Incarnate rewards based on participation?

If you crash on a trial does your participation status get reset?

I ask because I crashed earlier and came back just before final fight with marauder and all I got was 10 threads?

I posted this in the other thread, but I think it bears repeating here.

Is there a program that can tell the difference between a character that is doing nothing, and one that is standing around because he or she was instructed to do that by the team? If the answer is "no" you've just run into why this system is fundamentally flawed. You cannot reward "teamwork" by providing incentives to individuals. Individual incentives conflict with team directives by definition.

This system isn't just not working, it's arrogant. I don't mean that as insult to the developers, because I think it was developed with the best of intentions. But it needs to be understood that when you tell a player that he or she only got such and so reward because of his or her "average" performance, there needs to be a way to back that up. What is that I am doing with my Dominator that pegs me as worthy of Uncommons and Rares but not Very Rares? Is it luck? Am I getting screwed by other teammates gaming the system? Is the leader in on it or is it accidental? What can I do to be more likely to get a Very Rare? Not only do I know know the answer to these questions, IMO it is harmful to the game that I should ever even have to consider them. My teams succeeded at that the trials. That is what I should be worried about.

In short, this system discourages actual teamwork and encourages a strategy of trying to game the mechanics by identifying the technical checkmarks. Specifically, it encourages people to blow spawns away before teammates can get to them out of fear they'll do the same and rob you of your rewards. When your teammates are your "frenemies" teamwork naturally suffers. The results are exactly the same as if the Statesman Task Force only gave merits to people who helped kill the towers. It's arbitrary and cannot possibly work. Ever.

In the end this system can only go two ways: screwing people it shouldn't, or being so inconsequential that it may as well not exist. As for being able to "balance" it for every single powerset combination and archetype, I don't just doubt that is possible, I think it's worthless to try. All of the effort spent doing that could be spent making the powersets and archetypes themselves equally powerful across the board, which we all know will probably never happen--in this game or in any game--not because it's an unworthy goal but because it is unrealistic.

Another anecdote to stack onto the growing pile... which may eventually become data:

Ran a few trials today begrudgingly:

That MA/Inv scrapper that's been having bum luck on 50+ trials? Two more commons. (still no drops above an uncommon on her)

That ill/storm that's gotten great luck thus far? Another rare (his 5th) and an uncommon.

The randomness is getting to be predictable. I feel like I know which character I can run if I want a rare. Something ain't right with this system.

It feels like Tankers are kind of getting screwed by this, we have no buffs/debuffs and we have crappy single target damage.

Please, for the love of all that's holy Paragon Studios, remove the participation element and just make it fully random. Atleast keep a minimum level of partcipation like suggested to weed out leechers but lordy don't make the end table result based on it.

I started playing my dark melee/willpower brute in the Incarnate trials today. These were my reward tables:

2 Uncommon
5 Rare
1 Very Rare

And I managed to score three Empyrean merits, but no Master of BAF badge (which some people seem to think gives you an extra Empyrean merit). Shadow Punch/Smite/Boxing were the powers I used the most--and boy, do they recharge fast!

Lambda trial was incredibly laggy and I crashed out for a few minutes at the end of the Sabotage phase -> 10 Threads.

BAF, on the team dealing with adds, I stopped caring about trying to use my AoE debuffs in the best way possible and just spammed my two attacks on whatever was closest -> Rare.

Something I noticed today on my PB, during a BAF and Lambda.

Usually, I tend to concentrate on bosses, EB's and AV's with my mixture of single target and AoE's. Up till now I've been mostly getting uncommons, with one or two commons. No leacher table.

Today I decided to focus on the minion and LT class mobs a little more than usual. Both trials, I got the rare table.

Obviously, 2 runs is NOT a representative sample, but maybe the number of mobs your attacks hit has something to do with the participation weighting?

Most of the BAF runs I've been on I've been on the ambush team at the helipad. So far its been rares<uncommons<commons. These have all been with my blaster.

I got my first Rare today, on a Lambda with my DM/SD Scrapper. I made sure to use Void Judgement, Soul Drain and Dark Consumption whenever they were recharged and I was in the middle of a bunch of enemies, and Rebirth and Call to Justice whenever they were recharged and I was in the middle of a bunch of allies. I also popped Conserve Power whenever it recharged. I avoided the adds in the sabotage phase and during the Marauder fight and focused on the objectives. I used Shield Charge once, but it was only because I was well and truly surrounded.

I know, one anecdote =/= data, but if this is what I have to do to get a rare, then the system is most definitely borked.

