The Incarnate system is needlessly complex and fussy

[FFFF]

So I left the Live servers (issue 20 or thereabouts) before getting too much into the Incarnate system, and really sort of re-experienced them recently. Wow, it's a hot mess in my opinion. It feels like there was a unified vision of what is should be at one point, but changes were tacked on that made it worse.

 

I sense at one point, they wanted to both a) reward people who played their characters post level 50, and b) wanted a way of progression where you could achieve your incarnate powers by achieving in-game milestones. This way you wouldn't just sit in a farm gaining levels to get more powerful.

 

The implementation of that vision is rather bad. There's two base currencies - shards and threads. And recipes where you can craft the salvage needed for each power from each type. It honestly took me a while to find this out, simply because I just didn't notice you could scroll down for each power for alternate recipes. What's weirder is shard and thread recipes are exclusive - the salvage you craft for one can't be used for the alternate recipe. Given how many threads drop versus shards and the exclusivity of each recipe type, it creates a false impression that you need both. It vexed me at first there wasn't a thread to shard conversion when there was a shard to thread conversion button readily available - this adds to the confusion in my opinion.

 

The interface for the powers leave a lot to be desired. You click on the interface and are first presented with a 5 slots which are locked. Okay, that is straightforward. As you level, these become unlocked and there are mission-based ways to unlock these. So far so good. However, after that it's a mess.

 

You are then introduced to a variety of salvage that you must acquire in order to purchase the powers for each unlocked slots. The interface shows you a cost conversion in shards/threads and other prerequisite salvage in order for you to purchase your powers. Further, as you move up power tiers the subsequent power is often consumed in the creation of the higher tier power. This feels odd. As a player you are immediately left wondering if you need to re-purchase the consumed power again or if the new power has all the capabilities of your old power with additional benefits. I'm assuming the latter interpretation but the interface honestly makes this confusing as the highlighted lines to the lower level power disappears. It would just be cleaner if the lower level power was just locked (i.e., marked as permanently purchased) so it would leave no doubt.

 

The overall experience is just rather odd. If you have a lot of threads (my highest just reached veteran level 24), the interface with the first tab for power slots, a tab for power creation, a tab for salvage creation/conversion just feels like thumbing through a poorly designed web catalog. I realize that games like Path of Exile, Diablo and similar have elaborate skill trees, and it feels they could have implemented something like that. This is an old game, running on private servers, so please put down your pitchforks, as I'm not suggesting that. I realize dev time is precious and from what I've seen they prioritize well.  The interface is just underwhelming/confusing and it doesn't feel like character growth rather closer to buying upgrades for a computer.

 

[Greycat]

I'd be all *for* them dumping shards and everything related, converting to threads/empyrians/whatever.

 

And honestly, it already *has* been streamlined some. It USED to be that you'd have to do some trials for Physical Incarnate XP, and others for the Psychic XP (left and right branches.) THEN, starting - was it with Hybrid? - there'd be "Advanced iXP." That's all been dumped. (Or at least you earn them simultaneously for everything so you don't have to worry about it.)

 

Don't forget, the Incarnate system was locked behind subscriptions when COH went "freemium," so having it require a grind for stuff was... well, scabbed on like the system itself felt like, to me, to keep that sub money flowing in.

[biostem]

Just make everything cost threads.

[Lazarillo]

6 hours ago, biostem said:

Just make everything cost threads.

Sure, as long as Threads start dropping something like twice as often to make up the difference, and WSTs give 10-ish Emp Merits.

[Wavicle]

20 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

Sure, as long as Threads start dropping something like twice as often to make up the difference, and WSTs give 10-ish Emp Merits.

 

The difference of what?

[Lazarillo]

3 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

The difference of what?

The difference of losing Shards.  Right now, you earn enough shards from drops for a common buy about as fast as you earn enough threads for the same.  So to make up the difference of removing shards, you'd need to earn enough threads from drops for two commons.

