Don't sugarcoat the relic system.

[Ninjacalypse]

1 hour ago, MystMan said:

-snip-

All good points. One other people forget to mention...you can buy/trade for specific relics and it's not like there's a huge monopoly or a limited supply.

Plus, I don't really know many games that let you farm premium currency like WF does with barely any limits beside credit tax and #trades a day.

I made like over $30 worth of plat over the past week. And I can't even do Axi relics yet. That's crazy to me. And you could farm relics and primes 24/7 if you wanted to and didn't need sleep.

Edited December 15, 2016 by Ninjacalypse

[Azrael]

1 hour ago, NeonNemesis said:

don't even come with "must farm key as well", I still have over 70 of some types of relics which were converted from the keys, this not factoring how some keys were "accidentally" lost in the conversion).

First of all, you got extra relics in the conversion, not less. Initially none of your keys got converted to a certain group of relics, and then they gave people extra relics to fix it.

Second, while I'm sure you had hundreds of garbage T1 keys you were never gonna run anyway, how many T3 sab keys did you have? T4 sab? T4MD? There were rare keys just like there are rare relics. Stop pretending like old void was just sunshine and daisies all the time. Remember running stupid numbers of T1MD keys? 'Cause I do.

[Azrael]

On 12/13/2016 at 6:40 AM, DEATHLOK said:

GO FARM AXI V1 AND POST BACK HOW MANY YOU GET PER HOUR.

I have never farmed axi V1 specifically because I have more of them than I need. How are you out of those?

[Borg1611]

I can tell you I've gotten far less than one Axi E1 per hour I've spent farming for them. 

I didn't count how many hours I've spent farming Axi relics, but I have only gotten a single Axi E1 so far in whatever number of hours that is... so it's a pretty sad number whatever it is. I did also get one or two early on out of syndicate packs. 

[bubbabenali]

19 hours ago, Loswaith said:

Keep in mind for every radiant relic someone is using that they have played an average of 5-6 (but up to 17) other missions to get the traces to do so.

Btw, today I got on my journey to the (common) Frost Neuroptics 2 glaive blades and an Ember BP from 3 only intact Axi E1 relicts - the system is rigged!!

Also, Defens missions are a thing now traces, relics and prime parts in one go.

[MystMan]

9 minutes ago, Borg1611 said:

I can tell you I've gotten far less than one Axi E1 per hour I've spent farming for them. 

I didn't count how many hours I've spent farming Axi relics, but I have only gotten a single Axi E1 so far in whatever number of hours that is... so it's a pretty sad number whatever it is. I did also get one or two early on out of syndicate packs. 

This is what I meant. It has nothing to do with the relic system.

T4 void keys = Axi relics.

You would've had the same struggle farming for T4 void keys. I received piles of T4 survival when I farmed for T4 void keys.  T4 Capture... very few.

If you hate farming rare Axi relics, you hated farming T4 void keys as well.

[TheLexiConArtist]

14 minutes ago, MystMan said:

This is what I meant. It has nothing to do with the relic system.

T4 void keys = Axi relics.

You would've had the same struggle farming for T4 void keys. I received piles of T4 survival when I farmed for T4 void keys.  T4 Capture... very few.

If you hate farming rare Axi relics, you hated farming T4 void keys as well.

But there were no artificially super-rare T4 keys like the 2% drop rate relics.

And every T4 key you got could be useful eventually after rotations.

And you could partake of the keys acquired by those on the 'good' end of the probability scale even if you were on the bad - few or no keys - end.

And there were only a handful of possible keys, 5 (T1-3) or 6 (T4), also significantly lower than the 8 to 10 Relics per era in active rotation.

 

Ignorance of facts does not remove their factuality.

[xS0nico]

The only 2 things i want to add in this system are:

1- Void that gives Relics Packs (3) in the reward, expeccialy Neo and Axi. Normal Defense and Survival and even Sabotage will be more worth to do in the void in my opinion.
2-Syndicates Relics Packs gives 5 relics, 4 for each era and one extra. And Market Relic Packs give around 20 of all kinds.

