new patch, very rares, sideways conversion... not!

So what? Life's not fair and sometimes there is a price to pay for changing your mind (just ask the airlines about that). Besides there are only 4 very rare salvages and 4 rare salvages so if you picked the wrong one or changed your mind about what upgrade you wanted to do, there's a pretty good chance you'll need it for a different power later on. Or you just drop some threads and convert it to what you need right now.

Life's not fair but games are supposed to be. That's why they have rules. Chess wouldn't be as fun if one player got twice as many pieces for inheriting a larger estate.

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

I think there's a disconnect here where almost no player I have encountered (barring a few on the forums) considers the "value" of the item to be the number of Threads required to create it from scratch. Instead, because almost none of them are creating this way in practice, they are measuring the value of the item in terms of the time it takes them to obtain the requisite number of Threads by running trials, and the opportunity cost those Threads spent towards this conversion represent relative to building up their tree to the point required to create a Very Rare power.

So far, I play the Trials for Uncommon, Rare and Very Rare drops (and of course to unlock slots), and I have historically broken down Astral Merits and Uncommons into threads to create Commons, which I have received exactly twice in around 120 successful trials.

Based on that playstyle, a Thread cost of 150 is a large opportunity cost to me, because it represents a large number of Commons that I have, to date, had to create from Threads. For 180 Threads I could go from having a Rare (only) version of an Incarnate power to having the Very Rare. Having to spend an extra 150 Threads on that is not a 10% loss in "value", because it requires me to earn an extra 83.3% of the Threads I needed to slot the Very Rare version, assuming I was starting from an existing Rare version. If I already had my second Rare crafted, it's an even larger increase.

Measuring the "value" using a metric only that only applies to the hard-core solo way of earning a Very Rare doesn't seem very meaningful to me.

If the only use case here was changing one's mind, I might agree more strongly with this. As Obitus mentions, the interface is not very friendly. I do what others have described - I click back and forth between the "Create" tab and the "Convert" tab, checking multiple times that I am, in fact, looking at the Incarnate power I actually want on this character. (I've gotten these powers on three characters now, and it's sometimes hard to keep track of what I actually am crafting for each one.)

My usual scenario is that I need to hurry up and pick the right thing before the next Trial starts. I haven't screwed up yet, but I can see it's very easy to do so. If the interface was nice and clean, and didn't involve clicking around different tabs, I might have less sympathy for the issue, but if you want to be safe, the best thing to do is track what you want, what you have and what you need in some other medium for easier cross reference. I don't think many people consider the opportunity to get their salvage choice wrong a "challenge" that they need to overcome through proper planning, and therefore "win" by choosing the right thing the first time. I don't think the game is made meaningfully better for introducing that possibility, so I question why it can't be made to better match what I see as player expectations.

No it doesn't. It shows you what required salvage you have and what salvage you don't have, for a particular recipe. It doesn't show you whether you need that salvage elsewhere, too. There are four Incarnate powers in play here, for each character you decide to run through umpteen trials. That's why it's infinitely easier to write out a checklist beforehand.

I realize that any time anyone makes a complaint about the design being counter-intuitive or needlessly complicated, it's a lovely excuse for people to pile on and crow about their own mental superiority. I'm not saying that the Incarnate crafting system is beyond my feeble brain to process. I'm not even saying that I personally have any particular difficulty with it; after a couple of Trials, I simply sat down and wrote out lists of the components I need for each power.

My only contention is that Incarnate crafting is designed in a needlessly complicated manner, in the same way that any computer program can be usable without being user-friendly. Are you honestly disputing that point, or is this just a case of talking down for talking down's sake? Your commentary can be summarized as, "It's not that hard." So let's stipulate that you're right about that, but I ask you: Is it good design?

Apparently, the devs even agree with my position to some extent, because otherwise they wouldn't have added sideways conversion at all. I've already conceded that the costs for sideways conversion are much better than I initially thought, just from looking at the OP's screenshot. (See response to Arcanaville.) So now I'm left debating you over the underlying design, the flaws of which the devs have tacitly admitted.

Yes, because clearly, adding several distinct-but-functionally-identical categories to each tier of Incarnate salvage, on top of the multiple currencies we already have, addresses the concern that we have too many currencies.

Invention salvage is an example of good flavor text. Invention salvage drops plentifully and at random, and it's tradeable. Flavor is good where flavor isn't obtrusive, or even better, where it serves some functional purpose. Would the invention system be simpler if we just had three different components (Common, Uncommon, Rare)? Yeah, but having different tradeable types encourages participation on the market, too.

Post-Alpha Incarnate components, by contrast, are only awarded for two specific tasks, are untradeable and (were) basically unfungible (the breakdown rates being what they are, and initially lacking any sort of sideways conversion path). What we have is a system that is grindy by design, which is fine, but then on top of that, the devs decided for some unfathomable reason to add gratuitous penalties -- entailing more grinding -- to each misclick in a mandatory end-of-trial menu.

