need to maximize my opportunity to get shards. Frankly Sister is a waste of time from a shard garnering perspective, and its one of the most boring and tedius TFs in the game to boot. Perhaps that is why it was selected over ITF, Apex, and Tin Man which also happens to be co-op TFs.

If a patch that allows to get shards is in the way, Sister as a strike TF should be postponed to "after" the patch is in place! There "are" other level 50 TFs that can and should be done before doing lowbie material.

If the devs noticed the drastic reduction of players doing low level content, and are trying to resurrect these truly not worth doing TFs, they should simply allow shards and materials to be purchased with merits, I would suggest 1 shard for 14 merits each.

Why 1 shard = 14 merits, how do I come with such an offer?

Well ITF is a 26 merit TF, if completed you can get a nictus component. Since a component by the game's built-in own conversion system takes 4 shards to get you any component, since ITF gives you a component then 26 merits should provide you 4 shards. And the calculated cost in merits for a single shard would be 26/4=6.5 or 7 merits per shard. But this value is not a fair one, for you are not getting 4 shards you could do anything you want with, its kinda pre-set. So frankly the value should be between 1 and 4 shards, say 2 for fairness. Thus 26/2=13 merits per shard.

A second benchmark, Hami raid, it yields 4 shards or 56 merits, since these are 4 true shards, the cost should be 56/4=14 merits.

Now you know how I figured 14 merits buys one shard.

Another conversion since an Alignment Merit is roughly worth 125 merits, it should convert to 125 merits/14 per shard = 8.92 or 9 Shards per A-merit.

Hugs

Stormy

The only thing I am concerned about is when the do a TF that doesn't match up with a SF like Positron (10-15), Manticore(30-35), Doc Q (40-44). I agree with the sentiment that WSTs are not just for Incarnates. In fact, it is my personal belief that WSTs are not built for Incarnates, but as a way for players to find teams since they give players incentives to do a particular TF. There will be other methods of getting Notice of the Wells that have nothing to do with WSTs. Every player could get benefit out of them and spacing the low level TFs with the high level ones satisfies most people that are interested in them. After all, it might take 4 weeks to currently make a very rare alpha, but only 4 days for collecting the rare and very rare components when I20 goes live assuming that the Incarnate Trials drop Notices and are able to be done once a day.

I ran my lvl-45 Scrapper on a Kahn TF last night (this weeks WST) as a end bonus I earned over 1.5 Million exp, a half level. It was awesome.

However, It would be interesting to me to be able to data mines this weeks player activity to see how many Kahn TFs vs how many Barracuda SF's were run, the average times spent and the number of failed attempts at both.
As a player who tends to run redside more than blue, I was very disappointed with the unevenness of these 2 Choices, sure they are more or less the same story told from both sides, but the Kahn can easily run in half to 1/4 the time and is worth more merits, Plus the fact that in the Cuda SF, without a Mastermind or redside Defender on the team it is basically unwinable do to Reichmans untouchable power kicking in when he hits 50%.
So, I was both happy and sad this week over the same thing.

Mmm...

I will make a stand and simply say I oppose Sister and lowbie TFs being part of WST.

I understand that, maybe, just maybe, WST is not only about Incarnate; and in fact it may be only a temporary measure to acquire notices of the well until I20 kicks in.

But as of now, Notices of the Well is a key ingredient for level 50s progessing through out the incanate system, and they can only be acquired via the WST.

Now we can play coy all we want, but lets face some obvious observables:

1. Level 50s progressing in the incarnate system: Needs Notices of the Wells.
2. Level 50s progressing in the incarnate system: Needs lots of shards, and I mean lots!

Why would a level 50 intent in doing the new incarnate material, have any interest in doing lowbie material?

Again we can play coy in this and come up with some lame excuses, but frankly, there is no good reason to do this from an incarnate progression perspective. Today with my 36 level 50 alts, I have no use for low level material, I need shards, shards, shards, and more shards.

As Wendy said, if we take a level 50 incarnate minded player and force him into Sister, what you think that player is gonna do?

"Duh, lets kill all mobs, because some whinny lowbie wants exp"

No, they are going to device and practice the most expedient way to complete a very boring TF to get the only thing of value from it: Notice of the well.

I have expressed my concern in other threads about mixing 50s with lowbies in TFs, and the week of Sis its going to get very very ugly.

The problem is that 2 very different set of goal minded people are going to collide head to head, I predict lasting enmities between players is going to occur from this.

What are the 2 main set of goal minded people?

The first, the obvious, lowbies using the TF to get exp and level. To these folk, nothing but a kill all mobs would be acceptable, plain an simple.

The second, and just as obvious, are level 50s hunting for Notices. To this folk, doing anything beyond what minimally is needed would be unacceptable.

Now I do point the finger at the developers for being "irresponsible" enough to set a clear situation "Sister TF" where these two frames of mind are guaranteed to collide.

Sheesh, and I thought this game was about having fun...

Stormy

Ps: Fortunately by the time Sister comes around I would have accumulated sufficient notices, to not need to bother with Sister at all! After all I need to gain lots of shards from 50s content. Frankly, Sister is plainly a 100% waste of time. Incidentally, does Sister drop any decent recipes? Certainly no chance for purples...