Want a Notice of the Well solo? That'll be...

There would be the same constraint of focus on progress versus alts if the devs raised the level cap to 60, especially if they took pains to make sure that it took a lot of active time to progress from 50 to 60.

That's just fundamental in the nature of being an avid alt maker, and has nothing strictly to do with the Incarnate system.

As far as complaint threads like these are concerned, they are equal. Some people hate a challenge.

But like I said earlier about Very Rare items- there should be some people complaining, otherwise they're probably too easy to get.

Getting a rare is not a challenge. A Kahn, LGTF, or Psyche TF is incredibly easy to complete, it just takes awhile. Getting 88 shards isn't "hard", it'll just take you several years.

The word you're looking for is "tedium". Some people hate tedium.

There is nothing in a game like this that players can't reduce to rote, even if it involves something random, like movement to avoid the nanite patches in the Apex TF's Battle Maiden fight. Once you've done anything in a game of this sort more than a few times, doing it again becomes an exercise in repetition.

This game, and basically all MMOs, are balanced around metrics of reward/time, with wiggle room for subjective factors of challenge/annoyance/complexity. For example, something that takes a lot of lead time to organize a group to participate might get more reward than its time to complete might suggest, even including that formation time, because coordination of a large group is often non-trivial.

The point is you're never going to find any reward in an MMO that isn't going to eventually devolve into something that someone somewhere will consider tedious once the novelty wears off.

I think it's just an amount of how many people would find it tedious.

I question the sanity of anyone who thinks grinding for 400 hours for ONE Notice isn't tedious.

400 hours is more time than I have on ANY of my characters.

I believe the 400 hour # came about for the Very Rare [480] from scratch, not the Notice. Which adjusting for that comes out ~ 74hr. Still an exceptional amount of time. And a closer number to the 1 shard/hr rate cited elsewhere in this thread.

Agreed on both that it's for the Very Rare slot and that it's a long time when compared to time from 1 to 50.

You can say that about every single new system they introduce. As a business, the goal is always to bring in more players, since that pays the bills.

I wasn't referring to the Notice buying option on test, tangents tend to get crossed on these long threads. I was discussing the difficulty in creating content that is easy enough to be soloed but tough enough to be considered Incarnate-worthy. The answers I've got so far pretty much come down to "Make it easy enough for me to solo, but others have to team", which isn't very helpful.

As for buying a Notice with shards, I'll stick with my first post in this thread- it's better to start high and adjust down if needed.

Not in a subscription service. Current customers pay the bills, because they are paying recurring charges. A retained customer is exactly the same as a new customer.

That rather widely misses the point that the goal is to bring in more customers. You want to have net gains in customers, not remain static. Realistically, you will never be able to retain the original subscriber base forever - people will leave for a variety of reasons even if they love the game. You want to at least break even over that attrition, and ideally you want to bring in more than you lose.

I don't think anyone is saying that this conversion recipe isn't tedious. It's supposed to be tedious. Since they're, you know, trying to incentivize getting Notices by actually doing the WTF.

There is a difference between encouraging an activity and essentially forcing it by making all the other available options seem nonviable by comparison. Does the current Notice solo conversion method go too far into the "nonviable" area? Perhaps. I am however encouraged that the Devs are at least making the attempt to include as many players as possible in this new end game system. It's an effort I've never seen any developers of any MMO attempt before. I thank them for that.

Some may argue that the solo method HAS to seem totally nonviable for people to team. I honestly call hogwash on that. As has been proven time and again, all they have to do is make the teaming path faster and people will flock to it. How much faster it should be is up to the Devs. I'm sure they'll eventually figure out a balance. They have restored my faith in them just by doing this much.

With all the feedback they've been given, I'm sure they'll make the right decision. If they start to stray too far down the path to CrazyLand (in favor of either direction) then I have no doubt the forums will light up like a Christmas tree all over again and let them know.

As I think the PvP zones (among others) have shown, this approach won't actually get anyone who really doesn't want to do the WTFs to go ahead and do the WTFs anyway.

That's not to say making it significantly easier/faster to acquire via teaming won't encourage teaming, but it'll only encourage it among those who were willing to try either method, and so it's only effective up to a point. The ones who just *hate* teaming (or, hate tfs) won't switch no matter how much carrot you use to draw them to the WTF, nor how much stick you use to drive them from soloing.

e.g. The difference in xp gain between solo and team is enough to encourage teaming among a large proportion (the majority?) of the playerbase, but the rate of xp for a soloer is not so harsh that the soloers get discouraged and unhappy, so there it works out nicely. But if you made soloing take around 50 hours per level, you'd find the dedicated soloers wouldn't all flock to teaming, they'd just quit the game instead.