[kelika2]

Simple math

4 shards = 1 common incarn piece

20 threads = 1 common incarn piece

droprate between shards:threads is 1:5.  its more noticeable on firefarm alts

 

For your alpha piece:  use threads for tier1 and 2.  use shards and shard accessories for tier 3 and 4.

 

This is not complicated, you are just out of practice.

[Wavicle]

Yea, as someone who generates their Incarnate abilities primarily by running DA arcs, the loss of shards would be almost completely meaningless to me.

 

But I understand what you are saying now, thank you.

[Greycat]

5 hours ago, Lazarillo said:

The difference of losing Shards.  Right now, you earn enough shards from drops for a common buy about as fast as you earn enough threads for the same.  So to make up the difference of removing shards, you'd need to earn enough threads from drops for two commons.

 

You do? I get threads frequently enough I have to remember to *check* shards, and once Alpha's built, shards are utterly useless - other than converting to threads. My Alpha's typically built by the time I'd have shards to do it, and T3'd well before shards could do that.

[ClawsandEffect]

5 hours ago, Greycat said:

 

You do? I get threads frequently enough I have to remember to *check* shards, and once Alpha's built, shards are utterly useless - other than converting to threads. My Alpha's typically built by the time I'd have shards to do it, and T3'd well before shards could do that.

 

This. 

 

I have a tank I'm working on. His Alpha is already tier 4 via the threads/Empyrean route. 

 

Why? 

 

Because he has had a grand total of FOUR Shards drop in that time span. 

 

Getting rid of Shards I'd be in favor of. 

[Lazarillo]

6 hours ago, Greycat said:

You do? I get threads frequently enough I have to remember to *check* shards, and once Alpha's built, shards are utterly useless - other than converting to threads. My Alpha's typically built by the time I'd have shards to do it, and T3'd well before shards could do that.

As noted, sure, you get threads 5 times as often as shards, assuming you're doing regular content.  But Shards are also five times more useful.  If you're just farming Heather or something, then yeah, you'll get threads a lot faster, and to some degree, it's worth it to blow threads on an Alpha slot early to make some of the endgame stuff easier, but if you waste threads on Alpha, it's gonna take a lot longer to finish the other slots.

[Rudra]

18 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

But Shards are also five times more useful.

How? I don't ever use shards except to convert to threads. I never found shards worthwhile after the Live devs introduced the post-Alpha incarnate powers. I have never found enough shards to build anything. And I don't farm Heather's arc or anything else for threads.

[Lazarillo]

3 minutes ago, Rudra said:

How? I don't ever use shards except to convert to threads.

You get common salvage for 4 shards or 20 threads, and uncommons are 12 shards or 60 threads. So one shard = five threads, for the purposes of "buying" the salvage.

[The Chairman]

I think it also depends on what content you're running. I'll do the Triple Hami Raid on Excel when I'm building an Incarnate, and I get loads of shards from the Mitos.

[Rudra]

3 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

You get common salvage for 4 shards or 20 threads, and uncommons are 12 shards or 60 threads. So one shard = five threads, for the purposes of "buying" the salvage.

For the purposes of buying the incarnate salvage, shards only buy the salvage used to craft Alpha slot powers using the shard system. I just checked to make sure I wasn't remembering wrong. So shards are still worthless past Alpha. And even for Alpha, they are pretty worthless because you still need Notices and Favors of the Well to craft the T3 and T4.

[lemming]

I'll have to chime in and say, shards don't drop nearly that fast on any content.  Just ran my parser and yea, about a 1:5 ratio.  (Had to filter out vet level drops)

 

Drop an Emp Merit instead of Notice of the Well, and I think we'd be fine.

 

I do use shards for either the second T3 branch, or a another Alpha, but threads are usually plentiful and always faster to get my level shift that way.

[Lazarillo]

6 minutes ago, The Chairman said:

I think it also depends on what content you're running. I'll do the Triple Hami Raid on Excel when I'm building an Incarnate, and I get loads of shards from the Mitos.