But other than that, i prefer more this system than the Void. Sorry, just personal experience and preference. (I even less than one week i already got the Valkyr Access, without spending a real dime...while for the Nikana in the old system..well...that was BS, and i ended up buying it.)

[MystMan]

Just now, EDYinnit said:

But there were no artificially super-rare T4 keys like the 2% drop rate relics.
Yeah, there were. Plenty of "T4 void keys" annoyed topics in forum search results about people not getting the key they want.

And every T4 key you got could be useful eventually after rotations.
The recycle key rotation thing has been removed. You are supposed to play a farming game, not wait until your current keys turn into new keys you don't need to farm.
And like I mentioned before, old relics that become vaulted are VERY valuable. Not eventually, but right away the moment they are vaulted. People want stuff they can't farm for.
 

And you could partake of the keys acquired by those on the 'good' end of the probability scale even if you were on the bad - few or no keys - end.
As you can with the relics. One person with the right relic can earn the prize for the whole team. Just equip any junk relic of the same category to be eligible for the reward.

And there were only a handful of possible keys, 5 (T1-3) or 6 (T4), also significantly lower than the 8 to 10 Relics per era in active rotation.
(5x3) + (6x1) = 21 Void keys
Currently farmable relics:  6 Liths + 8 Meso + 7 Neo + 11 Axi = 32 relics

I'll give you this one. It is indeed more.   The one big negative eclipsed by the numerous positives changes.

Ignorance of facts does not remove their factuality.

Easy, now.

 

[Azrael]

2 hours ago, EDYinnit said:

And every T4 key you got could be useful eventually after rotations.

They were very careful not to put certain items in T4 interception. There was always a T3sab part or T4MD part that nobody could get.

 

2 hours ago, EDYinnit said:

But there were no artificially super-rare T4 keys like the 2% drop rate relics.

And yet I had 60 T4 survivals and significantly less T4MD and T4sab and T3sab. Huh. It's almost like there were keys that were more valuable and rare. Kinda like it is now. Weird.

 

2 hours ago, EDYinnit said:

Ignorance of facts does not remove their factuality.

It's ironic that you're saying this after saying things that aren't really true, or are at very least are misleading statements that ignore what it was actually like to farm in the void. Nostalgia is tricky, it's very easy to imagine things better than they were. Don't forget there was a huge demand for a solution to "void fatigue."

I feel like I'm posting this video more and more...

Spoiler

 

 

[Flirk2]

5 hours ago, MystMan said:

If you hate farming rare Axi relics, you hated farming T4 void keys as well.

No, actually.

See, you got 100% chance to get a key on rotation B of excavation

Now, you have less chance than 100% on C and even less than that on B.

So, while sometimes you get more relics than you got keys, the other times you get 2 Axi relics from a 2000 cryotic Hieracon run.

And as there were less void keys than there are relics in any era, the chance to get a specific key was greater than the chance to get a specific relic.

 

Now tell me, do you really believe getting this:

you try again and get this:

Because that's totally random, right?

That annoying RNG gif incoming...

Edited December 16, 2016 by Flirk2

[TheLexiConArtist]

4 hours ago, MystMan said:

Yeah, there were. Plenty of "T4 void keys" annoyed topics in forum search results about people not getting the key they want.

Find me the ones that identify it taking 4 to 8 hours for a single key because of a drop rate estimated at 2%.

The recycle key rotation thing has been removed. You are supposed to play a farming game, not wait until your current keys turn into new keys you don't need to farm.
And like I mentioned before, old relics that become vaulted are VERY valuable. Not eventually, but right away the moment they are vaulted. People want stuff they can't farm for.

Meaning you win the relic roll or you straight up lose. This is not strictly a benefit. Old, vaulted relics are only potentially valuable.. just like having a new one drop is potential value, potential worthlessness.

As you can with the relics. One person with the right relic can earn the prize for the whole team. Just equip any junk relic of the same category to be eligible for the reward.

That one person has to sacrifice three chances at the goal per relic spent in order to provide the squad with that opportunity, thus abandoning the benefits of the relic system's changes. Find me that one in Recruiting more than once in a blue moon, I challenge you. Keys did not require this sacrifice, promoting the community and generosity because it was neutral to the host whether or not they filled out their squad for any given mission. Keyshares, even for the latest stuff, were not essentially mandatory. Preferred, maybe, but not exclusively the only option.

