Enhancement Drops Should Always Be Usable

[Terenos]

This is largely an early game problem, but enhancement drops should always be usable by the character who receives them - similar to how drops from AVs work. Especially at low levels, enhancements are difficult/expensive to get, especially without TOs existing anymore. As the baked-in accuracy bonuses drop, it becomes more and more frustrating to watch attacks miss or damage begin to fall off as you level past the few enhancements that you have available (that were lucky enough to drop for your specific origin).

 

Purchasing enhancements should exist to fill holes that drops fail to fill, rather than being the main way to enhance your powers in early levels, with drops being essentially saleable items that you can't use most of. Prices, especially for low level characters, for DOs are too high to expect to meaningfully slot your powers unless you are gaming the market (which is not an intuitive play experience) or receive a windfall of inf from another player. The flow of inf from a combination of drops and enemy defeats is not enough to maintain enhancements while leveling (this is assuming a player is buying DOs and not trying to slot out SOs early).

 

An alternate solution to all drops being usable, is to lower the price of DOs through almost all level ranges. I'm not sure on the current math across all levels, but using my level 12 character as an example, completing a newspaper mission Red Side on Torchbearer provides approximately 2% of the price of a level 15 accuracy DO (the lowest level available on the quartermaster currently). Completing a mission provides 3% a total level (and the disparity between minion exp vs. minion inf is even more stark, driving you to level much faster than the income you can expect to spend on enhancements).

[Rudra]

8 minutes ago, Terenos said:

(and the disparity between minion exp vs. minion inf is even more stark, driving you to level much faster than the income you can expect to spend on enhancements).

This has existed in the game since launch. And even when we had TOs, trying to buy TOs using the inf' you get from defeats was futile. So players had to choose what powers they were going to enhance with what as long as they relied on mob inf' to get by. As far as I know, which is not even certain, this is to encourage players to sell their drops to each other in order to get what they want/need.

[Terenos]

10 minutes ago, Rudra said:

This has existed in the game since launch. And even when we had TOs, trying to buy TOs using the inf' you get from defeats was futile. So players had to choose what powers they were going to enhance with what as long as they relied on mob inf' to get by. As far as I know, which is not even certain, this is to encourage players to sell their drops to each other in order to get what they want/need.

 

Definitely, I also recall this, but these days it's far less likely that (outside of pre-made leveling groups) people will be trading enhancements with each other. Even then, I can't actually think of a time I traded a stranger for enhancements back then. I can understand the price of SOs (they represent such a significant power jump and can act as an inf sink once it stops being quite as tight in the late game).

 

Largely, though, this is more of a suggestion to create less friction in the early leveling process that probably doesn't need to be there anymore (and it's arguable if that friction ever needed to be there, but that's a 20 year old game design decision).

[biostem]

Enh drops are always useful, by selling the ones you can't use for inf.  Heck, I'd even go so far to say that slotting the enh's that you do get as drops, depending upon your immediate need, may actually be an unwise strategy;  Waiting until 22 or so, (when you can slot level 25 enh's), and crafting then slotting generic IOs, is, IMHO, the better approach to take. 

Edited January 24 by biostem

[Terenos]

3 minutes ago, biostem said:

Enh drops are always useful, by selling the ones you can't use for inf.  Heck, I'd even go so far to say that slotting the enh's that you do get as drops, depending upon your immediate need, may actually be an unwise strategy;  Waiting until 22 or so, (when you can slot level 25 enh's), and crafting then slotting generic IOs, is, IMHO, the better approach to take. 

This is definitely the common wisdom (I've given it out in help channels on more than one occaision), and makes sense if you're leveling predominately through teaming (where your levels are usually moving up way faster and more safely, and 22 is basically a stone throw away from 1). But, even here, having the dropped enhancements be immediately useful would mean that, as you level up through that Posi 1 or whatever you're doing, you're not suddenly finding your attacks missing way more often, your recharge speeds going down, and your end use/management cratering quite as much just because there's no real time to stop and shop (and not enough incentive to do it because you could possibly be out-leveling the enhancements during the content).

 

I don't think this is an issue for veteran players (lord knows I have enough inf and knowledge across my characters to fund the leveling process several times over, even self-funding via the market on a given alt isn't even approaching difficult for me), but for players without that knowledgebase it feels counterintuitive. It's an odd thing that we've come to accept - it would be like in any other game telling people, "Don't worry about equipping anything until you're at least halfway through the game."  

[biostem]

5 minutes ago, Terenos said:

having the dropped enhancements be immediately useful would mean that, as you level up through that Posi 1 or whatever you're doing, you're not suddenly finding your attacks missing way more often, your recharge speeds going down, and your end use/management cratering quite as much just because there's no real time to stop and shop (and not enough incentive to do it because you could possibly be out-leveling the enhancements during the content).

I think a better option would be to have certain key battles in these story arcs or TFs reward you, upon their completion, with an appropriately leveled generic IO of the player's choice, that way they never lose that effectiveness.  Maybe even go the route of the prestige enh's so they provide a somewhat better bonus, but are still overshadowed by higher level/set IOs. 

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Terenos said:

 

Definitely, I also recall this, but these days it's far less likely that (outside of pre-made leveling groups) people will be trading enhancements with each other. Even then, I can't actually think of a time I traded a stranger for enhancements back then. I can understand the price of SOs (they represent such a significant power jump and can act as an inf sink once it stops being quite as tight in the late game).

 

Largely, though, this is more of a suggestion to create less friction in the early leveling process that probably doesn't need to be there anymore (and it's arguable if that friction ever needed to be there, but that's a 20 year old game design decision).

That is a matter of perspective. Even running solo, I can get through the game just fine without buying enhancements until I reach level 17. (At which point I start slotting IOs.) Yeah, accuracy dropping as you level up because we don't get that starter boost any more can be annoying, but at least in my experience/opinion, it's just a minor nuisance until I can start slotting those IOs. Just tossing the DOs that drop that I can use into my key powers keeps me afloat. Though that is strictly my experience, and mileage will vary per player.