There's definitely some balance in it depending on content you're running.  If you're doing DA or trials, you don't get shards at all.  If you're doing Hami, you get a ton more shards.  If you're doing basically anything else, it's a 5:1 ratio (as lemming noted), but with the thing you're getting five of also having 1/5 the value.

 

5 minutes ago, lemming said:

Drop an Emp Merit instead of Notice of the Well, and I think we'd be fine.

You'd also need a hell of a lot more E-Merits to even things out there, too.  You can get a Rare component for 1 Notice, and a VR for 2 notices + shards.  If you replace Alpha components with E-Merits, you'd need 36 to fully complete the slot, which means a weekly (and Morty Kal) should award no less than 9 but no more than 11 to continue matching the current "goal" of four weeks to complete the slot.

[Rudra]

23 minutes ago, lemming said:

I'll have to chime in and say, shards don't drop nearly that fast on any content.  Just ran my parser and yea, about a 1:5 ratio.  (Had to filter out vet level drops)

 

Drop an Emp Merit instead of Notice of the Well, and I think we'd be fine.

 

I do use shards for either the second T3 branch, or a another Alpha, but threads are usually plentiful and always faster to get my level shift that way.

Shards were always meant to be a rare drop. It was meant to be a grind to build up our Alpha slot. Part of the relief that was felt when threads came into play, at least by me, was because we could craft incarnate components faster with threads than with shards. Had the devs kept the shard system for the incarnate slots other than Alpha, it would have taken a lot longer to build up an incarnate. At a 1:5 ratio, by the time a player had the 5 shards necessary to craft a common salvage, that player had enough threads to craft a common salvage and was already 5 threads in to the next salvage. So I doubly don't get @Lazarillo's 5x as valuable useful comment.

Edited May 21, 2023 by Rudra

[lemming]

28 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

There's definitely some balance in it depending on content you're running.  If you're doing DA or trials, you don't get shards at all.  If you're doing Hami, you get a ton more shards.  If you're doing basically anything else, it's a 5:1 ratio (as lemming noted), but with the thing you're getting five of also having 1/5 the value.

 

You'd also need a hell of a lot more E-Merits to even things out there, too.  You can get a Rare component for 1 Notice, and a VR for 2 notices + shards.  If you replace Alpha components with E-Merits, you'd need 36 to fully complete the slot, which means a weekly (and Morty Kal) should award no less than 9 but no more than 11 to continue matching the current "goal" of four weeks to complete the slot.

As noted by others, Notices are really only good for Alpha.   Maybe instead of Notice the rewards table can be the same as many other places Emp Merit, Reward Merits, Incarnate Salvage reward.

 

And of course, all the other spots where we have shard items like the ITF, Vanguard Merit turn in, Alpha unlock, and probably a couple other places that would need attention.

 

Dumping shards would probably be a good first step just for the minor cleanup that would help.  Then that whole interface could maybe be tackled, but iirc, that a much bigger project.

[Lazarillo]

2 minutes ago, lemming said:

As noted by others, Notices are really only good for Alpha.

This is kind of a misconception of itself, because it doesn't treat the Incarnate system as, well, a system.  Saying something is only good for Alpha ignores the fact that any Threads or E-Merits wasted on something that could be done with a Shard alternative, also means you don't have them towards work on another slot. 

[Rudra]

10 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

This is kind of a misconception of itself, because it doesn't treat the Incarnate system as, well, a system.  Saying something is only good for Alpha ignores the fact that any Threads or E-Merits wasted on something that could be done with a Shard alternative, also means you don't have them towards work on another slot. 

Your comment ignores that shards are still rare drops, or at the very least uncommon compared to threads, and that unlike shards which only come from drops, threads come from drops, from Notice/Favor conversions, from shard conversions, as selectable mission rewards, and as veteran level rewards.

 

(Edit: And that is on top of their higher drop rate.)

Edited May 21, 2023 by Rudra

[Lazarillo]

9 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Your comment ignores that shards are still rare drops, or at the very least uncommon compared to threads

And yours ignores, once again, that relative to the cost of the components they're used for, Shards drop at effectively the same rate as threads, sometimes even better, depending on the content (and in fairness, sometimes threads drop at a better relative rate than Shards, too, though in both cases, that's only for very specific content...99% of the game, they drop at equal ratios according to their value).

