Devs Haet Hoarding

I despise it, and thank the devs for having the sense not to have done something like this. It would be repeating the same error they did with the purples recipes.

The Incarnate system is a hybrid of experience and loot. It's not intended to represent level 51-60. It's not intended to be earned by grinding the easiest crap in the game until your eyes bleed. It's just astounding that people call the trials 'grinding' but suggest as an alternative a system that would reward farming the TV map.

Kindly don't tell me what I should have, I know what drops I got, after running the bloody things 4 or 5 times a day every day for 2 weeks.

I got zero rares, zero very rares, a handful of uncommons, and a pile commons. That's more than enough to tell me that unless you're lucky with the RNG, you need to grinds your balls off to get the goods.

READING IS POWER!

I said if you did a trial once a week. If you did that you would have earned 24 Empyrean merits. 24 Empyrean merits could be converted to 3 rare components.

You would have also earned approximately 72-96 Astral merits (3-4 per run)

Those would have converted to 288 threads. You would also have 24 components from drops. And some non-zero number of thread drops.

Between all that, you WOULD HAVE had enough to create at least three rare abilities. Not 'may'. You WOULD.

Or just trade in your merits. But why let facts get in the way?

You got lucky with the random number generator.

Not everyone is so lucky, how long do you think it would take if you kept getting the ten thread reward?

You only get the ten thread reward if you didn't participate. If you're in that group, I got no sympathy.

Oh have they patched it? It used to show up even on people who were say, tanking one of the robots in the BAF.

I have. I have Alpha fully slotted and all the other 4 slots opened and up to at least L2. Two of them up to L3. That's the most I was able to get before I just got bored with running the two trials that were available at the time and gave up. Whenever I wander back in to PD now to think about running a trial (not often), the place is deserted.

Currently I have 3 Astrals, 1 Empyrian, and 63 threads... Not enough to get the very rare and rare I need to get one of those L3's to L4, and I doubt I'll ever get the rest because, quite frankly, people aren't running the things whenever I'm able to play.

Besides, running the same content again and again and again is not my idea of fun. I don't play this game primarly for the reward (though reward is nice), I play it for the story and rinse and repeat gameplay breaks immersion big time.

So you've haven't done Kalinda multiple times? Or Montague? Or the cape mission? Hmmm....

Nope, I haven't actually. Or at least, not often enough to consider it grinding the content. Maybe once every few months when I roll up a new toon and play it for a bit.

How often do you get the uncommon reward table? I know I get it quite a lot, but with one of each of those crappy uncommons, and even converting over astrals and emp's to threads to buy uncommons, you can make a rare. Running three successful trials should give you enough to make one rare component, lucky or not. Once you have one of each rare you can make a very rare... What are there, 5 of them? I really don't remember. The point is that in about a week assuming you get nothing but common and uncommon reward tables you can craft a tier 4 doing three trials a day.

When I finally bored of it all, I was getting the commons table about 95% of the time... I've also only ever had about 3 purple drops, all crap ones.

BTW - If this were true, you wouldn't even care. I don't know why folks can't just admit that they do want the rewards, a lot. Heck, I wonder at anyone who plays a MMORPG who doesn't. Offline RPGs usually have much better and more consistent stories.

MMO players play to progress a character. That's why alting can be fun. It's not doing the cape mission for the 1000th time. It's seeing what you can make of a different type of character.

The point is that luck really doesn't matter... I look at rare/VR tables as a bonus, when it happens it's nice but it's not a big deal. I can still make my very rares by converting the ever abundant uncommons into rares, and the even more abundant threads/astrals/emps into uncommons to buy even more rares. I can then top it all off by turning those rares into VR's with a pretty minimal amount of effort and no luck required.

I primarily roleplay in this game, ask anyone who plays with me... These days I might mission a couple of times a week before RPing at 9pm. I just can't be bothered anymore since the devs made the game a grindfest and gated all the goodies behind it.

Then why not just do the trials when you feel like it? Why make them a grind for yourself? You say you don't play primarily for the rewards, but you admit you did something you didn't like for the rewards.

For my part, I haven't done a trial in a few weeks. Just haven't felt like it. I love my shiny things, but I'm not going to let the lack of them get me down on the game.

