Incarnate rewards based on participation?

I got that awful 10 threads table again last night. Still feels like 25-33% of the time.

I think, as usual, Arcana is probably right that participation affects the weighting of your reward. I do not believe any longer that the reward table is very random. My Scrappers hardly ever see a common drop and both got a rare or very rare on the first try. My Cold/Ice Defender does pretty well, but again I think that has to do with tossing around raid powers all the time.

My thinking currently is that the game expects you to be hitting stuff. Hitting lots of stuff seems to push you up a tier where rares aren't so rare and uncommons drop like trash loot. I don't believe that it has much if anything to do with damage. Again my Cold/Ice doesn't do a lot of damage, but she's always tickling mobs with Sleet and Ice Storm and she's done well for only doing a few trials.

I intially thought you were all crazy. But I have noticed the following.

I had great luck at first on my scrapper. 3 rares my first three BAF completions. After that I am mostly common, with a few uncommon, and 1 rare since.

I started getting added to the boss takeout teams on BAF and my luck has gone down, but I have NEVER in 20+ league wins EVER got the thread only table. My luck has never been good on Lamda because I suck at the sabotage phase. But again, no thread only.

Then I try to start my Fire/kin on the trails, and the first two runs i got the thread only. Too low of numbers to be sure, but I think this warrants further study.

i havent really been taking a record but over the initial week i did trials on my cold/dark defender and about 7-9 days of playing netted me all 5 slots with t3 or better and i started from only uncommon in alpha because i was inactive since new years. this toon also has an excess of about 20 uncommons(5 of each), 5 or so rares, and 2-3 very rares. I never converted empyrian merits so i have like 8 or 9 but i converted all my astrals to craft commons because i never received anything lower than uncommon. i died maybe 3 times total in all of the trial runs that week.

this toon has sleet practically on auto cast(if it was possible) and i spam my only aoe, tenebrous tentacles, on almost every encounter, also i was contributing holds with my psi app dominate. i also buff frequently, both shields and frostwork, unless the team has alot of buffers already, in which case i at least buff the buffers and the damage sponge.

recently i did a run with a partially io slotted elec/mental blaster with all his aoes and got my 1st common after doing a lambda where i died alot(3-5 times). i had lots of kills and used drain psyche every chance i got if you count that as a debuff.

i think eventually i may start doing more on the blaster but if the conditions for better drops are found to be something he cant contribute then i may just move on to another character that can.

Here's some data. I haven't been able to analyze every single run yet, these just happen to be the easiest to analyze. I can always tell when a Lambda starts and stops in my logs because it begins with identifiable caption dialog and always more or less ends with identifiable NPC dialog. That's not true for BAF: under certain circumstances there's no obvious key to when the trial ends and I have to find it manually.

I looked at two things: the amount of influence I earned in each trial if it completed successfully, and how long it took. I thought influence would be a good proxy for "activity" although its possible it is not for various reasons. Time obviously is also a measure of activity, but I assumed it would be a relatively weak one.

Here are all my analyzed Lambdas (note this is more than one character) showing the amount of influence earned in the trial, the drop type at the end, and the amount of time in seconds the trial took. Its sorted in descending order by amount of inf:

4415496    Uncommon    2031
3598879    Rare              3131
3284811    Uncommon    1722
3237665    Rare              3200
3031409    Uncommon    1655
3017308    Uncommon    2127
2933331    Uncommon    2176
2862601    Common         1426
2834413    Uncommon    2228
2750277    Common        1545
2382199    Rare              2731
2329301    Common        1756
2108716    Uncommon    1665

3237665    Rare              3200
3598879    Rare               3131
2382199    Rare              2731
2834413    Uncommon    2228
2933331    Uncommon    2176
3017308    Uncommon    2127
4415496    Uncommon    2031
2329301    Common        1756
3284811    Uncommon    1722
2108716    Uncommon    1665
3031409    Uncommon    1655
2750277    Common        1545
2862601    Common        1426

1755557    Uncommon    931
1507753    Uncommon    1062
1419276    Uncommon    984
1394623    Rare              1131
1227456    Uncommon    1277
973721    Rare              1231
864894    Uncommon    996
856045    Rare              990

1227456    Uncommon    1277
973721    Rare              1231
1394623    Rare               1131
1507753    Uncommon    1062
864894    Uncommon    996
856045    Rare              990
1419276    Uncommon    984
1755557    Uncommon    931

It may not be time per say that is monitored, but time effects your play. The longer it takes the more monotinous the play becomes. This could cause your actions to slow and falter some. This may effect the overall results.

