The real difference between Trial and non-Trial Incarnate Advancement

I agree and I stated so far upthread. However, as Liquid was willing to post specific numbers of earning rates to provide a data point, I was willing to post an alternate set of numbers as a second data point. I tried to provide more playing statistics so that if you wanted to, you could try to factor out some of the randomness. For example, it seems clear the number one random factor in these kinds of comparisons by a huge margin is the number of rares (and very rares) you get, because at least as this methodology goes they are worth a huge amount of threads. Almost 60% of my calculated earning capacity comes from just four rare drops.

It is weird, though, that your friend would get extremely low iXP consistently across many runs. Since iXP, as far as I know, is team-split like all XP is, that would imply that either he always gets on a team that coincidentally is extremely low in damage and is getting bad iXP across the entire team, or he is somehow being excluded from a significant amount of iXP, like if he was constantly being kicked out of trials and spent a lot of time zoning back into them.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

I can't account for all outliers. The only case in which I've ever seen level shift mentioned was on one BAF where the +3s were put on a single team to take care of adds to get the strong and pretty badge. The whole league benefited from that partition, but nobody was excluded from the league.

I imagine Marauder would be proud of the double entendre.

Way too fast. In one good ITF I could unlock an entire Incarnate slot. That's far *faster* than it takes running trials.

I stated in the other two betas that *any* shard to thread conversion was doomed, because there was no way to simultaneously make shard to thread conversion solo-accessible *and* not devalue thread earning and the trials. I consider the latter a deal-breaker, period. That's why I proposed "splinters" as a way to resolve that problem. That suggestion has (what I believe to be) the unique property among all suggestions I've ever read that it autoscales to every team size from solo (1) through eight, and every number in between. Its not a "solo" solution or a "teamed alternative to the trials" its also a duo solution, a four person SG solution, and so on. Because the smaller the team the more splinters each player earns, but conversely the larger the team the more shards each player earns (on average), you could theoretically pick almost *any* scaling ratio and this system could be balanced around it without *any* collateral damage to the reward system anywhere else.

Meaning: if you want solo players to earn rewards 30 times slower than incarnate trial teams, you could set the exchange rate of splinters to stuff extremely low. If you want solo players to earn rewards only four times slower than incarnate trial teams, you could set the exchange rate of splinters to stuff much higher. Since players in full teams would be earning spliters eight times slower than solo players on average, you have a factor of eight to play around with. Tweaking both shards and splinters simultaneously would give you even more latitude, although at this point it might be difficult to tamper with shard conversion ratios.

I'm aware. But even factoring that in, iXP earning rates aren't *bad* and to have consistently low rates requires randomly finding yourself never on that team and always being on BAFs, which is unusual.

Funny, the trials are thus more inclusive than the two incarnate TFs. But then I have long been of the opinion that the alleged hurdle to join an Apex or Tin Mage was like leaping over a paperclip.

How about we panic over that 'atrocity' by the devs when we get to it? Can't we limit ourselves to their current 'atrocities'?
I mean to hear it now, they are absolutely ruining the game, and making it all but unplayable. I should think you'd expect COH to be well and truly buried long before that ever made it to release.

Even better, we get hyperbolic, speculative doomcalling. Of course a +3 level shift in the face of +12 enemies will do exactly diddly squat, but why let facts distract us?

I've seen two different approaches, and they are about equal in frequency. The first is "team 3 kill the adds". I've been on that team sometimes.

The other is "dedicate a melee or two from each team to the adds". Since I play a crab, I don't get that job. I prefer this one anyway really as it is more equitable.

Either way, once you have your slots unlocked it's mostly moot since thread drops are fairly sparse in my experience compared to astral merit conversion.

To me that says nothing of the advancement of actually getting the powers themselves and everything about the speed of iXP between "earning" it and "buying" it. I actually feel like either earning it is too slow, or buying it is too fast. Because I frequently already had a rare power before I even unlocked the slot. In fact I got tired of waiting on Lore because I was getting ~8% per BAF, so I just spent 22-23 threads on finishing it off.

I think that's a separate argument to how fast people should be able to get all the powers themselves.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

I think you missed the first line of my post.

Its what I think is coming. Not the current content but future content gated behind having the abilities gained fom the current content.

I apologize you missed that.

The hardcore players are spending four, five, and even more hours a day grinding out the trials themselves. At that rate, if they focused on ITFs they would have four very rares in a couple of months. I would bet that if that was the *only* way to get those Incarnate powers, you'd see ITF runs around the clock with people aiming to have them all by the end of June, and some crazy lunatic would be finished around April 30th.

I should point out there were hardcore berserkers that had earned so many shards *before* I20 released they were full of rares practically on day one.

Here's a thought. Someone who earns the 50 WST assist badge has done enough WSTs that if they were ITFs they would be 14% of the way to the 360 ITF target. And there are players that put that level of effort in primarily for a badge.

I'm never worried about the hardcore players. They can always take care of themselves. I'm really only concerned about the players that aren't insane (and I've done things like farm Empath when it was still a billion points so my sanity is questionable myself).

I was speaking hypothetically about a possible future scenario. I'm both aware that the new trials aren't to that point yet and there's no proof that we ever will get to that point (I even specifically said that in my post). If you think I'm panicking about something that may not even happen then you're sorely mistaken.