There comes a point though when you've got everyone that was going to switch to switch, and any further "incentives", especially in the stick area, will just make those who don't want to switch unhappy. In the case of the notices, the massive disparity in time/effort required would appear to be one of those times - anyone who was going to be encouraged to run WTFs would be just as encouraged at much lower levels, so the only added value here is making a portion of the playerbase unhappy.

(in short, I agree with making teaming an easier/faster route, but I think they have gone overboard on just how slow and daunting they've made the soloing route)

I can think of a way to do it that won't take 9 years for soloers and still incentivizes the WST.

Notice of the well total cost=40 shards, 20,000,000. Crafting cooldown=3 weeks. Shared in a way with the cooldown on the WST in that you cannot earn both in that time.

The people who are doing the WST want their stuff NAO. They are not going to suddenly stop doing the WST and earn at a quarter of the pace so they don't have to team. It is garunteed to be slower and there for, only an option for those who want to wait. Aside from that, the WST still gives out bonus XP, badges (badgers want this), double merits. There is alot of incentive to do it.

88=insane. Simply put it's old EQ level horror story insane. I'm talking "spend YEARS grinding". It really isn't an option to expect ANY soloer to play that character solo for 400 hours, more than most of us even have on our main from 1-50 and beyond.

This is a major attitude problem: Some people keep thinking that this is a "stick" and it's not. They're so bothered because the devs aren't specifically catering to them enough that they've lost all perspective on the difference between reward and punishment.

Do you want to know what a "stick" would be? This would be a "stick":

See the difference? I'm so tired of a tiny vocal group of people presenting this new issue as some kind of punishment for them. Under their logic, every single issue would be considered punishment by someone.

Issue 1: To get the Hydra-O enhancements, I have to team up. This is obviously punishing the anti-teamers out there.
Issue 2: Respecs required teaming and completing a trial. Obviously more anti-teamer punishment.
Issue 3: Introduction of Kheldians. Some people had theirs within a day or two, but I'm not a grinder/farmer, so it took me a couple of months to get to level 50. Obviously, this is punishing people who don't grind or farm.
Issue 4: Aka "Colosseum," almost completely centered around PvP. Obviously, this punished everyone who hates PvP and wants no part of it.
Issue 5: Katie Hannon's task force required a team to complete, and the reward was a nifty new witch hat costume piece. Obviously, this is punishing anti-teamers because it was gating collectible items from anyone who refused to run that task force.
Issue 6: Coincided with the release of City of Villains. Take your pick of woes: People who didn't want to pay for the expansion were being punished. People who only wanted to play heroes were being punished. Three new PvP zones, so again, anti-PvPers were being punished. People who had old computers were being punished with the higher requirements to render the Rogue Isles eye candy. Oh, and don't forget--and this was a very heated topic at the time--but villains were being punished because their level cap was 40, compared to the heroes' cap of 50. You can imagine the frustration and angst that arose from hero/villain PvP conflicts. Oh, and the queen mother b**** of all punishments: Enhancement Diversification. *shudders...*
Issue 7: Villain level cap raised to 50. Grandville added. Mayhem missions added. Damn near zero hero content added. Obviously more punishment doled out blue-side.
Issue 8: Veteran rewards added, so now the devs are obviously punishing newbies and people who cancel their accounts for a while when they're not playing. Also, I don't think there were any new missions, task forces, contacts, or arcs added, only stuff like emotes and costume items, and a few QoL features. People who just like running missions were obviously being punished in deference to all of the carebears out there.
Issue 9: Dear people who hate loot systems: Suck it.
Issue 10: Rikti invasions all over the city. Obviously, this was a deliberate effort to make people upgrade their computers to handle the graphics overload and punishment for people who were playing the game on older systems.
Issue 11: Ouroboros flashbacks added. All of you badgers out there who so carefully made sure that you collected everything when you were supposed to and whose massive collection of badges were a source of great pride? Yeah, now any yahoo can get them all by just clicking on a list and running a mission. Especially isolator.
Issue 12: Crap on a stick, a whole set of costume items, the Roman armor set, gated yet again by a required-teaming task force. Why, o why, do you hate us anti-teamers so, devs?
Issue 13: So let me get this straight. We get day job rewards by not playing? Are the devs on drugs? This is obviously punishment for everyone who logs on!
Issue 14: Architect Entertainment is proof final that the devs want us to exploit the game. All of those AE babies and easy AE rewards are obviously a sign that the devs are punishing people for playing regular mission arcs and task forces.
Issue 15: Almost all just content tweaks, more of an "Issue Lite." The devs are so focused on catering to the RPers that they are punishing everyone else with the nothingness that was the rest of this Issue.
Issue 16: Power customization? Obviously punishment for anyone who is susceptible to migraines or epileptic seizures.
Issue 17: So we upgraded our computers to handle City of Villains, then we upgraded them again to handle Rikti invasions and now I can't even run Ultra Mode!?
Issue 18: Going Rogue released. Punishment for people who want to maintain their alignment.
Issue 19: Read all of the posts above.

