Focused Feedback: Enhancements

[Jimmy]

This is a Focused Feedback Thread

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• The most up-to-date version of the changes will be listed in the first post.
• The changes in each build will be posted as replies.
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Enhancements

Enhancement Upgrade Button

• Added an Upgrade button to the bottom left of the Enhancements screen
• This will upgrade all your store-buyable enhancements to +3 of your level, to the maximum of level 50
• It costs the same as purchasing the enhancements from a store, and it will not change the enhancement type; a low level DO will be upgraded to a high level DO, not a SO.

• Combined enhancements will be replaced following the new Enhancement Combining rules described below

  • This means a level 48++ SO will be "upgraded" to level 50 and charge full price

 

Enhancement Combining

• Combining enhancements now increases their level directly, instead of a combined level enhancement (ie: 33 instead of 32+1)
  • This means you can, through combination, get Titan, Hydra and Hamidon enhancements all the way to level 53
  • Existing combined enhancements are not affected, but another combination will increase their level and remove the combinations

Acquiring Enhancements

• Single Origin enhancements can now be purchased from vendors at levels 5, 10, 15 and 20
  • This is meant to equalize the availability of those enhancements at low levels, which currently are mostly obtained through farming the Death From Below trial
• DOs can now be purchased from vendors at levels 5 and 10, just for parity
• TOs have been removed from regular vendors but can still be purchased from the Supergroup Base enhancements vendor if you're into that kind of thing

• Story Arc rewards that used to drop TOs and DOs will now always drop a SO of your origin

  • TOs and DOs will still drop from other sources as vendor trash

• The tutorial zones now reward the player with Talisman of the Initiate (Damage) SOs instead of Damage TOs

• Introductory tasks from City Hall reward the player with Damage SOs of their origin instead of Damage TOs

• The Shop Keeper and Smuggler day jobs will now always award a SO

Yin's Market

• Yin's Talisman enhancements can now be used by characters of all origins and are available at level 5, 10, 15 and 20
  • They are also cheaper than SOs of the same level to purchase from Mr. Yin, although they will cost the same to upgrade
• Yin's Talisman enhancements now use a fancy golden border
• There are currently no plans to make those enhancements available to Villains or Praetorians, as the store unlock is a reward for the Faultline arcs
  • Those characters can purchase the enhancements from the auction house, receive them via character email, or store and retrieve them from Supergroup storage if they wish

[Jimmy]

Build 1 - October 24th, 2020

Spoiler

Enhancements

Enhancement Upgrade Button

• Added an Upgrade button to the bottom left of the Enhancements screen
• This will upgrade all your store-buyable enhancements to +3 of your level, to the maximum of level 50
• It costs the same as purchasing the enhancements from a store, and it will not change the enhancement type; a low level DO will be upgraded to a high level DO, not a SO.

• Combined enhancements will be replaced following the new Enhancement Combining rules described below

  • This means a level 48++ SO will be "upgraded" to level 50 and charge full price

 

Enhancement Combining

• Combining enhancements now increases their level directly, instead of a combined level enhancement (ie: 33 instead of 32+1)
  • This means you can, through combination, get Titan, Hydra and Hamidon enhancements all the way to level 53
  • Existing combined enhancements are not affected, but another combination will increase their level and remove the combinations

Acquiring Enhancements

• Single Origin enhancements can now be purchased from vendors at levels 5, 10, 15 and 20
  • This is meant to equalize the availability of those enhancements at low levels, which currently are mostly obtained through farming the Death From Below trial
• DOs can now be purchased from vendors at levels 5 and 10, just for parity
• TOs have been removed from regular vendors but can still be purchased from the Supergroup Base enhancements vendor if you're into that kind of thing

• Story Arc rewards that used to drop TOs and DOs will now always drop a SO of your origin

  • TOs and DOs will still drop from other sources as vendor trash

• The tutorial zones now reward the player with Talisman of the Initiate (Damage) SOs instead of Damage TOs

• Introductory tasks from City Hall reward the player with Damage SOs of their origin instead of Damage TOs

