I have a silly hypothesis that a lot of the issues with getting people to play older content would be lessened a bit if people could get source marks from older content more easily. So, with that idea in mind, I find myself wishing for a bonus week in which all content gives everyone normal source marks for running it, as if CR relevancy didn't exist. Then my hypothesis would be proven or disproven, people would be able to get lots of source marks for a week, and sunshine and rainbows would spontaneously sprout all over the game. Okay, maybe not the last one. With episode specific currency in the newest content, it seems to me like a good idea to make source marks easier to get by running older stuff. I could be wrong, but I would like to see it in action, and bonus weeks seem like an ideal testing ground for things like this. So, what do you think? And do you have a specific wish for a bonus week that you want to share? Also, I enjoyed the Waller Contracts... does anyone else think they ought to make a return appearance?
From all appearances, the devs have a formula of sorts they follow when it comes to Mark rewards and pricing on items/game aspects that use Marks as currency. It's probably the main reason why we saw price drops in gear and Mainframe costs after they put Mark relevancy into place. Allow players to get full Marks from content they've essentially outgrown (an endgame player going back to revisit Ace Chemicals for example) and you're very likely to see an increase in prices for items that use Marks as currency. It'd be necessary to account for all the new currency flooding into the system. As an example, at one point before Mark relevancy a T5 chestpiece from a vendor would run you 37,500 Marks. Not counting the endgame gear, right now that amount of Marks would allow me to buy about 240 full sets of gear (armor, face, jewelry, utility, weapon) from a vendor that uses Marks. Add in the details that no one's really demonstrated an actual need for receiving Marks from old content and that the devs don't want us playing old (and essentially easy mode after a certain point) content for any sort of progression and it makes the idea of allowing players to get full Marks from old content a tough sell for me.
+1 from me, I could use some of the extras from old DLC vendors but with the lack of stuff to get source mark I have to save for artifacts or mainframe uses especially since I dont use replays.
Fair enough! With end-game gear not being available for source marks, I wasn't thinking about the ability to advance other toons. Nor did I think about the prices of older items going up. I was thinking more about the artifact chase and buying catalysts. But your view is a solid rebuttal to my idea. I still would like to see what one week of no CR relevance would do, but I see your points.
I get his points 100% but I still wouldn't play alts, if I dont play them now I sure as heck wouldnt load them up and waste time on them during a bonus weekend. That would go for my main. To try to get some of the extra things added to DLC vendors that now go for source mark's and hoard the rest til current relevant content goes for SM.
I still don't understand why CR Relevancy is still a thing. It was introduced to keep players going up with the Monthly content. Running older content would be much better off if we got full rewards from it. Especially since there are far too many feats locked behind old content that no one wishes to play and the devs have stated they wont be introducing walkins/lowman queues.
Doing so is kind of bad game design, though. It rewards players for minimal effort, and there WOULD be people who would do nothing but farm the older content to get Marks, whether they're at endgame or working their way towards it. In most games that work with an XP/leveling system, there comes a point where your character just won't get the XP necessary for leveling a character up from NPCs that are too low level. SWG's Galactic Civil War system included something similar, where you wouldn't get GCW points from factional NPCs if they weren't within about five levels of your character level. That way the devs prevented players from gaming the system by just camping low level factional NPC spawns to get GCW points (and there were quite a few factional static spawn points around the various planets in the game). Marks fall into pretty much the same category as they're needed to move a character through the tiers at a decent pace (scaling gear/gear drops help but going to the vendors is quicker as you aren't beholden to RNG). So I personally wasn't all that surprised (or upset) when they put a Mark relevancy system into place.
The problem comes down to the one currency for everything. I think they should bring back tier currency. It really was something that encapsulated the entire system, but as it is now, we don't have that luxury. I think the only way that could work if they re-balance the tiers to be the same level of difficulty and release one tier gear for the whole tier. Alas...
This would help new, old players, and small league. The only problem I would think it would have is the token of mit, & omega component. But I for this
