Testing Shards to Incarnate Progression

So we've got lots of forum posters going on and on about how the current solo path is good enough for incarnate progress. But do they really know what they're saying? I think not.

I decided to test it out. Get some real numbers, throw them against the wall, see what comes out.

Shards: Start time 9pm - 8 shards in inventory
PI for scanner missions. +0/x8 w/ bosses
Mission: Shards dropped
1: 0
2: 3
3: 1
4: 1
5: 0
6: 1
7: 0
Farmed RWZ for Rikti bosses for 20 minutes: 0

Total time: 2 hours.
Shard drop rate: 3 per hour.

THREE PER HOUR. Let's keep that in mind.

To craft the tier 1 Carnival Lore power, I need 3 common components. These cost 20 threads each.

Once a night, I can spend 1million inf and get 10 threads for 10 shards.

We'll say I get lucky and it only takes me 3 hours to get those 10 shards.

3 hours a night running PI scanner missions. 18 hours over 6 days and 6 million inf to craft the tier 1 lore power.

Moving on to tier 2. Takes the tier 1, 2 commons, 1 uncommon. 20+20+60 threads. There's another 10 nights at 3 hours a night farming. 30 hours + 10 million inf.

Tier 3: The tier 2, 2 commons, 1 rare. Oh boy... here we go. To make that rare, I need 100 threads and 4 uncommons. That's 340 threads. That's 34 nights, 102 hours, and 34 million inf.

Ok, we've got a single tier 3.
Total hours: 150 hours
Days at 3 hours per night: 50. 7 weeks.
Number of shards: 500
Inf spent: 50 million

It took me 8-10 days of running trials to get 2 T4s and 5 T3s and 1 T2.

How much time solo will it take to get that single T4 carnival lore?
We're up to 100 days and 100 million inf just for the two T3s.
I'll also need 2 commons and a very rare. That VR takes 16 uncommons or 960 threads. Plus the 40 for the 2 commons. 1000 threads.

200 days total. 600 game hours. For a single T4. Versus the 8-10 days it took me to get everything I just listed.

And some of you find this fair? And equitable?

I can solo an FF/ENE Defender to 50 doing story arcs on the base difficulty in vastly less time than 600 hours.

No, we should NOT have to wait until sometime in 2013 for a fix to this idiocy.

Remove shards from the game. Replace them with threads. Please.

This needs a fix, and soon.

This is not something to leave for next issue, as the price drops were.

The data mining has to have been done by now. Solo progress is not going to get any faster. Single team progress has been boosted very slightly by adding Tin Mage and Apex to the list that can earn Astrals.

Meanwhile, trial progress has been sped up 30% for those who care to farm it.


Devs, PLEASE don't let this rot like it has been. This is not a good situation. It's a bad situation and it'll get worse.

i have to agree that either shards or threads were a mistake, it should not have been split, they should have stuck threads from beginning or kept shards in the trials, but not split between both as it does make the system several times more complex

how they designed the alpha with the shards was very good, how they designed the threads and the bazillion new components, not so much and its even worse that its completely separated from the rest of the content

I hope you continue keeping track of this. The more actual data we have on on this method, the less speculation will be necessary (on the overall required totals).


Also... it's not like running at those mission difficulty settings is normal.
This is the most extreme as far as efficiency goes.

Good numbers BZB. Can't argue much with that hard data.

There are multiple easy fixes out there (Standard Code Rant, obv.). Hell, the easiest one in my mind would not be to ditch Shards (forcing the elimination of a lot of other stuff), but rather simply increase their drop rate to be on-par with Threads, and make the Shard-->Thread conversion a free 1:1, without a time restriction. I grant that it made semi-logical sense for releasing it the way they did: many players had a great number of Shards saved up upon the launch of i20, and the Devs did not want players getting high tier abilities without even touching the Trials. But that panic period is past, and now it is even possible to build Alpha powers using the salvage from i20. So yes, something should be done if the solo "alternative" is to be considered comparable.

Of course, to be mentioned is that you may not get 3 shards per hour at all.

I played for two hours yesterday on my 50 Tanker and got no shards. I actually got more Orange Invention Salvage than I got Shards.