• The Shop Keeper and Smuggler day jobs will now always award a SO

Yin's Market

• Yin's Talisman enhancements can now be used by characters of all origins and are available at level 5, 10, 15 and 20
  • They are also cheaper than SOs of the same level to purchase from Mr. Yin, although they will cost the same to upgrade
• Yin's Talisman enhancements now use a fancy golden border
• There are currently no plans to make those enhancements available to Villains or Praetorians, as the store unlock is a reward for the Faultline arcs
  • Those characters can purchase the enhancements from the auction house, receive them via character email, or store and retrieve them from Supergroup storage if they wish

 

[Tath99]

Enhancement Combining:

 

I am a little saddened to see the option to ++ ordinary SO's disappear.  This allowed SO only builds to eke out a little extra % efficiency -- their was a difference between a ++, +,  blue and yellow state of SO.  That is ++ status SO's were a) overcharged and b) had guaranteed extra longevity for the extra inf investment.

 

Would I be correct in saying option b) longevity is retained through these changes but the overcharging a) has been removed? -- or am I misunderstanding?

 

 

[Mystic Fortune]

You're misunderstanding. The new system will allow you to boost your slotted SO enhancement to +3 of your current level. Once you hit 50, if you would continue to slot SOs, level 51, 52 and 53 enhancements would still exist as drops. Plus you can return to any store that sells your origin specific enhancements and upgrade your level 50 enhancements the old-fashioned way up to 53 if you so choose.

[Mystic Fortune]

The biggest impact of this change is waltzing into the Hollows at level 5 already decked out in SOs. Frostfire runs are going to be amazing!

[Riverdusk]

With as many alts as I start, all for making the early levels smoother (and be able to more easily skip DFB).

[ryuplaneswalker]

Will there be any rebalancing of the costs of SOs?

 

I realize that for Established players who have 50s the costs are minimal, however for newer players who don't have an established bank account(who are the ones most likely to use SOs) the cost of DOs and SOs is pretty outrageous.

[zenblack]

8 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Existing combined enhancements are not affected, but another combination will increase their level and remove the combinations

Just to clarify this as it caught my eye. Does this mean all existing Hami-O's that were 50+2 will be converted to 53 if combined successfully with another HO/TO?

Edited October 24, 2020 by zenblack

[Jimmy]

Just now, zenblack said:

Just to clarify this as it caught my eye. Does this mean all existing Hami-O's that were 50+2 will not be converted to 53?

They will be 50+2, but you should be able to combine them with another to get a 53.

[Vanden]

6 minutes ago, zenblack said:

Just to clarify this as it caught my eye. Does this mean all existing Hami-O's that were 50+2 will not be converted to 53?

Correct, they will convert to 52 instead

 

Edit: Curse you Jimmmmyyyy

Edited October 24, 2020 by Vanden

[csr]

2 hours ago, Mystic Fortune said:

The biggest impact of this change is waltzing into the Hollows at level 5 already decked out in SOs. Frostfire runs are going to be amazing!

I just did this.  I decided since I had limited time and hadn't planned out testing I'd just revisit what we'd seen before.  I started an Inv/EM Tanker and then...

1. Visited the P2W vendor and got the usual.  I ran around and leveled to 3 while getting the Explores for the new TP power (I don't have a base on test, so I thought it might be useful).  I normally do the Explores to avoid having to transfer starter INF.  I granted myself 1.2M INF after getting the RM to simulate cashing in the RM.  Picked up Reveal, the 3 Amplifier temps and bought SOs (for the record, the 3 Amplifiers at that level cost 27k, the SOs about 18k).
2. I then did the Mutie starter arc.  I forgot to level before turning in the arc and only got a level 4 SO instead of 5.  I ran most of the missions at 0x2 after the first at +1x3.
3. Headed to the Hollows and did Wincott's arc.  Again... I forgot to level first and ended up with a -1 Dam SO.  I decided to up everything to L10 SOs since I was at level 7.
4. Did Flux's arc and easily whooped Frostfire with the Amplifiers and SOs.  I rushed through the mission at 0x1 because I was worried the Amplifiers might wear off (they didn't).

