Personally I hope the rate stays low simply because trials need to be the fastest way period. Otherwise we will start to bleed players doing everything else instead. Which will make it even that much harder on the dead servers to form trial teams.
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Entoxicated Ninja/PSN Mastermind
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I agree that it should always be lower. But they could double the Dark Astoria rate, and it would still be orders of magnitude slower than the trials.
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Originally Posted by EvilRyu
Personally I hope the rate stays low simply because trials need to be the fastest way period. Otherwise we will start to bleed players doing everything else instead. Which will make it even that much harder on the dead servers to form trial teams.
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Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
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Doesn't sound like I will making much use of the new Dark Astoria.
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Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
I agree that it should always be lower. But they could double the Dark Astoria rate, and it would still be orders of magnitude slower than the trials.
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total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
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Granted, people should have more incentive to do the trials. I think that's been stressed quite a bit already. I'm sure the devs want us to keep playing the content. |
Originally Posted by EvilRyu
Personally I hope the rate stays low simply because trials need to be the fastest way period. Otherwise we will start to bleed players doing everything else instead. Which will make it even that much harder on the dead servers to form trial teams.
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On the same token, I'm sure they'd like us to play the new content and make use of it, too. So the reward has to be reasonable for us to keep playing that content. I don't know why they'd go through all the trouble to make it for us to feel it's not worth the time.
@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
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Then what was the point of saying something no one is contending? No one's arguing for there to be reward for NOT doing content. Only that the content should be reasonably rewarded.|
Originally Posted by Dogma
Illustrating a point again. Players won't get the rewards if they don't do the task, regardless of their reasoning. No comparison between the tasks was intended outside of that.
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In order to keep from derailing the thread, maybe we should keep it to whether or not the content rewards enough for the efforts required, and not illustrating points that have nothing to do with that.
@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
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Orders of magnitude slower? Not really.|
Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
I agree that it should always be lower. But they could double the Dark Astoria rate, and it would still be orders of magnitude slower than the trials.
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I think the real problem is that perception has completely nullified quantitative analysis when it comes to the incarnate system. The numbers don't mean anything anymore when they're basically being selected for their weapons-grade value only.
Here's what I see. The shard path used to be described as "unbearably slow" and calculations were produced to demonstrate that. Now its being hailed as the model to follow. The iTrials were described as requiring ludicrous amounts of farming to make progress in, and now that ludicrous farming is apparently taking a single afternoon to complete. The shard system is basically identical and the iTrial rewards have only increased a little: not enough to justify these polar opposite swings in perception.
I said in beta that I thought the solo path, based on measurements, was a bit low. I even gave a quantitative estimate for where I thought it was reasonable to lie relative to the iTrial path, which was somewhere in the general vicinity of the fastest possible solo path being within a binary order of magnitude of half the average iTrial rate. However, when I started to hear people say that, ok, its perfectly easy to tier 4 everything in a weekend, I decided that any quantitative analysis of the situation was doomed to irrelevancy.
People want what they want, and sometimes that can be tempered by the requirements of game balance logic. This is not one of those times. That doesn't mean I think the people who want it faster or think its too fast are wrong. It just means I think there's no objective foundation to decide either way: its just a case of people wanting what they want.
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Arcana,
While I appreciate what you are trying to say, the tests that I saw in beta were trying to purposely get results as fast as they could. As such, in three days of joining every trial they could when they were on, they had tier 3s of most everything. It would take longer to tier 4 everything.
HOWEVER, I get what you are saying. When the trials first come out, you need to run them over and over again to get good rewards, because as people try to figure them out, they take both longer, and run the risk of failure, requiring more attempts to get the same reward (read: farming). However, as the trials get run more and more, and people figure out the right tactics, you can "speed" them more easily, for slightly less XP, but higher rate of end rewards.
The DA content can't be sped up in a similar fashion, because of the time locks. Running things over and over again does not increase the rate of return as it would for running the trials. So there is definitely a difference there, in addition to the fact that rewards are lower in general.
As I said in my one of my earlier posts, using people who are intentionally trying to get max rewards in a minimum amount of time is not a good comparison point for anything. But then what is? It would be highly subjective based on the player, of course. Somebody who plays every night would expect possibly the same overall rate as somebody who only plays twice a week. Say, a month per tier 3. However, Person A would then need a drop rate that is lower than Person B would want.
