The Incarnate system is needlessly complex and fussy

[Rudra]

6 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

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.

73. So I still have 26 vet levels worth of threads and merits to get through. And I've been done with T4'ing that character for a very long time.

 

Edit: And since I don't farm or grind for components/threads, your grind comment doesn't apply. I played for fun, not to T4. (And to show all arcs/missions as being done in Ouroboros. So that part counts as grinding.)

Edited May 21, 2023 by Rudra

[Wavicle]

That still doesn’t answer my question, really.

 

By the time the other SLOTS are even unlocked I already have a t3 Alpha made using Emps and Threads.

 

Get rid of all the Alpha components and Shards. No one besides Lazarillo will even notice the difference.

[Lazarillo]

2 minutes ago, Rudra said:

73. So I still have 26 vet levels worth of threads and merits to get through. And I've been done with T4'ing that character for a very long time.

But 26 levels you don't have to do to finish your build.  You could play an alt (or use those 26 levels to fund an alt, giving you more time you could be playing your main).

 

2 minutes ago, Rudra said:

And since I don't farm or grind for components/threads,

Anyone who plays this game grinds, to some degree or another (unless, I guess, they just play on Beta only and auto-completes every build).  "Playing for fun" doesn't mean you're not grinding it.  If you had no intent on finishing your build, why do any Incarnate-ing at all?

[Troo]

8 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Get rid of all the Alpha components and Shards. No one besides Lazarillo will even notice the difference.

 

but I currently get a discount (effectively) on the Alpha tree using the shards.

 

Caveat: when I remember to look at shards..

 

I'm all for making Incarnates clearer for players. It is pretty messy and convoluted.

 

 

Edited May 21, 2023 by Troo

[Rudra]

1 minute ago, Lazarillo said:

6 minutes ago, Rudra said:

73. So I still have 26 vet levels worth of threads and merits to get through. And I've been done with T4'ing that character for a very long time.

But 26 levels you don't have to do to finish your build.  You could play an alt (or use those 26 levels to fund an alt, giving you more time you could be playing your main).

I was probably fully T4'ed around vet level 30. And even if I wasn't, your comment that the 26 vet levels I haven't achieved yet are no longer necessary to T4 this character falls under the "Are you seriously making this comment?!" heading since this character has, as has already been stated, been fully T4'ed for a "very long time".

 

3 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

If you had no intent on finishing your build, why do any Incarnate-ing at all?

Because I had the resources available to do so. Most of my characters I make no plans for making incarnate. They are still fully T4'ed incarnates. Your focus in this conversation seems rather skewed to me.

[Lazarillo]

1 minute ago, Wavicle said:

By the time the other SLOTS are even unlocked I already have a t3 Alpha made using Emps and Threads.

Whereas by the time the other slots are unlocked, I often already have t3s for Lore and Destiny already crafted from my Emps and Threads, and also have a t3 alpha from Shards and Notices.

 

4 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Get rid of all the Alpha components and Shards. No one besides Lazarillo will even notice the difference.

I mean, that seems clear enough (not just from this thread, but I see it in Help chat a lot too).  Lots of people wasting way more time because they don't want to pay attention.  But I don't really see a reason to remove the advantage from people who do.

 

Granted:

4 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

unless, I guess, they just play on Beta only and auto-completes every build

...this is closer to me anyway most of the time, because frankly, even with Shards, I find the late game too grindy.  So you're hurting me less than you probably think you think you are.  But I do think it's unfortunate that I don't get to see well-oiled teams working together as much, so I am a little saddened by the idea of having even less of an excuse to play "live".

[Wavicle]

I don’t know how you play, but I have literally never SEEN enough shards to do what you’re describing.

[ClawsandEffect]

1 hour ago, Lazarillo said:

Whereas by the time the other slots are unlocked, I often already have t3s for Lore and Destiny already crafted from my Emps and Threads, and also have a t3 alpha from Shards and Notices.

 

Congrats. 

 

My DA/BS tank just got his T4 Alpha. I had to do it with threads and Empyrean Merits because he has had 4 Shards drop for him TOTAL. 

 

I usually try to at least use Shards and Notices to craft my T3s, but it wasn't an option on that character because he only ever got enough Shards to craft a single common component. I've been playing him consistently through the Dark Astoria content. He hasn't had a Shard drop in over a week. 

 

Your experience is your own, and by no means reflects the experience of others. Not everyone ever gets enough Shards to be useful for anything. Since I've already got the only power you can use them at T4, any more that I have drop will be completely useless for anything but converting into threads. 

[FupDup]

When it comes to building stuff with shards, waiting for shards to drop randomly then convert them to salvage is extremely painful and not recommended for anyone, ever. 

 

However, if you do very specific TFs/SFs you can get the salvage outright (i.e. Ancient Nictus Fragment from ITF). In theory this could be pretty fast but in practice some of the TFs aren't very popular (like LRSF/MLTF) so that knocks the wind out of the sails of that approach.

 

IMO it's less trouble to just combine shards into threads and use those for everything. I don't want to have to either wait around for rare TFs or learn how to host them myself and wait for people to join. 

