Devstream 176 Shard Fusing

[BR31]

The current version is 4 to 1 . I was generally for this since the shards release . But with the mixed shards now-
it's probably a bit too many: 3 to 1 works much better . I asked people in the active discords - generally people think 3 to 1 is the best
ratio.

[K4RN4]

I think 1 to 1 is the best ratio, since I'd get more tauforged shards that way.

[-skimmer-]

why cant I just snap a shard in half to get two shards? so unfair! I would have so many more shards that way!

Edited January 26 by -skimmer-

[TeaHawk]

30 minutes ago, K4RN4 said:

I think 1 to 1 is the best ratio, since I'd get more tauforged shards that way.

Why not 1 to 10? Let's just go wild!

Personally I don't like the idea of shards and especially tau-forged becoming a must-have mechanic. I think that tauforged shards must remain rng and time gated only.

Edited January 26 by TeaHawk

[Rigtis]

Why not 2 to 1? Are we forgetting that this is a mere slot issue? We are not getting more powercreep out of this, since sacrificing 25% STR to get 15% STR back is not an improvement, just convenience to get 3 slots back; this to give out an example. That's why I think 2 to 1 would make more sense, given that we are just sacrificing 5% to free up a slot and not 25% for 3 empty slots.

Edited January 26 by Rigtis
Typo

[Waeleto]

Anything more than 2 to 1 is bad

[sunderthefirmament]

Let's just hope that renewed interest in normal shards leads to DE completely revamping Kahl's weekly chores so that they...

 

I'm not even going to finish that, because it's not realistic.  Let's just hope we get another dialog option at Chipper once we hit rank 5 that lets us burn normal star chart resources for periodically cycling stock bundles.  Like Ticker.

[(PSN)AbBaNdOn_]

DE:  Hey everyone we are going through the game and reducing all the bull crap grinding we have left in over the years...

DE: Hey everyone you only have to grind out 4 normal shards to fuse into 1 Tau forged...  

2 to 1 is the only fair ratio.  Anything beyond that Is just pointless grind for the sake of grind.  

Why don't fusion shards take 4 ? Because that would have sucked and been to grindy ?? ? NO CRAP.  

---------

Netracells do not pump out a ton of shards per week,  Archon Hunts and Khal missions don't drop the same colors.   On average I think it would take 2-3 weeks or more to build a tau shard through fusion.  

DE better think long and hard about this.  You guys better think about how you will fix it if you ever change the ratio at a later date...  

===============

Once a player has a full set of TAU shards does it even freaking matter if he has 1 set or 50???   I pimped out my Nidus in all Tau shards and I still have some left over.   Who cares how many of my frames are using TAU now??  Does it break the game?   No its already broken.   

Speaking of shards why the hell isn't range one of the stats we can buff??   Not having range has made me take other things I'm not sure I would have.   It would just allow you to take overextended off of some frames and gain back some strength.  oh.....I know the answer..... Xaku....Xaku is the reason every other frames gets screwed out of range shards??  SOB!!!!

 

[Famecans]

Spoiler

🤙

[ShogunGunshow]

47 minutes ago, (PSN)AbBaNdOn_ said:

2 to 1 is the only fair ratio.  Anything beyond that Is just pointless grind for the sake of grind.  

Why should you, on average, obtain tauforged shards faster from getting two basic ones and making use of the new pity system than from earning it natty? 

[(PSN)AbBaNdOn_]

48 minutes ago, ShogunGunshow said:

Why should you, on average, obtain tauforged shards faster from getting two basic ones and making use of the new pity system than from earning it natty? 

"Earning it"  ????

This is the SECOND pity system they put in for Tau shards lol.   

What % of people do you think already have multiple Tau shards before this goes in???   What is there left to "earn"???

All 4 shard conversion does is slow us down and I ask what is the point.  What difference does it makes if I have 1 or 10 Tau shards??

There's 50+ frames... 

[Rigtis]

hace 1 hora, (PSN)AbBaNdOn_ dijo:

"Earning it"  ????

This is the SECOND pity system they put in for Tau shards lol.   

What % of people do you think already have multiple Tau shards before this goes in???   What is there left to "earn"???

All 4 shard conversion does is slow us down and I ask what is the point.  What difference does it makes if I have 1 or 10 Tau shards??

There's 50+ frames... 

Exactly. Some people may not notice that archon shards do not work like mods or arcanes, where you only need one maxed and you are all set forever. Archon shards are limited to the frame where they are socketed in and are never enough because we only have one guaranteed tau each 5 weeks.

I play 20+ frames and after one year only 2 of them have full tau shards, while I have had to share the rest selectively with others like sharing a donut with a whole family of ducks. I don't see how this new pity system would make things faster as @ShogunGunshow implies because according to their current idea, we still would need to wait for 2 full rotations of normal shards (Archon and Kahl) to get 1 tau.

PS: I don't take Netracells into account, because shards drops in there is almost a myth.

Edited January 27 by Rigtis
Typos

[BansheeAndZephyrMarried]

7 hours ago, TeaHawk said:

Why not 1 to 10? Let's just go wild!

Personally I don't like the idea of shards and especially tau-forged becoming a must-have mechanic. I think that tauforged shards must remain rng and time gated only.