 

When Common-Uncommon components only cost 4-12 Threads, and Rare-Very Rare only cost 1-2 E-Merits, then the ratio would matter.  If you want to drop shards from the game, then that ratio needs to be accounted for.  If the issue is with shards rendered obsolete faster, then don't tie it to drop rate, I suppose, but rather, Vet levels as well, and make each one that gives threads give about 50% more, and that would also account for the waste from flat out removing an alternative path (and maintain the 10 E-Merits per WST for equivalent ratio on the rares).

Edited May 21, 2023 by Lazarillo

[Wavicle]

6 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

And yours ignores, once again, that relative to the cost of the components they're used for, Shards drop at effectively the same rate as threads, sometimes even better, depending on the content (and in fairness, sometimes threads drop at a better relative rate than Shards, too, though in both cases, that's only for very specific content...99% of the game, they drop at equal ratios according to their value).

 

When Common-Uncommon components only cost 4-12 Threads, and Rare-Very Rare only cost 1-2 E-Merits, then the ratio would matter.  If you want to drop shards from the game, then that ratio needs to be accounted for.  If the issue is with shards rendered obsolete faster, then don't tie it to drop rate, I suppose, but rather, Vet levels as well, and make each one that gives threads give about 50% more, and that would also account for the waste from flat out removing an alternative path (and maintain the 10 E-Merits per WST for equivalent ratio on the rares).

Could you please address the question of how you are turning Shards into components for anything beyond Alpha?

Edited May 21, 2023 by Wavicle

[Rudra]

6 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

And yours ignores, once again, that relative to the cost of the components they're used for, Shards drop at effectively the same rate as threads, sometimes even better, depending on the content (and in fairness, sometimes threads drop at a better relative rate than Shards, too, though in both cases, that's only for very specific content...99% of the game, they drop at equal ratios according to their value).

 

When Common-Uncommon components only cost 4-12 Threads, and Rare-Very Rare only cost 1-2 E-Merits, then the ratio would matter.  If you want to drop shards from the game, then that ratio needs to be accounted for.  If the issue is with shards rendered obsolete faster, then don't tie it to drop rate, I suppose, but rather, Vet levels as well, and make each one that gives threads give about 50% more, and that would also account for the waste from flat out removing an alternative path (and maintain the 10 E-Merits per WST for equivalent ratio on the rares).

Not in my experience. Take my main character for instance. This MM made no shard conversions. This MM is fully T4'ed out. This MM did not use shards to craft anything. I don't farm, but I run regular content. This MM has 135 incarnate shards and 1,361 incarnate threads. With only using threads. Your comparison that the drop rates are equal when compared to what they can individually buy is very biased.

[Lazarillo]

10 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Could you please address the question of how you are turning Shards into components for anything beyond Alpha?

Sure:

31 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

This is kind of a misconception of itself, because it doesn't treat the Incarnate system as, well, a system.  Saying something is only good for Alpha ignores the fact that any Threads or E-Merits wasted on something that could be done with a Shard alternative, also means you don't have them towards work on another slot. 

 

 

8 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Not in my experience. Take my main character for instance. This MM made no shard conversions. This MM is fully T4'ed out. This MM did not use shards to craft anything. I don't farm, but I run regular content. This MM has 135 incarnate shards and 1,361 incarnate threads. With only using threads.

How many Vet levels?  Because assuming the typical drop rate for threads, those 135 shards that you wasted by ignoring would've gotten you "fully T4'd out" around with about 14 fewer Vet-levels worth of grind.

 

What it comes down to is pretty simple: Removing Shards without increasing threads increases grind. Period. Full stop.  You are taking out a drop and replacing it with nothing.  Just because you don't take advantage of it doesn't mean that the extra work you force on yourself should be forced on individuals who make better use of what's given to them.

Edited May 21, 2023 by Lazarillo