I agree and thank you for taking the time to run the test and post the results.

I solo a LOT because I play at odd hours. I also like to SEE the content as I go through it. I want solo TFs because I want to read the dialog and clues.

I can understand the pace the Devs have set but I don't agree with it. If they made the content more fun people would play it even without mega rewards. Look at the ITF...still one of the most popular TFs in the game. It's FUN! People play it because it's fun.

Make the game fun and we'll play it. Leading us around with shiny stuff behind locked doors is not the way to do things...

Thanks for bringing this up again Billz. The sad part is the Devs are very aware of this information as it was brought up time and time again by different posters. I believe Dispari tried their best to make it a hot topic but it feel on deaf ears as well.

I do hope a change is made because here is what happens to me right now.

I get home around 10:30-11 from my second job and a 15 hour work day. I open the computer with the intent to login and get some incarnate progression on one of my 50s. I look at the time and realize I don't want to be up until 12:30 or 1. So I decide that I can run a mission or two really quick and make some progress towards my incarnate slots...oh wait, I cannot.

So, what do I do? I just close the launcher and open a forum and read. I haven't logged into this game for 4 days now because I just don't have the time for the trials. Sure I could run other content, like Tips, but I WANT incarnate progression on my 50s. I've spent 5 years leveling them and I would now like to have those 50s participate in the end game content without having to rely on the trials OR just ridiculous shard -> thread conversion.

RAWR

Horrible solo progression is horrible.

Also get rid of shards, they are not your "precious" devs.

I am of the opinion that shards should have been replaced with threads long ago. The shard system was nice, the thread system is better.

Make the WST drop a random Rare component.

Glad to see the responses in here.

I would be interested in hearing the argument for keeping shards as is. What problems would arise right now if the devs decided to move forward with a straight swap out?

All shards are converted to threads.
All common shard components are converted to a random common thread component.
All uncommon shard components are converted to a random uncommon thread component.
Repeat for rare and very rare.

Replace every instance of shards/shard components in the drop tables with threads/thread components.

Remove all references to shards in Incarnate Power creation.

What problems would this cause?

Hey Bill, how many purple recipes did you get during all of those missions?

Statistically speaking, it's highly likely it was zero. As long as we're building straw men to apply to dumb decisions such as, "I'm never going to run a trial or task force!", then keep running missions until you get two or three purple recipes, then calculate how long it will take someone, supposing they never want to use the market, to get a complete set for a power. Don't forget that due to the nature of random drops, getting that last specific purple is going to be a mother of a wait.

What's that? It would take years? Wow, that's outRAGEous! What were the devs thinking? Obviously, they want us all to do nothing but sit around playing with the market all day! Or maybe running "tests" and making unreasonable demands based on the idiotic assumption that one will literally never team up is a meaningless waste of time--indeed, the height of arrogance for demanding stuff based on something nobody does in reality, a play style you insist on for the singular purpose of pushing an agenda and making things easier.

Thanks for trying, though. Good luck with your next strawman I'm sure you're working on as I type.

I would never oppose simplifying currencies.

Our Devs aren't ignorant. They know this situation exists. So, obviously, they want the Trials to be ran and are using the carrot method to make it so.

Why they don't want a more balanced approach I don't know, but I'm certain they've weighed everything and are purposefully doing this. From their viewpoint there has to be a greater payback in this method.

We can all try to guess this. My guess is they want the Trials to be ran now because it's their new toy and they want it to be played with - not fall into immediate relative obscurity like the revamped Cathedral of Pain (which I've yet to run).

I believe there will come a day when 'normal' content, solo and otherwise, will allow good progression to incarnate powers. Like many here, I wish it were already so, but I can tell you this -- even though I like the trials, I'd probably almost never run them if these alternatives existed right now...and that is what I think the Devs are trying to avoid.

Players like me not running their trials...

I do feel somewhat railroaded, but again, I like the trials ok, so it hasn't been horrible.

Were I a trial hater,though, I'd be livid

I see one major problem that would remain Bill - we wouldn't be able to complain about no solo path then.

One last request before I stop complaining about it is change shard frequency drop to thread frequency drops.