I ended up at L10 and with over 6M INF worth of RM+INF after running the KR Explores.

 

It took less than an hour and the play was reminiscent of L22 play in Talos.  (Coupled with the Tanker changes the experience is night-and-day compared to pre-Sunset low level Inv/EM play.)

Edited October 24, 2020 by csr
Clarity

[csr]

2 hours ago, ryuplaneswalker said:

Will there be any rebalancing of the costs of SOs?

 

I realize that for Established players who have 50s the costs are minimal, however for newer players who don't have an established bank account(who are the ones most likely to use SOs) the cost of DOs and SOs is pretty outrageous.

They aren't that bad.  Buying SOs and boosting them once to 10 cost me about 150k.  I'd still like to see a Conversion option at the Merit Vendors that turns 1 Reward Merits into 100,000 Influence.

[mrudat]

Just to check; the upgrade enhancement button buys and replaces, not upgrades, enhancements, so it's potentially cheaper to buy and upgrade enhancements yourself, if your enhancements are only somewhat out of date?

 

Is it feasible to have it buy and combine enhancements instead? Even a 5% chance means probably one or two enhancements ending up +1 level.

[Crowe]

Seems like a waste of development effort, to be honest. I don't know anyone who used store-bought enhancements for stuff other than their first character or for a couple of key powers for a rush-Posi.  Don't get me wrong -- it's a cool idea and all.  But anyone who regularly plays is going to tell people not to use TO/DO/SOs anyway.

[ryuplaneswalker]

1 hour ago, csr said:

They aren't that bad.  Buying SOs and boosting them once to 10 cost me about 150k.  I'd still like to see a Conversion option at the Merit Vendors that turns 1 Reward Merits into 100,000 Influence.

At what level, also why are you advocating to make another trap for new players when it comes to wasting merits?

[GM Tock]

15 minutes ago, mrudat said:

Just to check; the upgrade enhancement button buys and replaces, not upgrades, enhancements, so it's potentially cheaper to buy and upgrade enhancements yourself, if your enhancements are only somewhat out of date?

 

Is it feasible to have it buy and combine enhancements instead? Even a 5% chance means probably one or two enhancements ending up +1 level.

The Upgrade button buys replacement TO/DO/SO enhancements as if you went to a vendor and bought them yourself.  It can save time versus buying and slotting.

What it won't do:

• Upgrade only brings your slotted enhancements to the current level, combining still has value if you find them as drops.  If you want to slot +3 ones from a vendor, you can still do that.
• Upgrade won't change Enhancement types.  If you want to change from TO/DO/SO, you have to buy them yourself. 
• IOs are ignored by Upgrade.

[csr]

2 hours ago, ryuplaneswalker said:

At what level, also why are you advocating to make another trap for new players when it comes to wasting merits?

The only way you should have trouble affording SOs is if you don't know what Reward Merits are, where to get them (Explore badges and story arc content, as examples), or how to convert them to INF (getting Special Salvage and selling in on the AH/BM is the simplest).  If you know those three things then affording SOs isn't a problem.  However, a lot of people don't play the market.  They don't like it, they don't know what sells well, etc.  Which makes the third part of that an issue.  And leads them into the existing newb traps at the Merit Vendor.  So I don't think adding a simple to understand one that's no worse (and is significantly better than wasting RM on SO) than the others is a problem.

 

If we're going to remove newb traps from the Merit Vendor then we need to eliminate the INF to RM purchase, almost all recipes, and all SOs¹.

 

1.  Interestingly, in checking the Merit Vendor I see that it won't sell SOs to anyone under level 17 (untrained - I actually tested level-by-level both untrained and trained).  Removing the SO option from the MV entirely would be a good idea, IMO, since using RM on SOs is tantamount to just throwing them away.  But I suspect that consistency would mean that the option to buy SOs with RM should be available to every level.