[Lazarillo]

46 minutes ago, ClawsandEffect said:

I've been playing him consistently through the Dark Astoria content. He hasn't had a Shard drop in over a week. 

So you're specifically focusing on playing only content where Shards don't drop, complaining they don't drop, and then claiming that's a reason that they shouldn't drop in any other content as well?

 

46 minutes ago, ClawsandEffect said:

Not everyone ever gets enough Shards to be useful for anything.

...so that means that that nobody should get them ever, and nothing should be done to compensate for the lack of them?

 

To be clear, I'm not necessarily knocking people for going "this is too complicated I don't want to do it".  I think PAPs are complete waste of time, but I don't advocate for them to be removed just because I think it's a dumb system.  Since as it is, you can ignore Shards if you don't want them, why not do that, and let the people who want to engage with that system, do so?

 

Nor am I necessarily insisting that the current system needs to stay.  Simply that any "solution" shouldn't add grind for no reason. If Shards are taken out, then Threads should be increased to compensate for what could be done before their loss.  If Notices are taken out, then E-Merits should as well.

Edited May 21, 2023 by Lazarillo

[kelika2]

2 hours ago, Wavicle said:

That still doesn’t answer my question, really.

 

By the time the other SLOTS are even unlocked I already have a t3 Alpha made using Emps and Threads.

 

Get rid of all the Alpha components and Shards. No one besides Lazarillo will even notice the difference.

Then you wasted threads.

WST notice + two other common shards = t3.

Since most of my alts just go for muscle alpha, just take the ITF shard reward

During one ITF aprox 4 shards drop so you can make the other, as well as maybe get your first and second vet levels.

use threads for t1 and t2

use shards for t3 and t4

 

Sure, 32+ shards seems daunting at first but you do not have to worry about it much.  The  T3 alpha is a huge boost in power.  T4 alpha, not so much.  it can wait as your stockpile of shards grows while you work on other incarnate stuff.  waiting for 4 notices of the well from WSTs is not as bad as you think.

[Perfect Square]

The main reason there seems to be a discrepancy in drop rates is because of veteran level rewards, those threads and Emps early on skew things in favor of it seeming like threads drop more often (which if you count those bonuses, they certainly do).

 

It all depends on what content you are running, but shards are quite useful if you run a lot of WSTs and level 50 TFs (and relatively few DA arcs or ITrials) like I do. I don't use thread based components for Alpha until all 5 other slots are T4. I usually complete my Alpha about halfway through that process, and then convert shard based components to thread based to help with the rest.

30 minutes ago, ClawsandEffect said:

I've been playing him consistently through the Dark Astoria content. He hasn't had a Shard drop in over a week. 

That's because DA content doesn't drop shards. It was designed as the "solo thread based" incarnate path for those that didn't do iTrials.

 

26 minutes ago, FupDup said:

However, if you do very specific TFs/SFs you can get the salvage outright (i.e. Ancient Nictus Fragment from ITF). In theory this could be pretty fast but in practice some of the TFs aren't very popular (like LRSF/MLTF) so that knocks the wind out of the sails of that approach.

This is what I do, but my experience is completely different. I don't know what shard you play on, but LRSF/MLTF are run very frequently on Excelsior, and they are very fast. Some of the channels I'm in run "TF stacks" that effectively get you 3 components in less than an hour. Other than the CoP, I can fill any other TF very quickly during high traffic hours.

 

It sounds like Laz is suggesting that the drop rate and rewards be increased if we eliminate shards, not arguing against it. I'm not sure why folks object to that. It sounds like we all agree that it would make life easier to merge them, so why not merge the drop rates/rewards as well?

[Greycat]

5 hours ago, Lazarillo said:

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.

 

Nnoooooo... it's not. That's all I *do* is regular content with the occasional MSR. It's no slower to get the other slots. I have no idea what you're doing. The only thing that slows down my incarnate-ing is spending hours RPing instead of doing stuff that gives XP and threads.

[Rudra]

29 minutes ago, Perfect Square said:

It sounds like Laz is suggesting that the drop rate and rewards be increased if we eliminate shards, not arguing against it. I'm not sure why folks object to that. It sounds like we all agree that it would make life easier to merge them, so why not merge the drop rates/rewards as well?

Basically, what it boils down to is some players will get enough shards to craft their Alphas and others will not. And it seems to come down to what they do and where. My involvement in this conversation is based strictly on the flat claim that shards are 5x more useful than threads. Which in my experience, is a completely false statement. So I had wanted an explanation of how shards are supposedly so much more useful, and finding the responses to not be anything like what I personally have experienced, continued to argue.

 

 If you pursue shard collection, then you can wind up in the situation @Lazarillo and you describe. If you pursue thread/merit collection, then you wind up the total opposite. If you don't pursue either shard collecting or thread collecting, then you still wind up with way more threads than you do shards. So the need for compensation in boosting the reward of threads and merits is based solely upon the pursuit of shards and Notices.

 

Edit: And this is from someone who still needs to do most of the iTrials to get their badges and start working on the WSTs. So I consider myself as a reference for someone who pursues neither shards nor threads. (I got all my merits from vet levels, the incarnate arcs, and from Hami rewards pursuing the Buddy badge.)