(5x3) + (6x1) = 21 Void keys
Currently farmable relics:  6 Liths + 8 Meso + 7 Neo + 11 Axi = 32 relics

I'll give you this one. It is indeed more.   The one big negative eclipsed by the numerous positives changes.

Axi is a big outlier and has the greatest impact, as these are only ever on B/C rotations. Neo, Meso and Lith can all be incidentally farmed while searching for the following tier, and/or speedfarmed by doing double A-rotations where they drop decently, if not perfectly (e.g. 2-wave Xini runs for Neo relics instead of 4-waves of a lower mission for 2 somewhat more guaranteed drops for twice the time investment).

Also, that 2% drop chance, I'll say it again. Relics would be statistically better if they were equally distributed, not horribly weighted against new additions. But they are weighted ridiculously, and equates to more grind even while discounting Traces and Recruiting time.

2 hours ago, Azrael said:

They were very careful not to put certain items in T4 interception. There was always a T3sab part or T4MD part that nobody could get.

In the very latest pre-Relic release, as I recall it, Akstiletto Prime had a piece in T4I. What, you expect every bit of everything all in one place? Besides, if anything, you can blame that one heavily on pre-change Blind Mirage making it trivial to go ad-infinitum on Interceptions.

And yet I had 60 T4 survivals and significantly less T4MD and T4sab and T3sab. Huh. It's almost like there were keys that were more valuable and rare. Kinda like it is now. Weird.

It's almost like you needed to expend significantly fewer T4 Survival keys since each one was potentially worth several of those others mentioned.

It's ironic that you're saying this after saying things that aren't really true, or are at very least are misleading statements that ignore what it was actually like to farm in the void. Nostalgia is tricky, it's very easy to imagine things better than they were. Don't forget there was a huge demand for a solution to "void fatigue."

Turns out the grass is always greener on the other side. People didn't know how good they had it until it was replaced with worse.

 

 

Edited December 16, 2016 by EDYinnit

[Nirrel]

RNG is RnG in the old system and RnG in the new. It's something that every player experience differently. I never really had any problem with any of the two systems to get the parts in a couple of weeks. For me there is no difference for this part.

However I had a million times more fun with the old system...If I entered a mission  I knew that or I'll get the part or not, but I did enjoy playing in the meantime and if I got it, it was joy.

In the new system is just dry grind. Get the relic, get the traces, get the radiant team ,5 minutes mission and done. Where is the fun? There isn't any. Not for me, it seems like a job...

Even if the new system would be more efficent for me, I would still prefer the void just because it felt more like playing a game instead of having a second job.

 

Edited December 16, 2016 by Nirrel

[Azrael]

24 minutes ago, Flirk2 said:

Because that's totally random, right?

Nope! DE deliberately did that, specifically to you. Not random at all, nosiree! This was part of a deliberate campaign to make people quit the game because DE is tired of making money and being popular!

Or... maybe it was RNG and you got the chance to get two different uncommon parts twice in a row. Some people may actually want tigris recievers. Would you have preferred all common parts? What do you expect, for the game to read your mind and deliver the part you were thinking about really hard? What even are you trying to say?

[DEATHLOK]

6 hours ago, Azrael said:

I have never farmed axi V1 specifically because I have more of them than I need. How are you out of those?

Well, I didn't get hundreds of Relics from the transition. I used the few I had. And they don't drop.

Like I said, I've gotten one in the past six months, and I play a lot.

This perfect system needs some work.

[Azrael]

44 minutes ago, DEATHLOK said:

Well, I didn't get hundreds of Relics from the transition. I used the few I had. And they don't drop.

Like I said, I've gotten one in the past six months, and I play a lot.

This perfect system needs some work.

I've gotten several V1's.

I never said the system was perfect. In fact, I said that there were too many relics and that the number should be reduced, earlier in this thread. But if you're going to criticize the system, at least do so reasonably. Say things that are true and fair, and not based on "this one bad thing happened to me." Avoid hyperbole and nostalgia. As for my own criticism, as I said before I think the relics should have two different drop tables with the option to choose between them. That way we can increase the chances for individual relics to drop.