So, can we create a fictional person, who plays what we might consider an "average" amount, and see what the drop rate is for him? Yes, though we'd have some argument on how much this person plays. But it could at least give us a baseline of how slow or fast the new solo path is compared to the trial runner.
What about three players, each with the same schedule. One is only a trial runner, and one only does the new DA content in a team, and one only does the new DA content solo. Each player plays for an hour a day, three days a week (I doubt that's a bad value to give these fictional players). What would the rate of gains be for these players?
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
As it stands right now, after running the arcs one time through for fun and a few low-level components, DA is only going to be useful to would-be Incarnates for exactly two things...
1) Running one repeatable a day and then street-hunting for stray threads and a handful of iXP when there's absolutely nothing else going on, and...
2) Getting one filler Common and a couple of Astrals a day by speed-running twice through the first arc. (And yes, odds are you'll only get Commons and Astrals rather than better components or Emps. Enough people have run these things on Beta to get a pretty good feel for the drop tables.)
Past that? It's a pretty bad "solo path"... And forget about having a mixed-faction team after the first arc run-through. They're only repeatable via Oro, meaning they can't be run co-op.
Incarnate-wise, if you want to progress at anything close to a reasonable rate, you're still going to be pushed into the Trials. DA is filler, at best. That's just how things are at the moment, and personally I'll be shocked if anything changes in less than six months or a year.
@Brightfires - @Talisander
That chick what plays the bird-things...
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The first day I ran an iTrial (long before anything was done to speed anything up), I hit t3 in 2 slots in under 3 hours. That's fast. Calling itrial advancement fast isn't perception, it's being minimally aware of your surroundings - and it's been that way from the beginning.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Here's what I see. The shard path used to be described as "unbearably slow" and calculations were produced to demonstrate that. Now its being hailed as the model to follow. The iTrials were described as requiring ludicrous amounts of farming to make progress in, and now that ludicrous farming is apparently taking a single afternoon to complete. The shard system is basically identical and the iTrial rewards have only increased a little: not enough to justify these polar opposite swings in perception.
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People have always wanted what they want in terms of reward payouts whatever the currency. I'm thinking this treads on the "buff vs nerf" method of setting expectations. Many would agree that starting low then ratcheting up is better than being lowered after getting used to the high.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
That doesn't mean I think the people who want it faster or think its too fast are wrong. It just means I think there's no objective foundation to decide either way: its just a case of people wanting what they want.
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If this solo path were introduced after the shard path with the alpha slot but before itrials, would this solo path still be considered unreasonable?
I don't know much about this but from what i've been hearing, it seems like a decent upgrade....from the shard path, but not after you've gotten used to the itrial reward rates.
Players' reward expectations was set back at alpha slot launch, but then the devs blew that expectation out of the water with the itrial rewards rate and funneled everyone through it long enough to get used to that "high". And now they are trying to ratchet that expectation back down.
I think you'll get a similar reaction among trial-goers if you cut the itrial payout rate to somewhere near this team-optional rate.
It's like someone is leveling the normal way, then gets into the original AE farms that got you a 50 in a few hours and do that long enough to get used to that rate, then have to go back to leveling the normal way.
It's possible it might be too late to reset that expectation but will have to see how people treat this alternative.