My DB/SR Scrapper so far is getting commons and uncommons, but mostly uncommons. I'm pretty much stabbing something in the face all the time. Not much more I can do there to participate, I don't think.

For the first time, I got the 10 threads reward in a Lambda. I was fighting the whole time, didn't die once, did just as much damage as usual (and usually ending up with uncommons or rares) as a 50+3 DB/Inv/Mu brute.

The only thing that I can think of that could be considered leeching would be that I didn't hit stuff for about two minutes when my half of the team (we were just 8) finished the containment chambers, as the others were at 8/10 I figured by the time I'd get there they'd be done, so I went out in front of the portals instead as to be ready to use my acids on the portals. They took slightly longer than I expected.

One thing to consider is the effect this can have on teams. Wanting to avoid the "brawl once and leech" syndrome is all well and good, but what happens when the feeling is that we have to "race" each other for the rewards?

This weekend I did quite a few trials, but one Lambda particularly strikes me as interesting. I was running my DM/Inv scrapper at full tilt, aiming to "participate" as much as possible, and I got a tell from a teammate:

"Someone's going for a very rare! "

(Note that this was all in good fun, the whole team was actually very chatty and fun to be in ).

Sure enough I was. And someone else too, essentially two of us were "racing" each other for the very rare. I thought I was doing great, getting to the grenade boxes early, tanked the EB and Marauder pretty much the whole time (as an aside: why do so many people tank by just taunting and standing there, letting the mobs face the team so that half of them get wiped out when the big cone attacks come out instead of positioning themselves to have the big bad face AWAY from the group? /rant). At the end got a rare, and the person I was racing happily announced he had gotten a very rare.

Not complaining, fair game and good job says I. But I can't help but think if it wouldn't have been better for my badass DM/Inv to cover the squishies instead and let the more tanky characters tank from the "team" point of view. I don't think I was playing badly per se, I do think I did a fine job with the EB/AV tanking and getting the caches fast, but a less "race to participation" approach would probably have saved more than a few faceplants.

If it becomes common knowledge that we have to "participate" (which I'm sure it will, as those of us who do trials relentlessly are more likely to be the, shall we say less-than-casual crowd), and we don't know much more than "click fast to participate", the inevitable result is that, in a world where minting your own Very Rare costs 400M and a slew of components, we will naturally try to game this metric as much as we can to avoid having to spend the whole (400M + Components) x4 xN (where N=Number of level 50 alts), to the detriment of more positive but less "contributy" group dynamics.

Just adding another data point here:

On my fire/fire/fire tanker (with no incarnate slotting whatsoever yet) I was on a BAF run where I was dieing a *lot* during the final Siege + Nightstar fight. So much so that I was sure I was hurting my drop chances. We dropped Nightstar the very second that Siege rezzed, so we had to defeat them both twice. And I got a rare at the end. And most people that responded got a rare or very rare.

On my previous 2 trials with this character, I've gotten uncommons.

It seems that the longer the trial goes on, the better the chance for a rare or very rare. Teams that have let the AVs in the BAF respawn, for whatever reason, seem to gain a higher % of desirable drops. One poster (sorry, can't remember the name!) in Q & A thread seems to believe this as well, and is advising "farming" the AVs by letting them drop one at a time and completing the trial with little time to spare. Also leads to a larger amount of iExp.

It may be time to adjust our tactics.

Very rares I don't count on at all. My very rare Lore and Destiny will most likely completely come from Empyrean Merits. 1 month of doing two trials a day for 2 very rare slots. Had 2 rares from reward table, 1 rare from Master of BAF, and 1 rare from crafting. I only need 2 more rares that I could waste 200 million and 200 threads on. There are other ways to get rares and very rares if you don't "participate enough"

I am getting to the point where I think there is more than one set of tables. An afker could get a very rare since they are in the participation group that has a 1% chance to get, but a 30% or higher chance to get threads. Participate more and better chances for the good loot is made available. I doubt there is a piece of code that says use 500 powers and you get a very rare, use 100 get an uncommon, and use 2 and get threads.

I still get almost exclusively uncommons, rares and ultra rares. No matter the character. My bubblers, scrappers, whatever. What do I do? Heck if I know, but I know that I don't try to "outdo" anyone. I stay with the team, fight, help, buff, try my best to help the team.

When I get two warnings on my Scrappers, I go help on the 9CUs/Vickis, on my Cold/Ice I'm debuffing both the adds and the AVs and shielding folks and attacking.

I'm not saying that to diminish anyone else's contribution, I'm just sharing so you may consider what's involved in getting the nice shinies.