[Loswaith]

7 hours ago, bubbabenali said:

... Also, Defense missions are a thing now traces, relics and prime parts in one go. ...

While this is true for all endless, reactants don't reset per round unless you are using a relic, meaning no further traces are gained once you hit 10 (unless you use a relic next round, but then you wont get any for that round).  While it also takes many rounds to actually get to decent booster stages (excavation taking 2 drills per iteration as well, rather than one of other missions).  All in all making it simpler to just quick run missions.

 

4 hours ago, Azrael said:

And yet I had 60 T4 survivals and significantly less T4MD and T4sab and T3sab.

Keep in mind: Arbiters of Hexis did used to give out T4 survival keys at 5 keys for 5k rep (all syndicates gave out 5xT4 for a type of key for the 5k).  Personally I had heaps of T4 captures and T4 MDs because of the syndicates I had, gave those types instead.  Making tier 4 keys very easy to accumulate.
Survival was also very efficient on key use (thus used infrequently), letting you get many loot iterations (as many as you wanted to/could go) for a single key and sabotage gave 2 lots of loot, irrelevant of group size for one of their own keys (but was a newer mission type to Void than the others as well so didn't make it into the initial syndicate key packs).  Relics only ever give a single option and that can cost one to four relics (pending on group size).

----------------------------------
Given it is unlikely we move away from the relic (AKA lock-box) system, our time is likely better spent getting that refined.

Edited December 16, 2016 by Loswaith

[Azrael]

26 minutes ago, Loswaith said:

Keep in mind: Arbiters of Hexis did used to give out T4 survival keys at 5 keys for 5k rep (all syndicates gave out 5xT4 for a type of key for the 5k).  Personally I had heaps of T4 captures and T4 MDs because of the syndicates I had, gave those types instead.  Making tier 4 keys very easy to accumulate.

Yeah, syndicates make it hard to really tell how rare something is, but if you ignore all syndicate packs I'm pretty sure T3sab and T4sab were more rare than others. There were places to go where you could be certain of getting a T4 survival in a reasonable amount of time, but the higher tier sabs were hard to come by. It didn't help that you always needed something from those.

 

29 minutes ago, Loswaith said:

Given it is unlikely we move away from the relic (AKA lock-box) system, our time is likely better spent getting that refined.

I agree. I don't think it's perfect, but saying "this sucks I hate it" won't help even a little bit. How many people in this thread have been trashing the relic system without offering a single suggestion to make it better?

[Loswaith]

1 hour ago, Azrael said:

..  but if you ignore all syndicate packs I'm pretty sure T3sab and T4sab were more rare than others. ...

T3 Sabotages (and specific keys in general) were some of the hardest with T2 coming in a close second, mostly because they never had just their own tier in any drop tables (T3 were always shared on the same tables with T2 or T4 key drops, while T2 were always shared with T1 or T3), unlike many locations where T4 keys were the only key type to be awarded.

 

For Syndicates I'd much prefer to go back to the 5k rep costs but for a single random relic of a single tier (even if they unlock higher tiers at higher ranks, from rank 2 to 5).
As it stands the relic packs have one Axi/Neo (from a pool of 18 current relics) with 2 random meso/liths (from a pool of 14 relics, with Lith having the fewest current relics).  As already seen we are seeing a reduction in numbers of lith/meso relics and an increase in Axi/Neo relics.

No tier needs to have more relics than another, otherwise we just get the same issues we had with Void keys where everything was shoveled into tiers 3 and 4.

Edited December 16, 2016 by Loswaith
spelling

[doomagent13]

If I recall correctly, it got up to a total of 25 different keys: 6 for T1-3, and 7 for T4.  Getting a specific T1 or T2 key was fairly easy: just run an appropriate level endless mission long enough.  A specific T3 key was a bit harder, due to having only a 50% chance between T2 and T3, but still doable.  T4 keys were split in 2 groups, with a key from one of those 2 groups GUARANTEED after round 4 of interception; getting a specific T4 key was arguably the easiest kind of key to do so for. (Which group was determined by enemy level.)