It's important if the salvage you have is only useful for the Tier 3 you already have. AFAIK, you can't combine two of the same tier 3 to create a Tier 4. Further, you can have a brain fart and craft the wrong tier 2 for the Tier 3 salvage you have.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Said it better than I did.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Actually chess isn't a fair game. Since black goes second their first move is always a reaction to whites first move. Therefore black always starts the game on the defensive.

And most games have an element of luck involved. Dice to be rolled, cards to be drawn. So is it fair if one player always gets the good roles and draws the right cards every time? No it isn't. Plus experience and knowledge can mean a lot in some games. Rules != Fairness.

So a person that fails to realize the FULL value of something will be miffed, while the person that realizes it, takes advantage of it, and profits from it comes out ahead. Score one for intelligence?

The problem with that outlook is that it effectively values the actual very rare drop itself as being zero. In other words, you get a VR, you pick X, turns out you needed Y, so now that drop is costing you 150 threads. So downgrade it to a rare if that 150 threads is a high cost. You should be able to do that for nothing. Oh, but then you'd be throwing away a very valuable component.

So how much more valuable is that VR relative to 150 threads? I'd contend its massively more valuable.


Plus, isn't this slightly contradictory:

It's not mental superiority I'm talking about, it's focus. When I go into the trial, I already know which Incarnate Power I'm looking to upgrade. That way when the reward table appears I know exactly which Incarnate Power I need to look at to know what drop to chose. Unless I get the uncommon table in which case I pull up my salvage and chose whichever uncommon salvage I have the least amount of. I only look at the other Incarnate powers if I get a drop I actually can't use on the power I was focusing on. By focusing on one power at a time, I was slotting tier 3's into each Incarnate Power when I finally got each one unlocked, and was working on tier 4's before I got all 5 opened up.

The thread cost is payment for changing it to another component of the same value, unless I'm misunderstanding something critical. If you had picked the right VR in the first place there would be no cost involved. So the cost is only there if you were dumb/mistaken/clickhappy enough to take the wrong one in the first place. As such it's more a tax for making a mistake. It's not like we're paying a tax for doing an easier task (ITF) and converting the component into something better or harder to obtain (Penumbra of Rularuu).

All the components are awarded for the same exact task, and all the conversions are for items of the same value. In essence you're only paying in order to change a component you can't use into one you can use. But both items are obtained in exactly the same manner and should have exactly the same worth. So I don't feel the rate should be cost-prohibitive. It would make more sense to me if the conversion cost was a small, reasonable amount of threads not tied to the overall cost of the component itself.

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

We're not discussing the randomness of component drops. We're discussing the gratuitous penalties for making what amounts to an accounting error on the reward-selection screen.

Do you really feel like keeping track of all the functionally redundant components is, in Uber's words, "a 'challenge' that [players] need to overcome through proper planning, and therefore 'win' by choosing the right thing the first time?" How is the already grindy gameplay of the Trials improved by that wrinkle?

If we both do the same trial, and both get functionally the same reward table, then what purpose does it serve to penalize me for choosing the wrong permutation of the same component? Whether I simply have a brain fart or a misclick or hell, even if I change my mind down the road, how is that penalty gameplay-relevant? Does my ability to use a pen, outside of the game make me a more deserving participant on a given Incarnate trial than the next guy who just plays it by ear?

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Isn't this what happens when you buy the wrong thing at the enhancement stores?

Don't think of it as a penalty for picking the wrong component, think of not paying merits to sideways a component, as a reward for picking the right component. Kinda like the game gives you more rewards for making intelligent choices and less rewards for just facerolling your keyboard.

And ... you prove that you're only interested in talking about how well you deal with the Incarnate crafting system, rather than talking about whether it's well designed. You get an A for extraordinary unresponsiveness.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

The cost of doing business has to be large enough to make it worth putting in in the first place, otherwise it might as well all be free, and then you might as well not have choices because it won't matter what you pick.

The Incarnate system is designed to take more thought than IOs. It's not too much to ask to expect the players to invest more time and energy thinking about what they're going to do before they do it. You really shouldn't even HAVE to side-convert. Those that find that they need to will learn to pay better attention by paying some threads. If the cost to convert is prohibitive, there is always the old-fashioned way of getting what you need (running more trials). They've actually given players a choice of either spending more time, or spending threads.

The thread value of Rare and Very Rare in threads is effectively zero, because almost no one I know (there are exceptions) is using threads to create them. You cannot value something in a unit of cost that you do not use to buy it. The unit of cost of Rare and Very Rare components is instead the time it takes to obtain them as either random rewards or as purchases with Empyrian Merits.

I agree that this would be a wasteful conversion, but not in terms of the raw Thread cost of a Very Rare. It's a wasteful conversion because I am less likely to randomly get a Very Rare than a Rare, and because it takes more Empyrian Merits to make a Very Rare than a Rare. Expressing the cost in Threads and reminding me that 150 threads is only 10% of the "value" of the item is analogous to expressing the cost of replacing my car in terms of kg of CO² emitted to build the replacement. It may be a valid measurement, but it's almost completely orthogonal to the way I actually paid for my car. (OK, sure, somewhere someone might have rolled the carbon trading cost of the car into the dollar price. I hope the point is still clear.)