Because I do LIKE to get rewards, I just don't have the time to grind for the bloody things. What I want is a way to earn the stuff through casual missioning, just playing the game the way it was always intended to be played before they devs got grinding on the brain.

Sure, have the trials for the initial slot unlocking, I don't mind that. But for the drops needed to put things IN those slots? It should drop from any level 50 mobs.

Wait what?

Maybe, I don't understand what's meant by the term 'roleplay'. As I understand that term, it means to play a role in character. To act as that character as you conceptualize them would act.

I do that myself on some characters. I enjoy them immensely. I don't even pay attention to their builds or how powerful they are. I'm honestly confused. In my experience, role-players couldn't care less about power. I'm open to the idea that you're both a role-player and an achievement minded character. I know I am. But why then deny it?

Your argument has more force if you just acknowledge that you want the rewards, you just want more ways to earn them. I agree with that. What I don't agree with is this 'grind' business. For any achievement minded character I know, the trials are easy-mode to the abilities. It's substantially easier than creating a good invention build.

EDIT: OK, I read your post above and that makes sense. I still don't see the grind, but I understand your point a bit better.

Random rewards are no longer a bonus when they become the primary path to acquiring the incarnate abilities; at that point, they become they primary path to acquiring the incarnate abilities. Progression outside of that then becomes the bonus. Furthermore, if a better deterministic path renders random rewards pointless, isn't the contrary true: random rewards make the deterministic path pointless. Why then is that ok?

There's a very good reason that a deterministic path emerged for acquiring IO's. Many of the players of this game don't enjoy random loot grind. The absence of that set this MMO apart from others for many years. There was quite a bit of gnashing of teeth when IO's came around and introduced that. Four issues later there was some relief that we wouldn't be entirely at the mercy of the random number generator and market forces.

Quite frankly, I only see this conversation going round and round because it is rooted in personal preference in how people like to play and be rewarded. If I wanted to deal with random rewards, I'd simply play another game.

Since the patch where they stated it would be "easier to get incarnate components", I have heard of no one getting 10 Threads. That includes some people that arguably should have.

Because that's not correct. The deterministic path serves to ensure that the random path cannot screw someone too badly due to bad luck. It's a escape hatch. A deterministic path needs no such safeguard.

No, actually. The deterministic path becomes, like UberGuy stated, an escape hatch. If the random number generator really hates you, then you will still eventually get what you want. IMO, the deterministic path is quite reasonable here. 8 Empyreans to a rare? You can do that in two days right now. I'm not even sure it can be said that the random path is necessarily faster. It is if you're lucky, but if not, tokens work too.

Actually, I'll bet that the primary reason that merits came about is the Katie Hannon Task Force and the 15 min. rare recipe.

But in any event, most MMORPGs have token systems to earn loot. This game isn't that different to be honest. Perhaps a bit easier to earn loot, but that's only recently.

You have random rewards here. Many rewards in this game have a random component. I think that's my whole problem with people's objections to the Incarnate system. It's not grounded in facts. I haven't stated a preference here at all. I'm taking issue with the descriptors being tossed around because they are erroneous by any objective measure.

Absolutely. Yes, there were folks that complained about the random nature of Task Force drops. I promise that they were folks who weren't running Katie Hannon into the ground. For the folks that were running Katies and Edens non-stop, the switch to a point-based system was a noticeable nerf in net reward rates.

Was it a good thing to do? Let's say I don't think it's optimally healthy for a game for one activity to be far-and-away the most rewarding per time invested, and the Reward Merit system levels the reward rate "playing field" for most content.

I realize the thread has progressed since this post was made, but I did want to give my response (as there was one given to my post).

I do not think the Devs need to nor should worry about that, as the delegation of iXP would be a conscious decision of the player. In fact, we already encounter this with the existing trials: to a character who has no incarnate powers past Alpha unlocked nor slotted, the BAF and Lambda trials are more playable than the Keyes Island and Underground Trials, thus why the latter two trials give better over-all rewards (double Empyrean Merits, and iXP towards both slots). I can personally vouch for this, as my character who has nothing more than a T3 Judgement fares far better during the BAF and Lambda than he does in the Keyes Island or Underground.

