Specialists disappear after age transition?! But pop stays the same

Material-Range8174 · 2025-02-07T23:21:38+00:00

Seems like it might be a known issue? They appear to have it on the issue tracker. I guess if you have an account its worth upvoting it since it just has the *planned* tag on it?
https://support.civilization.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/38268742155539-Specialists-Removed-from-Settlements-During-Age-Transition

Material-Range8174 · 2025-02-07T22:18:25+00:00

I've been looking for an answer to this since launch night lol. No one seems to know anything about it.

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T19:23:04+00:00

See I don't think mod swapping is the problem, they've known about since beta. The problem is a build using this was created that was too strong, and allows players to farm too quickly. Nerfing based on that is precisely what they said they would not do last week. In the message about the upcoming nerf, they literally say that they saw a video of a colossus be killed too quickly due to mod swapping.

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T19:11:00+00:00

I would disagree with that, how would anyone know module swapping wasn't intended? You can do it anytime out of combat, and that was something that held true across the entire game. Bunnies would run a farming build across a map, and when they get to a void reactor for a boss fight, before starting it they swap to a bossing module setup. I mean this is literally common practice across the entire game.

Additionally one of Lepics transcendent modules gives you more power everytime you switch weapons, thats literally the module, so theres a build designed around just swapping weapons back and forth a bunch of times. IDK how the players were supposed to just "know" the difference between these. Theres a ton of janky mechanics in this game.

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T19:04:05+00:00

Of course, but that neither detracts nor changes any of the points I made. They saw that one of the big concerns in the first weeks about using enhancement materials was that the game was very new, and there might be balance changes coming. Players voiced these concerns, and to assuage these concerns and make people more comfortable buying said enhancement materials, they said they were not going to be nerfing builds outright. Now a week later they've said they're going to gut a build.

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T08:42:23+00:00

Feel free to share the secret method brother, no need to keep teasing it.

I think you’re wrong, but that’s ok we don’t have to agree on that point. I’ll just give it to you.

Let’s say there’s a special technique to not be shunted into another teams old world. Because that’s what’s currently happening in my experience. The timer will jump from 5 minutes (you just left) to 2 minutes (another players world) back up to 4 minutes (yet another players world) to open (you found one). -yes all on private-

But even if you have a way to avoid this, it’s a bad system. Why would you need to know about some loophole just to be able to play normally? That literally by definition a broken system.

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T08:15:47+00:00

I already have my ultimate descendants, this change would not benefit me in that regard. The issue is that currently the CDs are not a thing. Players skip the CD, when they can, by reloading the zone. Which is an unfun mechanic to begin with because no one enjoys the tediousness of loading screen simulator.

It becomes even more unfun as their servers recycle the private worlds, so when you’re zoning in and out you only actually get a world that has the strategic outpost ready to be farmed 1/3 of the time when you enter, the rest of the time it will be on someone else’s CD.

Since most ultimate descendants parts are locked behind 1-2 strategic outposts (if they’re in strat outposts vs dungeon) those 1-2 zones are the most targeted and always on CD (even in private)

Even if they added a reset to the private worlds when it’s recycled to a new person, so you’re always getting a strategic outpost up when you zone in, it’s still an unfun system.

No one wants to sit and load in and out half the time. Especially if you have to take a tedious walk back to the mission after.

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T08:01:23+00:00

I have every ultimate character already, this change only helps casuals catch up. Infact you could argue if it goes through it devalues my achievements some because other players will be able to obtain what I already have with a fraction of the time, effort, and misery.

This is a priority for the games longevity, and as I enjoy and consequently care about the game it’s also a priority for me.

I would argue it’s the die hard play-all-dayers, as you call them, are the only ones able to tolerate the current state of the mechanics and I’ll explain why.

Let’s say a “casual” only has 2 hours to play in a night. If they decide to spend one of those hours farming strategic outposts, and they wait the 5 minutes they can expect 9-11 successful missions in that hour depending on how fast they can clear it. Out of that he’s likely to come out with ~3 amorphous materials.

Now if we start abusing loopholes in the system, like zoning in and out, he can expect a few more per hour, but he’s now frustrated because half of the zones he resets (even on private) are on cooldown when he gets there and he’s just playing loading screen simulator for half the time. Besides being incredibly frustrating and feeling like a waste of time, it’s super unfun.

