Shard drop rate boost with level

First... I love what the incarnate system has done. It's got people playing level 50s. This is our endgame system, and whether you like it or not, you can't argue against the fact that it's very effectively gotten people to play their toons past reaching 50. Now with latest release, you've gotten more people to run 2 of the hardest TF's in the game repeatedly, and put the bar out there far enough for the very rare boost, that I think that while it may taper off from this initial rush, I can image that there will always be many teams forming for the weekly TF at any given time. Nice work.

OK.. my suggestion now. I still see 1 major thing lacking. The difficulty setting. There just isn't a good reward to get people crank up thier difficulty of their missions to the hardest setting yet. In fact, if shards, recipes, and merits are your goal, it is best to have your difficulty setting on even level. My suggestion is this: Increase the shard drop rate for higher level enemies. Have level 51s drop more then 50s... 52s more.. 53..54 most, etc. You can tweak the drop rates however you see fit. The point being, people already choose to run "shard ITFs" instead of "speed ITFs" and other "shard seeking" content. Let's leverage that desire for shards to both inspire people to move thier difficulty setting higher, and also reward those people who do so successfully.

Also, seeing as how eventually there will be no reason to gain more shards (or perhaps that won't happen if you keep using them for future boosts)... perhaps give us a shard vendor who collects shards in exchange for temp powers or recipes... something to keep the cycle going.

Yes, definitely. It shouldn't be limited to shards, either. All drops should occur more with higher-level enemies.

/Signed. Also, t'be quite honest, it's actually more fun. I never really understood the...hmm 'powergamer', for want of a better word, mentality before.

Then we ran a LGT where we ended up cranking it up to +4. And a +3 ITF. It was fun as hell! Nothing, bar nothing, makes you feel more like an actual, honest to god Incarnate than blowing the doors off a mission map and going "Hey guuuuyss! Guess who's heeeeere?!" before promptly tearing the place to shreds.

I still need to run an Apex and Tinmage TF though, heh

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

from my experience poeple who want drops tend to farm at -1 or +0 settings, and with the lvl boost, thats killing green to blue minions, and since all drops are random generator based, more killing = more drops

i do agree though there should be a slightly higher % of drop on stuff at higher difficulty, all i know is that the enemy rank is the only determining factor for drop increases

/signed

Great idea, if they can only implement it easily. I don't think any drop rates key off level so it might require a bit more work. Still, great idea.

/signed

I find little challenge in beating blue minions on TFs set to the lowest level. I'd love something to motivate players into playing in a more challenging way.

I also gave in and dropped down to +0 enemies to speed up my Shard drops. It's definitely strange that I'm getting more rewards for less risk.

/unsigned

I'm for this! Would love to have more people wanting to run +3-4 level TFs.

As it is, I can have difficulty getting people to run +2 ITFs. :/

In absolute terms, a level 20 enemy and level 30 enemy are 10 levels apart. Relative to a level 25 character, that is highly significant. For a level 50 attacking them, they are relatively equal, given how much power a 50 has in comparison to either.

In this game, toons have begun to gain so much power, that there isn't much relative distinction between -1 and +1, particularly for minions and LTs, despite the absolute +2 difference.

This relative difference is a big reason we are seeing so many threads like this one. Players know exactly what they can handle, and they know they can handle higher than even cons with little or no more risk than they can even cons. At that point, the discussion of reward vs risk is rather academic, considering the relative risks are at or nearly equal.

/signed

I have to admit the first time I took one of my 50 (+1) out and did an ITF it was a treat to suddenly see level 50 Elite Bosses conning Yellow like Lieutenants but that wore off fast. I have done a few TFs where the leader upped the Difficulty knowing that more than half the team was 51 levels and it was fun. I did the Apex and Tin Mage TFs after reaching 51 and while it was a little easier it was still fun being vulnerable again.

I disagree with this, and I disagree completely. I do not miss the old days when we were forced to run TFs that conned +4 to everyone else because they were hard-set to a level we didn't have. I do not miss the old days when you'd join a low-level team that someone had cranked up to Invincible with the belief that it meant "phat XP" despite the fact that we died over and over again. And I refuse to run Tin Mage or Apex again because I do not enjoy fighting +4 enemies.

The less incentive there is for people to make things needlessly difficult in the pursuit of rewards (even if they claim it's in the pursuit of "challenge"), the happier I'll be. Making it so people will WANT to run things at +2 +3 and up means I'll just about never team again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

/signed

I also think they should boost the orange and purple recipe drop rate as you boost the difficulty. It would also be nice if occasionally some of the rare incarnate components that you currently have to craft would occasionally drop at the highest level of difficulty.

I think it's important to be careful with things like these. If people start commonly running +4 teams, casual players who place less of an emphasis on min/maxing and more on just having fun will be left out. If people are constantly running -1 because it yields the best rewards, it won't be fun after a while because stuff just dies too fast.

Maybe we should give time for the incarnate system to really take into effect, as people might start running TF's at +1. Same challenge as before but with more prestige/xp/influence, and the casual players don't get left out.