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The degree to which the tasks can be optimized is an issue, but not the most important issue. The more important issue is to look at the thing that can't really be optimized: shards. Shards were unreasonable, and then somehow became not just reasonable but ideal. That's not a trivial change in perspective. The shards didn't change, so it was the definition of "reasonable" that did. But so long as everyone is asking for the "reasonable" but that word has a very slippery definition, there's no role for the numbers.|
Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
Arcana,
While I appreciate what you are trying to say, the tests that I saw in beta were trying to purposely get results as fast as they could. As such, in three days of joining every trial they could when they were on, they had tier 3s of most everything. It would take longer to tier 4 everything. HOWEVER, I get what you are saying. When the trials first come out, you need to run them over and over again to get good rewards, because as people try to figure them out, they take both longer, and run the risk of failure, requiring more attempts to get the same reward (read: farming). However, as the trials get run more and more, and people figure out the right tactics, you can "speed" them more easily, for slightly less XP, but higher rate of end rewards. The DA content can't be sped up in a similar fashion, because of the time locks. Running things over and over again does not increase the rate of return as it would for running the trials. So there is definitely a difference there, in addition to the fact that rewards are lower in general. As I said in my one of my earlier posts, using people who are intentionally trying to get max rewards in a minimum amount of time is not a good comparison point for anything. But then what is? It would be highly subjective based on the player, of course. Somebody who plays every night would expect possibly the same overall rate as somebody who only plays twice a week. Say, a month per tier 3. However, Person A would then need a drop rate that is lower than Person B would want. So, can we create a fictional person, who plays what we might consider an "average" amount, and see what the drop rate is for him? Yes, though we'd have some argument on how much this person plays. But it could at least give us a baseline of how slow or fast the new solo path is compared to the trial runner. What about three players, each with the same schedule. One is only a trial runner, and one only does the new DA content in a team, and one only does the new DA content solo. Each player plays for an hour a day, three days a week (I doubt that's a bad value to give these fictional players). What would the rate of gains be for these players? |
I read all the testing threads and posts, and while I appreciate the work done in quantifying *what* is happening, where I had an issue is in the surrounding discussion about what *should* happen. Completely different people were using the exact same numbers to demonstrate that the rate was fine and not fine. And while that always happens to some degree, here it was actually the case that there was no way to refute either side, because what was defined to be "reasonable" was so vast in range it could describe anything.
As to the question of whether an objective frame of reference is possible, I believe it is possible. I don't believe everyone will agree its objective, but that's never actually ever one of my concerns. However, there's only two reasons to change it: its unbalanced, and its unpalatable. It hasn't existed long enough for us to know if its unbalanced, and if so to what degree. And if people will not agree on even what direction to head in much less how far, no change at the moment can address the issue of the system being unpalatable. This is almost certainly a case where regardless of what the system does now, we'll have to live with it for a while before the devs contemplate changing it for the simple reason that any change as a greater chance of succeeding on both fronts later rather than now.
Where I think you'll have the greatest problem achieving any sort of unanimity is in balancing the opportunity limits of running trials against the always-available nature of the solo path, even with the time gates. On some trials, trials are run continuously and quickly and with a high success rate. On other servers they are run less frequently and/or with lower success rates. Balancing for the case where the player can run a trial whenever they wish with a high success rate is itself potentially a skewed assumption. These things are subjective value judgments, but play a critical role in balancing the solo path against the trial path.
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That's also unlikely. Statistically speaking, less than 33% of all players that ran about eight trials in a row at release would have been awarded at least two rare drops necessary to do that. On top of that, depending on when you started running iTrials if it was prior to down-conversion being added that would have required 14 common drops which you could only get by actually being lucky enough to get a common drop, or by creating them at 20 threads per. 280 threads in the eight trials would have also been a stretch. And eight trials in "under three hours" is itself a very generous estimate: there exists no possibility that the average trial execution rate is 22 minutes from league set up to completion.|
Originally Posted by rsclark
The first day I ran an iTrial (long before anything was done to speed anything up), I hit t3 in 2 slots in under 3 hours. That's fast.
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Overall, I would estimate that less than 10% of all players that *tried* to do that would have succeeded at or near release, and much less than 5% of all players *actually* managed to see that earning rate.
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Shards were changed to dropping from any level content if you were side kiced down. So more frequent chances at them being able to drop depending on what content you tended to run, the main signifcant one imo was weekly strike targets. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The degree to which the tasks can be optimized is an issue, but not the most important issue. The more important issue is to look at the thing that can't really be optimized: shards. Shards were unreasonable, and then somehow became not just reasonable but ideal. That's not a trivial change in perspective. The shards didn't change, so it was the definition of "reasonable" that did. But so long as everyone is asking for the "reasonable" but that word has a very slippery definition, there's no role for the numbers.
