Reward structure: Master Of TF and Hard Mode TF rewards inversion

[KeepDistance]

I missed the change in beta, but page 4 removes the Astral and Emp merit rewards from hard-mode TFs including Aeon. This bothers me.

 

Prior to the Page 3 patch, the game had a very standard power progression. You get more powers/abilities to unlock more content, and that new content gives you resources to improve your powers/abilities beyond what you could do before.

 

There are now two reward structures in the game that break this model:

 

1) Master of [X Task Force]** badges. These badges are earned via difficulty settings that explicitly disable incarnate powers, but they grant rewards - specifically, a free rare incarnate salvage component - that *only* improves incarnate powers.

 

So you improve your abilities by *not* using them. That's weird, and leads to situations where you can earn the last few improvements to incarnate powers but never experience the benefits, because you're doing Master of [X Task Force] runs where you can't use them.

 

** Note that Master of [Y Trial] badges, earned in incarnate trials, are fine. You get free rares from them, too, but in the process you're using the powers you improve, and you get to experience the benefits thereof on subsequent runs.

 

2) High difficulty Aeon SF and Imperious TF. This has the inverse problem of the above: you can (and almost need to) use incarnate powers, but you no longer get any special rewards that help you improve them.

 

So the end game content doesn't give you a good path to improving end-game powers. That's weird, and leads to situations where you're incentivized to complete a character before running these TFs - at which point that character has no use for whatever rewards accrue from success.

 

My suggestion is simple: swap the reward structures. Grant bonus reward merits instead of incarnate salvage for Master of [X Task Force] badges, and return to granting empyrean merits instead of reward merits for the advanced difficulty SF/TFs.

 

Thanks for listening.