July 28th, 2021 PTS Patch Notes:
During our Spring 2021 State of the Game announcement, we listened to community about the challenging game grind and economic scarcity of salvage and recipes. We are working to address this in several ways. A common theme of the Economy and Grind Overhaul is to reward players for engaging in multiple styles and areas of gameplay. This focuses on better rewarding players within a particular area of gameplay based on the theme, purpose, or specialization in that area of the game. Though not a complete list, a good amount of which is listed below.
Merit Vendors:
A sneak preview was released back in the first game update after Rebirth Issue 1 (Ri1e1) where we significantly discounted many of the items in various merit vendors. For Rebirth Issue 2 we are standardizing this discount at a 40% reduction from sunset costs across all merit vendors. In most cases, this means even greater merit cost reductions, though a few costs were increased. Expect the following in general:
All recipe prices in all rarities have received a 40% discount from their sunset costs.
On Live, Three stat and Four stat enhancing recipes were often the most expensive. Their prices have been standardized under the lowest costing recipe in their set and received the same 40% discount.
Special or Proc recipes are now the only recipe worth more in a given set as previewed during Ri1e1. Their prices from Live are discounted and approach a 40% discount most of the time.
This lowered the price of PvP recipes in the Empyrean Merit vendor.
We added both Very Rare (Purple) Recipes and PvP Recipes to the Reward Merit and Astral Merit Vendors.
Influence costs for recipes and enhancements received up to a 40% discount across all merit vendors.
We removed all attuned enhancement purchase lockouts from vendors that prevented players from buy more than 1 item every few days.
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Drop Tables:
Increased drop pool chances for Very Rare recipes rolls from 1% to 3%. Loot Boosters double the percent chances. NOTE: Chances of drops have not increased, just the odds of the roll being Very Rare within those drops.
While exemplaring, level 50 characters receive a chance for level 50 recipe rewards for defeating enemies.
Removed 20-hour lockout from Enhancement Catalysts drops.
Reduced Temp power recipe drops reduced 10x. Note: Does not affect Amplifier drops.
Endgame Content and Endgame Character Build Synergy: While completing endgame content we want players to also progress on their endgame character builds. Therefore we have included features that enable players to more easily accomplish these goals at the same time.
Astral and Empyrean Merit Vendors:
Very Rare recipes receive a 4x bonus cost reduction.
All recipe lockout timers have been removed.
Incarnate Trials and Incarnate Content (Dark Astoria):
Endgame content receives a 4x bonus drop pool chance for Very Rare recipes rolls. Loot Boosters double the percent chances. NOTE: Chances of drops have not increased, just the odds of the roll being Very Rare within those drops.
Reward Choices for completing Incarnate content now offers a choice for a random Purple Recipe instead of Super Inspirations when receiving a Very Rare reward.
Master of Task Forces:
Successfully completing any Master of Task Force will reward 1 random Very Rare recipe.
(Future feature to add in a follow up commit:) You can only obtain this reward once every 20 hours for a given "Master of" completion. NOTE: If you fail the "Master of" requirements but complete the task force you must still wait 20 hours before a successful completion will reward a Very Rare recipe.
Hamidon (The Hive):
The reward choice for defeating Hamidon has been increased from 1 to 3 random Hamidon enhancements.
The 24-hour reward lockout has been reduced to 30 minutes.
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Seed of Hamidon (First Ward Zone Event):
Defeating Seed of Hamidon rewards 1 random Hamidon enhancements.
PvP:
Added Gladiator Merits to PvPing. Note: Gladiator Merits are not attached to a vendor yet.
Defeating a Player with Rep rewards 5 Gladiator Merits.
Defeating a player without rep has a chance to reward 1 Gladiator Merit.
In addition to defeating players, Gladiator Merits are now obtainable for completing the following PvP zone events:
-Bloody Bay: Shivan Pet Reward - 7 Gladiator Merits
-Warburg: Code Event Reward - 15 Gladiator Merits
-RV: Hero/Villain Reach 1k Mech Pet Reward - 50 Gladiator Merits
Removed the PvP recipe lockout for defeating a player with rep. Note: You cannot earn Rep from defeating the same player with 5-minutes. This is how rep works.
PvP recipes received a 4x drop chance bonus for defaulting a player with Rep.
Loot Boosters double the chances that a PvP recipe could drop.
Inspirations:
Super Inspirations have a very small chance to drop from Elite Bosses and Archvillains in Incarnate Content.
Dual Inspirations have a very small chance to drop from PvPing.
Team Inspirations have a chance to drop while Teaming. The size and chance of these drops follow the game's natural progression/reward system.
Dual, Super, and Team Inspirations are now tradable.
Dual, Super, and Team Inspirations now last 60 seconds like all other Inspirations.
Added HotKey "C" to the Inspiration combine menu.
Attuned Enhancements:
Made all attuned enhancements tradable. Previously only ATOs and Winter IOs were tradable.
Added icons to Winter IOs
Super Packs:
We've reworked Super Pack rewards a bit to serve better rewards and require less in-combat "email" management.
Very Rare Cards now have a chance to reward a Very Rare Attuned Enhancement. This replaced the odds of a Very Rare rewarding another ATO.
ATOs have a much higher chance of rewarding in Rare cards.
Added BrainStorm Ideas cards. They come in three varieties: common (20x), uncommon (40x), and rare (60x).
Inspirations Cards have been removed in favor of the new in-game inspiration drops.
Other reward cards (not listed above) that overlapped in rarity from common to very rare have been reworked in lower tiers to make room for the Rare/Very Rare odds improvement. They should now appear in the common and uncommon card tiers in a more desirable pattern while appearing less to never in rare and very rare. Noteworthy exclusions to this are Reward Merits, Experienced, XP Booster, and Catalysts. These cards can appear in any rarity and were excluded from the change.
Added icons to the Winter Super Pack.
Architect Entertainment:
Increased AE Ticket cap from 9999 to 99999.
Conversion Sets:
Added conversion sets for Very Rare Attuned Enhancements.
Added conversion sets for Universal Damage Enhancements.
Bug Fixes:
Winter Super Pack Candy Canes now reward the correct amount. (5 per claim instead of 1)
Fixed a bug that caused some Elite Bosses recipe drops to have an 8% drop chance instead of 12%.
For some more transparency with the ATO cost changes.
Coming Soon
PvP:
Gladiator Vendors will be added to PvP Zones and to Arenas
Alignment System/Alignment Merits:
For earning alignment-specific merits we want players be reward with unique power ups that virtually no other area of the game currently offers. Here's what's in store for them.
Hero & Villain Super Packs and Vigilante & Rogue Super Packs will be purchasable with Alignment Merits.
We're adding Vigilante and Rogue Alignment Merits and swapping those in places where they earned Reward Merits instead. This goes for Hero and Villains too, where Reward Merits were initially given instead of their own alignment merits.
Hero and Villain Super Packs will cost 6 Hero/Villain Merits or 10 Rogue/Vigilante Merits.
Vigilante & Rogue Super Packs will cost 6 Vigilante/Rogue Merits or 10 Hero/Villain Merits.
Reduce the number of Alignment Tip missions to receive a Morality Tip mission from 10 to 5.
Remove any and all Alignment/Morality Tip lockout timers.
Note: These changes will allow much faster side-switching for players to join their friends or experience other content. Consequently, we're returning the alignment vendor costs to their previous values, as we're halving the number of missions to earn these merits.