I read all the testing threads and posts, and while I appreciate the work done in quantifying *what* is happening, where I had an issue is in the surrounding discussion about what *should* happen. Completely different people were using the exact same numbers to demonstrate that the rate was fine and not fine. And while that always happens to some degree, here it was actually the case that there was no way to refute either side, because what was defined to be "reasonable" was so vast in range it could describe anything. As to the question of whether an objective frame of reference is possible, I believe it is possible. I don't believe everyone will agree its objective, but that's never actually ever one of my concerns. However, there's only two reasons to change it: its unbalanced, and its unpalatable. It hasn't existed long enough for us to know if its unbalanced, and if so to what degree. And if people will not agree on even what direction to head in much less how far, no change at the moment can address the issue of the system being unpalatable. This is almost certainly a case where regardless of what the system does now, we'll have to live with it for a while before the devs contemplate changing it for the simple reason that any change as a greater chance of succeeding on both fronts later rather than now. Where I think you'll have the greatest problem achieving any sort of unanimity is in balancing the opportunity limits of running trials against the always-available nature of the solo path, even with the time gates. On some trials, trials are run continuously and quickly and with a high success rate. On other servers they are run less frequently and/or with lower success rates. Balancing for the case where the player can run a trial whenever they wish with a high success rate is itself potentially a skewed assumption. These things are subjective value judgments, but play a critical role in balancing the solo path against the trial path. |
I do agree that they went from unreasonable to okay, possibily ideal.
I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.
So sad to be ending ):
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That was a separate complaint about shards (that they could not be earned below level 50 content) but that would not affect the maximum rate at which they could be earned.
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Originally Posted by tanstaafl
Shards were changed to dropping from any level content if you were side kiced down. So more frequent chances at them being able to drop depending on what content you tended to run, the main signifcant one imo was weekly strike targets.
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First I would like say that I have been play since i8. I have seen them argue many times before, but it is kind of like watching macho man and hogan fight back in the day. Two of your icons fighting each other is always concerning.
Oh look this argument all over again.. YAY!
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Originally Posted by Paladiamors
I love you, I Burnt the Toast!
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I ran three DA arcs with two friends today. We were at +4/x8 dif the entire time (I don't know if that makes a difference or not but, thought it should be mentioned). In running three arcs, and doing some farming while waiting for them to get to DA so we could team, I ended up with a grand total of 15 threads, 1 emp from the completion reward, and 2 astrals from getting a second completion reward. One friend got a piece of common incarnate salvage the first time and 2 astrals the second. The other got two pieces of common salvage. All three of us agreed that while the iXP rate was just fine, the drop rate for threads was terrible and even think that it'd be reasonable if they decreased the iXP rate if they'd also increase the drop rate of threads. As it stands though, we all thought the solo arcs aren't really very good for anything aside from getting an empyrean.
I'm probably one of the rarer type of player in regards to this issue.
I......don't really care one way or the other what the pace of acquiring rewards in Dark Astoria is.
Incarnates aren't what is keeping me here, the game as a whole is. I look at Incarnate content as just something else I can do with my favorite characters now that they've done everything else.
Incarnate stuff has been out for, what, about a year now, maybe a little less? My main has a tier 3 Alpha, tier 2 Lore and Interface, and tier 1 Destiny (which I just unlocked over the weekend) He is the farthest along the Incarnate path of all my characters.
So, yay, stuff I can do on my main that will progress me forward in Incarnate crap.
The pace doesn't matter to me in the slightest, because I'm not focused on rewards. I'm focused on playing the game.
And isn't that what we're all here for in the first place?
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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I guess the conflict there is between the player base and the devs? (kk see sig).
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Originally Posted by __Tru__
There's a MOON BASE in the work!!! OMG!
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I'm here to play as well. The problem for me is that I can play the vast majority of what I want without being VIP.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
The pace doesn't matter to me in the slightest, because I'm not focused on rewards. I'm focused on playing the game. And isn't that what we're all here for in the first place? |
I crank up a lot of lowbies. These days, however, I'm using a secondary freebie account to powerlevel my lowbies to SOs. I stock them up with AE tickets buying their SOs and then I go back to playing them as I always have through a mixture of content and paper/scanners until they hit 50. Mostly solo, of course.
I wanted a viable solo path so that I could continue to advance my characters at a pace I didn't find glacial. We didn't get that.
The question is why should I pay a subscription to do something I'm going to find annoying? I like the incarnate powers. I like that I could have real mez protection on my squishies but it's not worth it to me if my choices to get that mez protection are between teaming in raids or spending who knows how long dealing with this one component a day crap especially after running all six arcs last night with BZB and getting 7 commons.
Damn right I was annoyed. My one chance on my main character to make some solid solo incarnate progress and I get crap. From here on out, due to the devs slapping in some rather ludicrous time gates, BZB will never be able to get more than 1 crappy component a day. Maybe an emp. Handful of threads.