The other thing to consider is that the vast majority of players will take and slot every available incarnate ability, because they want their character to be among the elite, or the best of the best. Nowadays, when I bring along the aforementioned character on a Trial, I have absolutely no worries about how the trial will fare because I have confidence that at least half that league is packing upper tier abilities from at least 4/5 of the powers.

The convention is no different than anywhere else in the game. If a level 35 character goes to Peregrine Island, it will quickly become very apparent that they will need to seek out greater strength OR help from other players in order to compete with most of the enemies there. By the time a player hits 50 and gains access to incarnate content, he/she should be more than familiar with the concept of having to get stronger to take out the tougher targets.

To use that same example: say for whatever reason (conceptual or otherwise) a player wishes for a character to remain at 35 indefinitely, and therefore turns of "Earn XP." That player is acknowledging that he will be weaker than the level 50 characters, and will probably have a much tougher time when teaming with level 50 characters and tackling the associated content. If he gets tired of it being difficult, he/she can always continue earning xp and leveling, just as an incarnate character can always build a power for that one incarnate power they skipped.

The difference is that the progression path through the Primary and Secondary powers is fairly linear: you start with the weaker, quicker attacks, and your later powers are typically the strongest. The incarnate progression path does not follow this pattern. The individual trees within each power do, but not the path towards obtaining the powers themselves. To argue about which incarnate power is more powerful is pointless, because they all widely vary from each other, and all vary within themselves.

The point of this long-winded post is simple: if a player wants only a Destiny power on a certain character, why should he/she have to work towards unlocking other powers first when it is clear that, by skipping these preceding powers, he/she would be leaving that character lacking certain abilities that will be useful for future content?

This is my primary reason for preferring a deterministic path. There is no bad luck, no need for a safety net.

Let's assume you take the quickest route to 8 Emyreans: UG, Keyes, 2 BAF's and 2 Lambda's. We'll use Leandro's data to assume so average times. For the UG, I'll offer a completion time of 1:15 though that is faster than I've generally seen. To do all these trials, you'll spend approximately 2 hours, 35 minutes the first day and 40 minutes the second day. By the end you will receive 8 merits and 6 rolls on the reward table. With an approximate drop rate of 18% for rare salvage, at the end of 6, there is a 70% chance you'll have received a Rare in that time. Alternatively, you could spend the same amount of time (3:15), doing nothing but BAF. That would net 9 rolls for approximately 83% chance of having received at least one rare.

In my opinion, that's a reasonable rate. Using merits comes out slightly ahead of random rewards. The deterministic path pulls ahead, if only slightly. However, let's look at the what it takes to buy a Very Rare with Empyreans.

Investing 2 hours, 35 minutes each day will net you 6 Empyreans and 4 rolls. At the end of 5 days, you will have acquired 30 Empyreans, made 24 reward rolls, and invested 12 hours, 55 minutes. With an approximate 10% drop rate on Very Rares, there is an 92% chance you will have received a Rare Drop in that time. Alternatively, you could run 52 BAFs with those 13 hours. Your chance of not receiving a very rare by the end of those trials: 0.4% Your chance of receiving at least one very rare component: 99.6%

By the time, you've gather enough Empyreans the odds are stacked strongly in favor of you having received a very rare drops. Which makes your efforts as pointless as UberGuy suggests random drops would be in a primarily deterministic system.


I don't feel that loot in this game has nearly the impact it does in others. The difference between a level 50 SO and a level 50++ SO is relatively insignificant. More so, anything that didn't drop was easily purchased. At least, this was the case until the introduction of IO's. IO's have opened an entire Pandora's box, adding some pleasant and unpleasant elements to this game.

The significant difference here is that the developers have stated the incarnate system will be required for participation in future content, specifically the level shifts. We've already seen a 54 level shifted enemy in the Underground trial with plans for more to come, eventually rendering a non-Incarnate helpless against those foes. There is no incarnate sidekicking system to even the playing field if you don't have those level shifts. You must progress through incarnate system for what's to come.

That's why the incarnate system is different from other rewards. In order to see content progression (the conclusion of Praetoria and the coming storm, presumably) you must engage in character progression, but unlike the tried and true leveling system there's now a degree of randomness.