So much punishment, so little time. I assure you that each and every one of these Issue releases had their detractors. Some of them, I actually agreed with. I'm still sore over one particular aspect of Issue 18; I really do feel that characters who are archeypical heroes or villains--the ones who would die before changing alignment--got screwed, that there should be some reward for maintaining your alignment in a paladin-like manner to compensate for the fact that characters that switched alignment were being exposed to a ton of new content, badges, and other rewards. I argued vehemently for that, just as people are arguing here, and I still feel strongly about it.

However, I never threatened to quit. I never was under the illusion that it was going to be a game-ender, that people were going to be fleeing in droves. I wanted the devs to cater to my play style--having some characters that I know I will refuse have switch sides--and believe me, I got shouted down just like people here on both sides are trying to shout down everyone else. In the end, though, I came to terms that it's something that most people don't care about, something that's likely not going to hit the dev's radar. I don't like it, but I live with it, and I enjoy the other 97% of the game I like.

Needless to say, I never imagined that the devs were trying to punish me, that Issue 18 was a "stick," any more than I believe any of the items listed above were really punishments. That's just silly.

For those of you thinking the devs are punishing you, that this is a "stick" or a "middle finger," please lose the persecution complex. This is a concession, something to give you a viable option (and it is a viable option, contrary to many baseless arguments saying it's not). You really should be grateful, not bitter. I know that if I were a dev reading some of the replies in this thread, I'd be mighty tempted to say, "Okay, fine, since you think we're doing this to spite you, we'll just remove the option."

For everyone else, please realize that all of the sound and fury being expressed in this thread is just par for the course. Every issue has a molehill or two that a few people latch onto and make mountains out of. Believe me, this is beans compared to the brouhaha I've seen over some issues. Life will go on, and the game will be fine. There is and will be no mass exodus, and in six months, it's highly likely that everyone will have completely forgotten about all this little kerfuffle.

The cryptic method? (Hit with sledgehammer repeatedly, then fine tool it.)

I have actually never got a shard solo. Call me a liar or call it bad luck but I've heard others who didn't even know they dropped solo because it never drops for them.

400 hours is too much for either of them. 400 hours should be more close to 51-60 (the rest of the incarnate stuff) total. You've thus made it about 4 times longer than 1-50. I think that's a good start.

From what I've seen, the Cryptic method would be the reverse; start of with literal god-chars, and then nerf them into the dust, while making Bosses ubermench's.

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.

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

It's been mentioned a few times now that this metric was based on 480 shards, not 88. 480 is the number of shards required to create a Very Rare Alpha slot from nothing but shards - what would be required for someone who never runs a TF/SF, trial or raid.

The 400 hour number for that number of shards is based on the measured probability for a boss to drop a shard, and assuming a player defeating one boss per minute, non-stop. Pretty clearly, that's probably a wildly optimistic rate compared to normal play. Other than that wild optimism, unless the probability measurement for bosses is severely off-base, this seems like a reasonable way to come up with a rule of thumb on elapsed time to gather those shards.

The post estimating this was by Leandro (who was involved with if not directly responsible for measuring the drop rates by rank) in this post in the thread.

That's part of the subject not touched on much here. If that 400 hours holds true, that's just for the alpha slot. What happens when the other 9 incarnate levels are released? Does it take 400 hours for each of them or do they take progressively more shards the higher you go?

Do we even know how the other levels are unlocked? Such as do we need a very rare in the previous level to qualify unlocking the next level or is it like a buffet, just pick what you want and unlock it via another ramiel arc.

If it requires the previous level slotted with at least a rare and they all have at least the same amount of shard requirements, getting all 10 incarnate levels would definitely take years using the conversion method (i didn't say solo method since there's nothing stopping a team farming the ITF to use the conversion...with currently known info anyway). I really hope that's not the case.

Actual technical "stick" or not, that's how it is and will be perceived, and most people will react accordingly. You're not going to change attitudes as it's pretty engrained into human nature, so you can either work with/around it, or try to ignore it.

If I were a soloer (I'm not - even if teaming got you the notice 10% slower, I'd still go the teaming route) I'd see the current requirements as a stick in that it's gone so far beyond what I'd look at as a reasonable amount of time/effort that it's now driving me away from trying to achieve it via solo play. It represents a massive amount of grinding which for many players translates to tedium - and tedium is a psychological stick (people usually try to avoid it if they can), even if it's not changing your stats or whatever.