Here's another thread: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=258115

The annecdotal evidence here is that sets that rely relatively little on directly affecting mobs are most likely to get the lower tier tables. Sets that DO directly affect mobs end up nosing toward the better tables.

I couldn't bring myself to do it on a couple BAFs I led this morning (note: if /I/ can lead a BAF, freakin' anyone can), but I have a theory ...

A MM spamming Brawl will score better than a MM spamming pets.

Directly debuffing a mob's HP seems to be better than using pets. I.e., my trapper can solo doors, mostly with T3 Lore and heavily-procced Caltrops, Poison Trap, and Acid Mortar. That is a solid amount of inf and drops, but it doesn't neatly correspond with a good table at the end.

Further ... my f/f/f dom (alpha-shifted) got the rare table five times in a row (and one time a very rare) the first 6 times she ran BAF. I.e., she was fighting +3s /and missing/. She was teamed with people hitting more often AND doing more damage, but they got the bottom 3 tables. I, however, was madly mashing buttons because f/f/f has some /very/ fast animations.

I think it's just a question of activating mob-affecting powers. I.e., a fire / fire tanker might be able to get a decent table door-sitting spamming PBAoEs. My guess would be common since the animation times for fire / fire are long-ish.

I have no conjectures about buffs 'cause I don't have the intestinal fortitude to Incarnate-out my 50 bubbler and kin.

Or maybe a longer trial gives you more time to 'participate.' Especially if the metric is number of times powers have been activated. That would be a real kicker for the folks who are trying to speed through the trials.

I can only hope this isn't true and I just have absolutely horrible luck. Because if it is and the reason I've only ever seen the common and uncommon table on my SS/Nrg brute is because I tend to be the league leader and don't have a lot of AoE powers I will be miffed.

I've actually all but given up on T4, I've never seen a rare or a very rare table and the crafting cost is prohibitively expensive or requires a lot of effort on empyrean merits.

Now I want to try burning through these on my fire/kin/earth troller or my earth/fire/fire dom and see if my drop rates/luck is different.

There's a long way to go before we have a good grasp of this, but the "smoking gun" data aligned with anecdotes about things like leadership activities point down a path I consider dank and unpleasant.

If the devs have constructed such an activity-based metric, and were so terribly idiotic to fail to realize that it demotes reward for people who spend time leading via channel text rather than button mashing, I will be incredibly annoyed at our devs. I would rather permit leeches than dissuade leaders or punish people who have builds that don't call for frenetic power spamming.

Bearing in mind that we don't have proof yet, I don't like the look of this at all.

I got a few good tables the first two days I ran. (Only running one tanker). Ever since then, and I run a LOT of trials, I feel like Charlie Brown. I look down in my sack and all I see is a rock. It's going to takee a lot of rocks to tier 4 my abilities, and that is frustrating. I mean, to craft an exotic Isotope is 100 threads, plus 5 common (basically another 100 threads) plus 100 mil. I need two of those. And that is just a little of what I need to get where I am going. Yet everytime I finish a trial....common, or uncommon maybe/sometimes. Gets old fast. How many trials do you have to do to get a rare? Just tell me. If it is based on "Adding value to the team" i know I am not the best tank out there, but I work hard to be. But I add squat damage and little buffs to my team. I am built to tank, even my Incarnate abilities buff teammates and debuff enemies rather than go for damage exclusively. So, if they base it on how much damage you add or something like that, it explains the commons non stop.

Meh complaining more won't help.


Huntsman gets Rare/V.rare like rain.
Trapper gets commons and Booby Prizes only.