epic shards

[protokon]

As an end-game player, I have found it particularly frustrating to grind Shards for epic gear. The shards are bound to account, and with most players having multiple characters, along with the loot system in place - even in all-guild runs collecting shards is extremely difficult from the raids. with the current raid loot system we have a chance at getting our item at our 20th runs; what if we did something similar for epics, some kind of incentive for running the raid dozens of times without pulling anything. here's my opinion on the epic grinds:

-scrolls are acceptable to farm in the current system; not bound, can grind kills in epic dungeons until you get lucky or buy it.

-seals are also challenging and still fun grind. a 16-hour timer lets you repeat the quests often enough that you will most likely run into that seal (not to mention multiple chests in most quests increases this chance).

-shards are absolutely terrible to grind. a small chance that the one you want will be dropped, then you have everyone in the party's alts thrown into the equation as who can use it. so now its not just competing against a few other people for a piece of raid loot you want, its everyone in the party and there alts, and there future TR gear, ect...making it such a small chance that shards go up for roll, or that you will win it. And this is coming from a person who is a fan of 'your loot is your loot'. the big issue here isn't about not having a chance at other people's loot; it's that you don't have a chance for one after a 20th completion.

what if the system was changed so you can grind and know eventually you will have a shot at that shard if you don't get it after a few months? there are a few ideas i have:

-first idea: allow exchanging epic raid tokens for the shard of your choice. the only problem i can see with this is someone who has 10 alts can get a shard every week, but if they are this hardcore of a player to have 10 capped alts, i don't think i have that much of a problem with it.

-second idea: have a count for epic completions for the raid, and have a 20th reward for random shards. same system as raid loot.

-third idea: combine the first two into one. be able to turn 20 epic tokens in for a randomly generated list of shards that doesn't include all of them, but most. similar to the 20th raid completion.

just my thoughts, maybe other players can build on this or change it to make more sense. anyone else have an opinion?

[LeLoric]

Shards generally aren't too bad really. You generally know where you can find them for items in the quest your best bet is to go to that quest. For raid items go run the raid your chance of getting it is similar to your chance of getting the item to drop. The hardest shards to get are the ones for items that drop out in the desert explorer area. ADQ is your best bet here but for long quest that not many want to run and so many items it's really hard to get a specific one. You can also get these from the raid but at a reduced rate.

That being said a turn in for tokens is not a horrible idea for shards but I am having issues getting enough tokens to fill all the items ive made so far so giving them up would further hamper this.

[protokon]

Shards generally aren't too bad really. You generally know where you can find them for items in the quest your best bet is to go to that quest. For raid items go run the raid your chance of getting it is similar to your chance of getting the item to drop. The hardest shards to get are the ones for items that drop out in the desert explorer area. ADQ is your best bet here but for long quest that not many want to run and so many items it's really hard to get a specific one. You can also get these from the raid but at a reduced rate.

That being said a turn in for tokens is not a horrible idea for shards but I am having issues getting enough tokens to fill all the items ive made so far so giving them up would further hamper this.

I am mostly referring to the epic VON items, where the shards can only be found in the raid itself. I find it frustrating that after about 20 epic completions, I have seen quite a few nice things drop, but 99% of the time they are pulled - or 11 people roll on them if they aren't.

granted I am not complaining about people pulling there own loot, but the fact that there is no system where if you don't find your item you will eventually have a shot at it as an end reward.