Except it doesn't have to be. I plan to spend threads buying a Rare or Very Rare exactly never. I will either get them as drops or buy them with Empyrian Merits (something I have not yet had to resort to). If I get them as a drop, they are actually free in Thread terms. In fact, I earned threads while working towards the random drop, which I can then immediately spend (or may already have spent) crafting the Commons and Uncommon powers required to prepare for getting a Rare or Very Rare power when granted a Rare or Very Rare component. I treat getting the Rare or Very Rare component (or the Empyrians to craft them) as an event trigger, not as a cost.

Nope. You are saying that the "cost" of a Very Rare is roughly 1500 Threads, and therefore 150 is 10% of that, and (I am inferring) therefore reasonable. But I do not value them at 1500 threads, because I will never spend 1500 Threads to create one. To me, that 150 Thread side-convert cost comes entirely out of all the other things I spend Threads on, which basically has been the crafting of Commons components.

I sort of feel about that the same way i feel about a big sale on an item i wasn't intending to buy.

If i buy it i will save money, but if i wasn't going to buy it in the first place, then it feels like it's costing me additional money instead.

If someone doesn't have the 150 threads for that conversion, it's more likely that they'll keep repeating the trials to earn them or take their chance on another VR roll rather than breaking down that VR then convert up.

Which makes me think the main point is like the main point of the conversion system...do more trials.

When you last went to the enhancement store, was there a random chance that they offered you TO, DO and SO enhancers, and getting SO enhancers was set to happen very infrequently? If this was how the enhancement stores worked, would you think it good design that it's easy to buy the wrong enhancement due to a similar colors and a descriptive name based on color text rather than function? What would you prefer to shop for: Mutation or Magic SOs?

My comment there was a side discussion that had developed and had nothing to do with the reward-selection screen
That you should pay better attention to what you're doing. I should know. Two years ago I missed Preview Night at San Diego Comic Con because I clicked the wrong airline flight and had a 9:30 PM flight instead of a 9:30 AM flight. I didn't get into San Diego until about 11pm, two hours after Preview Night was over. So don't even try whining about picking the wrong salvage.

And if you have to make a list, how long should it be? Four items long, one for each rarity level of salvage you need. And I've done back to back to back trials before and there's always been at least a few minutes between rounds because you always loose a few after each one and it takes time to fill the spots back up. More than enough time to figure out what adjustments you need to make to your list, craft new salvage from threads, and get ready for the next round.

Given how little variety of salvage there is at each level and how rarely random drops occur, it is easier to just focus on one Incarnate Power at a time, and only worry about the other powers if you get something you absolutely don't need for the power you were focusing on. And BTW, I tried your approach at first, but found out that because I was concentrating on one power at a time I rarely looked at the lists I had made anyway.

You've distilled the objections rather clearly here. What's being pointed out is that there are choices for the sake of making choices, and a cost associated with making the wrong choice ... which you had to make for its own sake.

Can you point to developer comment stating that as a design goal of the Incarnate System?

I agree, which is why I suggested adding these recipes in the first place. We just have a different opinion on what "cost prohibitive" is.

Although technically speaking I suggested 10%, and 150 is slightly higher than 10% (136 would be 10%, and 120 would reflect the relative value of rares and very rares).

"I have cancer. You should not complain because a falling piano broke your collar bone."

Does that sound reasonable to you? I don't think it sounds reasonable.

This game has a self-contained context. As soon as we step out of that context, everything goes, and useful discussion about the game is lost. If this game sucked donkey butt, by the logic quoted above none of us would have a place asking for it to be improved, because it's better than being run over by a bus.

People shouldn't have to side-convert, but they obviously do or else the system wouldn't've been put in.

Additionally, people shouldn't have to side-convert because it doesn't really make sense to have a large number of functionally identical rewards. At least with Alpha, there was one reward per task you had to obtain them. Only one rare and only one very rare. Why are there four very rares if you get them all in exactly the same way? Yes, people shouldn't have to side-convert, because there should only be one very rare anyway, since there's no reason other than putting extra work on the player that they even need to exist in the first place. Of course, that's been a topic of discussion since beta.

The fact that there are even extra components that are obtained the same way and do the same thing, and that you have to pay to switch between them, is entirely unnecessary in my opinion.

Consider: Alpha only has one very rare. There's no need for people to side-convert because only one very rare exists. Every single recipe uses the same very rare, because there's only one way to earn it anyway. Which is identical to the new system. There's only one way to earn them all. So they're all worth exactly the same thing. Which powers use which very rares is completely arbitrary and holds no actual importance or value. So the very act of pointlessly adding extra very rares introduces the need to switch between them, which for some reason has to be paid for. Why exactly?

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