They want me to pay for that? When I can instead just do lowbie runs without paying a dime until they correct the issue? What do I lose? The ability to pay base rent and I'm back to being incarnate-less. That's it. Oh.. and I lose the points stipend. 1200 points I spent on titan weapons and the carnival of light costume pack. I felt ripped off by both of those but, hey, that was entirely my fault for not researching before buying. It won't be that much of a big deal to not being able to purchase items after experiencing those two.
I'll still be able to create new characters (minus a few new powersets,) still be able to post to the forums (in all access threads,) still be able to farm and chat and kill enemies by the thousands.
As I said in channel last night, the devs threw the non-trialists a bone while those running trials are dining on all you can eat steak and $500 bottles of wine.
Guess it's back to leeching off of Arcanaville for me. Woot.
Be well, people of CoH.
I took 2 of my characters for a spin in DA last night.
As being content to play that awards Incarnate threads and such? - good.
As being content to gain incarnate xp and threads and such? - not good.
If the second one is my objective I am better off to sit around however long it takes waiting for an incarnate trial to form or to run the SSAs for Astral Threads and Astral Merits every week. Both of these options are painfully boring to me.
My other option is blow off the incarnate stuff which then as Bill wrote I may as well go Premium. I am a diehard fan of the game but when they have someone like me seriously pondering going Premium they might want to examine what they are doing.
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
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I've been reading this thread after my first day of solo incarnate path yesterday and I must disagree. Reasonable IS what we have now. I play usually mornings when iTrials are usually in the evenings. In the evenings, I'm asleep because I work nights, and therefore I'm up in the mornings. Yesterday I had my Alpha slot with a Tier 1 Musculature Boost in it. Now after two story arcs in DA I'm 2/3 of the way to my Tier 2. 2/3 of the way. How far was I along to my Tier 2 yesterday? Yes, 0/3 of the way. And that's just the components. I haven't looked, but it is entirely possible that I have enough threads (from before yesterday and added to yesterday) to get my third component for Tier 2. At this pace I could possibly have my Tier 3 Alpha by next week at this time (accounting for maybe not getting the rare table after a story arc), and finally have a Level Shift. On top of this, like the finest gravy, I am getting advancement to my Justice and Interface slots. Sure, they're still less than 10% each, but this is all after just ONE DAY.|
Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
You have 25 level 50 characters already incarnated out. People who don't like trials would have zero right now (or maybe one with doing nothing but Shard conversions). Is that fair? How about having to take 30 times longer than you to get one character incarnated out? Is that fair? Is it fair that people who are actually doing stuff will get rewards slower than those leachers you complain of?
Basically, you've had your incarnates for a lot longer than people who don't like the trials, and farming the same content over and over again. When people were asking for a solo incarnate path, they were hoping for a way to do it at a reasonable (or fair) pace without having to farm. And that's not what we got. |
I know my progress would be better if I was doing iTrials. I do not have much access to iTrials except maybe on weekends. To me, this is a REASONABLE amount of progress towards my Incarnate stuff for one day's work. I don't expect iTrial-level progress, and so, yes, this is REASONABLE progress. This is more progress on my Incarnate path than I would get on my level 1 to level 50 path in one day of solo content.
The only way this wouldn't be REASONABLE progression is maybe among the hardcore MUST-HAVE-IT-NAO!!! crowd. I'm used to slow progression soloing. This is reasonable progression. Would I like it to be faster? Of course, who wouldn't? But this IS reasonable.
The progress you make with your first run through the DA arcs is NOT, I repeat, it is NOT the progress you will get forever after that.
The progress my main will be relegated to with the current design is so far from reasonable as to be laughable.
1 component drop per day with an average straight thread drop rate of 8 per hour running at x8 difficulty? No, that is not reasonable. It's pathetic. Especially after getting 7 common components for running all 6 arcs.
Be well, people of CoH.
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During those first few weeks I pulled roughly twice the rares as I got commons. The speedbump was always getting enough threads/astrals/emps to turn into commons. I have never had to wait to earn a rare - they are much more common proportionally than the numbers of the other things you need.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
That's also unlikely. Statistically speaking, less than 33% of all players that ran about eight trials in a row at release would have been awarded at least two rare drops necessary to do that.
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Your character does not have capped defense. Depending on your AT the cap is between 175% - 225%. Your defense is not teal in the combat window, it can go higher. STOP SAYING IT IS CAPPED! The correct term is Soft Cap.
I enjoy playing in Mids. I specialize in Melee Characters, other AT's usually bore me.