Tauforged was a mistake from the beginning. I don't exactly like the idea of Archon shards either, but with every major update DE tries to add more tangible power and grind structure to justify them- my distaste is not specifically about Archon shards but DE's lackluster handling of powercreep in this game. Adding an RNG roulette for straight up better upgrade when they probably couldn't even handle the player responses and power ceiling raised by vanilla Archon shards was downright foolish. 

Or maybe it was a masterstroke to forever pigeonhole any discussion about Archon shards into people crying about Tauforged shards, instead of people realizing how boring they are as lategame upgrades to chase. 

[(XBOX)RaeOvSunshyn]

6 hours ago, Rigtis said:

PS: I don't take Netracells into account, because shards drops in there is almost a myth.

Thing is, we were told Netracells were added to give us another way to get shards but it seems, judging by players comments, that turned out to be largely nonsense. I should've known, when DE said they'd be addressing the drop rates of Netracells in the Devstream, they weren't talking about the shards at all, only the two melee arcanes. (Congratulations folks, we get another new thing to do to get the things because the last new thing to do to get the things didn't give us the things!)

As for turning four shards into one... That's 120% bile resources to Helminth if we want to remove enough for a single conversion, or waiting weeks to get more shards the exact same way that caused the complaints in the first place. I figure quite a few people are going to be happy that DE is finally allowing conversions but I personally view it as even worse than when we didn't have the option.

[Voltage]

I'm finding that these days, DE seem to be missing the context of why feedback is asked. I don't know if this is intentional or the person reading and relaying the information doesn't know, but this is no different than some of the issues with Heirlooms being direct results of issues with Regal Aya.

The context of Archon Shard refinement/improvement is for a player to spend more resources/time than a lucky player to reach the same inventory progression. Losing 4 Shards for 1 Tauforged is extremely tone-deaf to be quite honest, or they just know the average player is not active enough or smart enough to realize this system is shafting them, like the original pity system which made zero practical improvement to how Archon Shard acquisition is handled long-term. This happened again, in the same stream when they talked about Netracell rewards.

Edited January 27 by Voltage

[KIREEK]

I wouldn't mind if it's 4 to 1 tauforged.

But tauforged is only 50% better, my sugestion is to keep the rate but buff tauforged stats across the board, why not sacrifice 4 shards to get a tauforged that is 100% better instead?

[Voltage]

4 hours ago, KIREEK said:

I wouldn't mind if it's 4 to 1 tauforged.

But tauforged is only 50% better, my sugestion is to keep the rate but buff tauforged stats across the board, why not sacrifice 4 shards to get a tauforged that is 100% better instead?

The ship has already sailed here though. Retrospectively, I think the bonuses should have been kept to things like parkour, cast speed, status duration, etc., and Tau should have been something you can craft from a single share with a cost.

In this case, i think the ratio should just be lowered from 4:1 to 2:1, especially when you need to further reduce your Shards to use the new colors.

Edited January 27 by Voltage

[(XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA]

11 hours ago, Voltage said:

The ship has already sailed here though. Retrospectively, I think the bonuses should have been kept to things like parkour, cast speed, status duration, etc., and Tau should have been something you can craft from a single share with a cost.

In this case, i think the ratio should just be lowered from 4:1 to 2:1, especially when you need to further reduce your Shards to use the new colors.

I dont hate it. 

If i get a non tau shard i can at least feel like its progress towards the goal of having full tau sets for the frames i use most, whereas before it was just "oh great L reward im not ever gonna use or care about". 

But when you consider youd literally need 8 freaking shards just to make 1 tau of the new colors, that seems rediculous. 

If the new shards were meant to be clearly better overall than the base 3, then the extra high investment cost would make sense.

But they're not. 

[Aevire]

I believe 3:1 is best. Doing the math real quick, the amount of non-Tau shards a player gets each week averages to 2.9773 (1 from Kahl + 60.52% average chance for 1 from hunt + 5*27.51% from netracells), which would be a 'clean' ~1 Tau per week, compared to the ~.75 Tau per week from 4:1. Considering we get an average of .76 Tau a week (39.48% chance from hunt and 5*7.5% from netracells) already, making normal shards a 'better farm' than Tau will make them feel better or more normal to get, with tau shards being a 'nice bonus' as it seems the original intent for them was. 3:1 is a good compromise which still keeps us below 2 tau per week.

[(XBOX)RaeOvSunshyn]

I really don't understand the whole shard regulation anyway. So, like, they're "whoa super strong" and "we shouldn't have power creep" and there has to be incentive to "keep players playing," but...

If you can get dozens and hundreds eventually, what difference does it make if you acquire 2-3 a week or 20-30 a week? Whether you add 75% strength to Rhino tomorrow or next year, you still end up with Rhino having that 75% strength.

There can never be equality, it's never going to be an even playing field, never a way to balance it. New people will always be starting with none, there's a steady supply of frames, and potential for an endless stream of shards to be introduced -- Zirconia and Tourmaline and Peridot, oh my!

First it's getting a miniscule amount of the things, then doubling the cost to reduce it to a single, and next it's quadrupled in price for an extremely minimal upgrade of one. ONE.

To be clear, I'm not even complaining. I just want to make sense of it somehow. Seriously, is this a sort of weird game developer IQ stress test for players?

Edited February 1 by (XBOX)RaeOvSunshyn
Adjective.