I used Apex/Tin as an example. Right now the new trials are +4 with reduction to a possible +1. Anyone from 50-53 can handle them. Apex/Tin however can scale up to +8. And most 50s can't handle that, and people don't usually get invited to them. If, and I say if as a purely hypothetical point, new trials ever get to that point, people who aren't level shifted probably wouldn't be welcome. If we got to the point where the enemies were 50+12 (or probably 54+8) then players would probably have at least +8 by then. So if you were still 8 level shifts behind, you probably aren't going.

My comment was purely in response to the idea that we could never reach a point where people aren't welcome on a trial team because they don't have enough incarnate stuff. And not some sense of doomsaying.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

You can unlock Interface after one trial if you break everything down and convert it to XP - exactly what the guy doing ITF would be doing. If you stick to making fair comparisons it's not faster at all.

Yes, don't let previous experience in any way be a guide. Just because we've never really seen that sort of behavior in this game (only in initial runs of STF and LRSF before they were figured out) doesn't mean the player base won't morph into a bunch of rabid jagoffs.

Yes, of course. Everyone I've ever played with on my server will suddenly change. Why didn't I see that coming?

At 1:5 assuming you get only six shards per ITF, that's just two ITFs to earn enough stuff to craft a common incarnate power (60 threads). That's at least as fast as the trials. The trials don't overtake shards until you try to slot an uncommon at this ratio, and only because you're highly likely to get an uncommon drop at some point and not have to craft it.

If it was me, my feeling is I would change the one per day conversion from 10:10 to 10:15, and change the unlimited conversion from 10:5 to 10:7. That's assuming the only option I had was to mess with the shard conversion ratio, which I mentioned above I don't think is ideal.

That's fine; the person I was responding to asked a hypothetical about how fast each person thinks the system should be for non-trial runners. My suggestion was 10:50. That's just the opinion of one non-dev though.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

IIRC it was stated by Positron we'll see 4 level shifts total. Any speculation past that flies in the face of evidence. Thus it would be tantamount to doom crying. Hence I wouldn't expect to see any threats which get higher than +5 (maybe +6, but unlikely since the devs prefer to be inclusive).

Honestly, they should just have made those require a filled slot rather than allow the debuff farce. I suppose an emp or bubbler who stealths the whole time might be useful, but that's about it.

This is based on idle speculation which assumes the devs get a completely different design philosophy in the interim. While I suppose it is possible, I consider it highly unlikely.

I hate that badge. I'm a badge hunter, I've got 1214 badges right now, and I will not get that badge. Ever. I can't believe they added it after lowering so many of the other ones.

The only reason I have Empath is because they lowered it.

True. And honestly, even if they despised them, hardcore players willing to do those other kinds of crazy things would still run the trials.

Castle also said that players might not be the only ones level shifted, and Posi has been wrong before. The devs aren't perfect, and not everything is already planned out. I was still speaking hypothetically, only saying it's possible. Because such a scenario effectively already exists.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

If I stick to making precise comparisons instead of just randomly guessing, my *breakdown* thread earning rate in the posted calculations above would have been (on successful runs):

104 threads
88 * 4 threads from astrals
8 * 20 threads from empyreans
1 * 4 threads from commons
21 * 9 threads from uncommons (average)
4 * 22 threads from rares (average)

Total: 897 threads from breakdown That was in 20 successful runs, which is 45 threads per run. That's just enough to unlock Destiny and Lore, and more than enough to unlock Interface and Judgment, but its lower than what you could earn in an above average ITF run, and it assumes someone would psychotically break down a rare component, which would cost 340 threads to make, into the 22 threads it returns as a breakdown. If we're going to do that, we might as well break down NotWs for their five shards and twenty-five threads. You'll be able to do that once per week per character.

But I'll be honest: I don't care if I need them now or not: I'm not breaking down NotWs into five shards. I don't care if I end up with fifty of the things. And if I ever break down a rare drop into 22 threads, I'm immediately petitioning that event as a computer glitch.

He actually never gets on the Adds team, as he is a /cold troller I believe.
Always AV herding.

Well, I do have 7 Notices I'm not doing anything with. But like you I'm hanging onto them.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

I would be surprised to see more than five total shifts (we have three now) and critters higher than (explicit) level 55. I would not be surprised to see critters or encounters with level shift or level shift debuff, although not necessarily static ones. Take that for whatever its worth.

Castle is gone, and was speculating. Positron is in charge of the endgame content. I'll take his word on it.

As for the hypothetical, it's not exactly germane. You are comparing an obvious act of exclusion to content (Apex or Tin Mage without alpha slotted is excluded, and that is merely common sense), to exclusivity on the part of the players.

Again, I really don't think they should have created the debuff playing option for the TFs since it just makes people paranoid about things. A strict limitation of no alpha, no enter, would have been wiser.

Isn't it the same thing?

A) Players don't get invited to Apex/Tin because they chose not to or have not yet gotten the required incarnate object that allows them to reasonably engage the enemies therein.

B) Players don't get invited to (hypothetical future incarnate content) because they chose not to or have not yet gotten the required incarnate object that allows them to reasonably engage the enemies therein.

"I can't handle these +8s because I didn't get my alpha slot yet" is the same thing as "I can't handle these +8s because I didn't get any level shifts yet" isn't it?

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

I wonder if they had level shift on critters if they would make it follow the purple patch (ie the hard wall)? If it did not, then I would consider threats past +5 possible.