It only took a substantial amount of work to get a specific T3 key, which was at least partially mitigated by building up a collection of other T3 keys for when you needed them.  Sabotage keys may have seemed rarer due to higher demand due to lower supply because they did not exist as long as the other key mission types.

[Borg1611]

I think it's just a distraction to keep comparing the new system to the old. 

I don't care if it's slightly faster or slightly slower on average, the feedback for DE is simply: we want farming for specific relics to be less RNGtastic, regardless of whether or not the old system had slightly better or worse odds. 

If people spending several hours a day farming struggle to even get a few specific Axi relics, what about the people spending 1-2 hours a day? They have zero hope of acquiring the un-vaulted things on their own in the short time-frame available. Even if they wanted to do a relic share group they'd have limited time to find and participate in one. 

There's several suggestions in this thread and others that would be huge QoL improvements for relic farming without it being just a "here have a free thing instantaneously". 

I'll add another simple one:

Due to the limited time access of un-vaulted primes, the drop chance of all temporary un-vaulted relics should be doubled so that they're more common than the other relics for that limited time window. IE: instead of 7% on rotation C where Axi E1 drops, it would be 14%, reducing the drop chance of either the other relics or trash items in the rotation temporarily. While we may be able to gradually farm any other new release, un-vaulted primes have a very narrow window and therefor deserve a higher drop chance so they're accessible to a wider range of players. In their current state, un-vaulted primes aren't particularly casual friendly. They're not even friendly towards people who spend several hours a day farming.

I'll throw in another potential alternative simple solution that you could throw in with little effort:

When baro comes around tomorrow, have him sell all the Frost/Ember relics for ducats. 

1 hour ago, Azrael said:

I agree. I don't think it's perfect, but saying "this sucks I hate it" won't help even a little bit. How many people in this thread have been trashing the relic system without offering a single suggestion to make it better?

Well, according to Ghostcrawler (an X WoW dev/long time game developer), providing solutions isn't necessarily the best way to provide feedback.

http://askghostcrawler.tumblr.com/post/154088028828/how-do-you-think-players-should-provide-feedback

TLDR: at least make un-vaulted prime relics more common since they're only around for a month before disappearing for a long time. Not everyone has 12 hours a day to play, and even the people that do aren't getting many Axi E1 relics. 

[Azrael]

3 minutes ago, Borg1611 said:

Due to the limited time access of un-vaulted primes, the drop chance of all temporary un-vaulted relics should be doubled so that they're more common than the other relics for that limited time window.

This would make sense. The other relics don't have the same time limit.

 

4 minutes ago, Borg1611 said:

Well, according to Ghostcrawler (an X WoW dev/long time game developer), providing solutions isn't necessarily the best way to provide feedback.

I kind of see what he's talking about, but it doesn't seem to really apply here. We are talking about high-level mechanics and how we want things to work. DE has taken suggestions from the forums, after all. But certainly there are times when making certain suggestions is pointless because we don't really know the codebase. I just don't think that complaining about how "everything sucks and this one time I got some uncommon parts when I wanted rare parts and that made me sad" is very helpful.

[Zebiko]

On 12/9/2016 at 11:50 AM, TeaBegging said:

Way to decrease the grind! NOT. 

I'm pretty sure the whole point of the relic system was to increase the grind. That's why many hate it. Players can't farm ahead or hold keys until it has a valuable prime worthy of using it.

[MystMan]

6 hours ago, Nirrel said:

However I had a million times more fun with the old system...If I entered a mission  I knew that or I'll get the part or not, but I did enjoy playing in the meantime and if I got it, it was joy.

You can still do that. The endless Void missions didn't run away.  Instead of farming for parts, you will be farming for relics. What you do with those relics is up to you. Use them or sell/trade them. You had fun because of the missions, not because of the reward.
If you mean it that something is fun, you will play it regardless of its rewards, be they good or terrible.

I play Archwing Rush daily, helping randoms out who get stuck there. I like that game mode, I don't need great rewards as incentive.

[Extroah]

On 12/9/2016 at 5:57 PM, PrVonTuckIII said:

Whatever you say, man. I'll take this over two weeks of T4-Survival any day.

This.