Edited October 25, 2020 by csr

[mrudat]

I'd be inclined to want to boost the usefulness of TOs and DOs so they aren't just vendor trash.

 

Perhaps something like instead of DOs turning red at -4, have them turn red at -7, and TOs, instead of turning red at -4, have them turn red at -10, with the bonus slowly trending towards zero, rather than cutting off.

 

You get the tradeoff of less maximum enhancement, but you don't have to upgrade everything all at once in order to not suddenly have your performance drop off.

 

Ideally you end up with around the same amount of influence consumed 0-50, but instead of having one or two SOs at-level, and many red (because you aren't maximising merits -> inf), you end up with a smaller, but relatively constant, enhancement.

 

Possibly more effective total influence consumed, because you would only vendor enhancement you can't actually use, and actually slot the rest, where at the moment, TOs and DOs are vendor trash, and thus add influence to the system, rather than being consumed.

 

You'd probably use the SOs that drop in whichever power you decide to 6-slot first, given that they're not as common at low level, but you want to maximise the benefit you get out of them.

[DreadShinobi]

Or they could just remove TOs and DOs from the game as they're super obsolete at this point, imo. I like the SO enhancement upgrading system that they implemented and it gives me much more incentive to actually play a lowbie rather than power level them.

[UpandAtom]

This'll be...interesting for new alts to experience. A lot of stuff only really started to shine when SOs opened up in the 20s. Then again it's so quick to level to that point nowadays that TOs and DOs had already become stuff you blew past anyway.
Those poor Freedom Corps merchants all out of jobs, though. The interiors of those shops should be turned into Amazon shipping locations.

[csr]

1 hour ago, UpandAtom said:

This'll be...interesting for new alts to experience. A lot of stuff only really started to shine when SOs opened up in the 20s. Then again it's so quick to level to that point nowadays that TOs and DOs had already become stuff you blew past anyway.
Those poor Freedom Corps merchants all out of jobs, though. The interiors of those shops should be turned into Amazon shipping locations.

Freedom Corps merchants sell SOs now.  Of all Origins too.

[arthurh35353]

I think I'm going to have to load test and make a newbie to play through the low levels solo. I get the feeling that without playing the market or selling merits, you won't be able to afford the Upgrade-SOs systems. Heck, I've been having problems getting the original TOs/DOs fast enough so I've been dropping a couple of million INF on my lowbies instead.

[csr]

20 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

I think I'm going to have to load test and make a newbie to play through the low levels solo. I get the feeling that without playing the market or selling merits, you won't be able to afford the Upgrade-SOs systems. Heck, I've been having problems getting the original TOs/DOs fast enough so I've been dropping a couple of million INF on my lowbies instead.

You won't be able to.

 

I bought SOs as needed and upgrade them at 7, 14 and 21.  At 7 I'd spent around 150k after the upgrade.  At 14 it was 600k.  At 21 about 1.3M.

 

I did earn 41 Merits in the process of leveling however.  So funding wasn't a problem (I just gave myself 200k per Merit to simulate selling Special Salvage on the AH).  I did have 2XP on though.  I'll have to try a character without that, but I really don't think you earn that kind of INF at low levels.  Through L4 on a starter Scrapper with normal XP I'd earned 9k.  Enough to buy 2 SOs to go with one that I got from the Science starter contact.  Of course, at that point I only needed 3 SOs (I used 3 Prestige enhancements) outside of Fitness.  Still, you are either going to have to turn XP off for long stretches or earn INF outside what just comes naturally.

[ryuplaneswalker]

10 hours ago, csr said:

The only way you should have trouble affording SOs is if you don't know what Reward Merits are,

Like a new player?

[csr]

3 minutes ago, ryuplaneswalker said:

Like a new player?

Which is why we need better intros to that system.  They've got two choices, make the existing methods of earning INF easier for newbies to use or completely rework the INF rewards to suit them at low levels.  It's the old "Teach a man to fish..." moral. 

 

(And to be honest, there don't seem to be many newbies these days.)

Edited October 25, 2020 by csr