 

Edited May 21, 2023 by Rudra
Edited to change "waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy" to "way".

[Bionic_Flea]

3 hours ago, Wavicle said:

Get rid of all the Alpha components and Shards. No one besides Lazarillo will even notice the difference.

 

I would. 

 

I generally make a quick T2 alpha with my first thread drop at Vet level 1, then run the Weekly, maybe an ITF (which generates a bunch of shards), one of the other TFs that grants a shard-based component, or perhaps a Hammy or Mothership raid.  That gets me my T3.  I can now use all my threads and emps to work up my other slots.  As I run other TFs and content I will get additional shards and/or threads depending on what I run.  I will use shards when I can to build up alpha slot stuff, but switch to thread-based stuff if I get a lucky drop doing Tin Mage, Apex, DA arcs or Incarnate trials.

[Wavicle]

4 hours ago, kelika2 said:

Then you wasted threads.

WST notice + two other common shards = t3.

Since most of my alts just go for muscle alpha, just take the ITF shard reward

During one ITF aprox 4 shards drop so you can make the other, as well as maybe get your first and second vet levels.

use threads for t1 and t2

use shards for t3 and t4

 

Sure, 32+ shards seems daunting at first but you do not have to worry about it much.  The  T3 alpha is a huge boost in power.  T4 alpha, not so much.  it can wait as your stockpile of shards grows while you work on other incarnate stuff.  waiting for 4 notices of the well from WSTs is not as bad as you think.

Nope. You are making an incorrect assumption.

 

I rarely if ever do TFs, so none of this applies to me.

[Wavicle]

Get rid of shards and the Alpha only components, but yes, @Lazarillo is correct, the drop rates would need to change to make up the difference.

[Arc-Mage]

On 5/21/2023 at 9:54 PM, Wavicle said:

Nope. You are making an incorrect assumption.

 

I rarely if ever do TFs, so none of this applies to me.

The incarnate drops in other parts of the game, other than incarnate Trials, mishes and Task Forces, are awarded for completing things. Complete a story arc, complete a Task Force or trial. 
 

If your play style is just joining pick up teams and you are never around for completing contacts, you are correct, you will never receive incarnate drops. 

[Rudra]

54 minutes ago, Arc-Mage said:

On 5/21/2023 at 8:54 PM, Wavicle said:

Nope. You are making an incorrect assumption.

 

I rarely if ever do TFs, so none of this applies to me.

The incarnate drops in other parts of the game, other than incarnate Trials, mishes and Task Forces, are awarded for completing things. Complete a story arc, complete a Task Force or trial. 
 

If your play style is just joining pick up teams and you are never around for completing contacts, you are correct, you will never receive incarnate drops. 

How does "I rarely if ever do TFs" translate to "I join PUGs and quit before anything ever gets turned in"?

 

Edited May 23, 2023 by Rudra
Edited to lower case the "s" in "PUGs".

[Wavicle]

7 hours ago, Arc-Mage said:

The incarnate drops in other parts of the game, other than incarnate Trials, mishes and Task Forces, are awarded for completing things. Complete a story arc, complete a Task Force or trial. 
 

If your play style is just joining pick up teams and you are never around for completing contacts, you are correct, you will never receive incarnate drops. 

Another bizarre assumption.

 

My play style is soloing and duoing Story arcs (mostly). I get lots of Incarnate drops. I very rarely get Incarnate SHARDS.

[Arc-Mage]

7 hours ago, Rudra said:

How does "I rarely if ever do TFs" translate to "I join PUGs and quit before anything ever gets turned in"?

 

What part of, “if” don’t you understand?

[Wavicle]

Just now, Arc-Mage said:

What part of, “if” don’t you understand?

 

"If" you read the post you were responding to originally, then you may notice why your statements seemed like a non sequitur.

[Arc-Mage]

2 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

 

"If" you read the post you were responding to originally, then you may notice why your statements seemed like a non sequitur.

I am explaining why you and by "you," I mean anyone with this play style, don't get the incarnate drops you desire. 

 

The incarnate system was not designed so just anyone can become incarnate. Besides originally being behind a paywall you had to complete specific tasks or trials. You obviously are not doing so. This is what I was attempting to point out to. Not just anyone can become incarnate. Nor should they be able to.

[Wavicle]

Just now, Arc-Mage said:

I am explaining why you and by "you," I mean anyone with this play style, don't get the incarnate drops you desire. 

 

The incarnate system was not designed so just anyone can become incarnate. Besides originally being behind a paywall you had to complete specific tasks or trials. You obviously are not doing so. This is what I was attempting to point out to. Not just anyone can become incarnate. Nor should they be able to.

 

You are somehow still not getting it.

I HAVE NO TROUBLE BECOMING INCARNATE. I DO INCARNATE ARCS ALL THE TIME.

Your responses make zero sense in the context of my posts. Seems like a reading comprehension issue.

[Wavicle]

Just to be extra clear, I never once in this thread or anywhere else said anything about not getting drops I wanted. I have no clue where you got that idea.

Edited May 23, 2023 by Wavicle