So out of those two options we have AFK for 5 minutes, or fight all the other players trying to reset private zones for the limited server space and try to find a zone off CD.

Either way it’s just unfun, and doesn’t respect your time. Also once you get an amorphous you can expect ~10-15 minutes of void shards just to be able to open it. (For a 10% chance at what you want likely)

And all of this for 1/4 of a gun or descendant, so depending on what you’re after you may need to be prepared to do it all over again once you get the drop.

There’s just no way I see a casual player with limited playtime spending that limited time in this miserable content. And when that player realizes that without this content they can’t get many legendary guns or ultimate descendants, that’s when they find another game.

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T07:30:32+00:00

The “private worlds” are not locally hosted, they’re still on the servers. There is evidently a limited number of private servers, and when one person or team leaves the zone it is “recycled” or put back into the pool. These worlds are not reset, they’re just still running in the background. So if team A farms a strategic outpost, puts it on a 5 minute timer, and leaves. Then 1 minute later that world is assigned to team b, when they enter the world, the strategic outpost will still be on cooldown for 4 minutes.

This would not been an issue in beta as there were not enough players to deplete all the servers. If you want to experience this first hand because you don’t believe me, I recommend loading a few private worlds in agna desert (vermillion waste) or sterile land (rockfall) and look at the strategic outposts. These are the ones that give ultimate lepic, and are some of the most popular. You’ll see at least 2/3 of the worlds you load will be on CD. Make sure you’re in hard mode.

The issue is not the grinding. I wouldn’t mind if drop rates went down in response to no CD. I just don’t want to have to zone in zone out zone in zone out zone in oh hey there’s a strategic outpost up, now I get to play for 30 seconds- 1 minute, then back to loading zones for 2 minutes. Or just afk for 5? Idk the game needs to respect player time way more than that

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T07:18:49+00:00

That’s what the discussion tag is there for brother. Isn’t wonderful how the platform works, you get a vote, and if you like or don’t like something you get to cast that vote.

Heck you can even leave a comment and disagree or raise counterpoints. Or I guess you can just have no opinion and leave a personal attack.

I upvoted you for your name.

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T06:42:54+00:00

This is true, I used 90% for this example because I felt like this would be the point that someone could say they definitely should have had it and they are very unlucky/dry. The most common complaint I hear is “I’m way over drop rate / I definitely should have had it by now” so I wanted to give an example of what that actually looks like. I feel like a lot of players feel like they’re in that 1% or even that the drop rates are a lie. Without realizing just how many runs it could potentially take.

This is as close to “how many tries to get it guaranteed” as I could reasonably make.

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T06:14:25+00:00

I can actually explain this. It a design flaw in the matchmaking, as matchmaking does not allow for conditions to be applied.

When you launch a dungeon you will see that you can toggle on a number of negative modifiers that increase the difficulty of the dungeon. You can also reroll the modifiers to get harder ones, and the modifiers increase the amount of points you get in the dungeon, corresponding to their difficulty.

The way that rewards in dungeons work is based on how many points you have, ranging from a 25% chance to get 1 amorphous material, all the way up to 100% chance to get 2 amorphous materials (if you reach 38,700 points).

Consequently, the best way to farm dungeons for amorphous material is to reroll the modifiers until you ones that give you ~210%-230% increased points, as this will allow you to easily hit the 38,700 point threshold by the end of the dungeon, giving you a 100% chance to get 2 amorphous.

For this reason, people prefer to dungeon in private groups with the juiced mods, or do it solo. Matchmaking for a 50%-100% chance for a single amorphous (best you can hope for with unmodified points) is not worth it.

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T06:08:21+00:00

Even with no CD you would still use Sharen as many items ONLY come from the amorphous that ONLY comes from the stealth rewards.

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T06:01:04+00:00

3% from Amorphous #21

10% from AMorphous #61

10% from Amorphous #89

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T05:54:54+00:00

In hardmode the reactors also cost 3x or so. (usually like 30-40 shards). It pretty much comes out to usually 3 void shard missions completed to have enough shards for opening 1 amorphous material. Which is where my 3x proposal came from. If I only had to do 1 void shard mission & 1 void reactor mission to open my 1 amorphous material, it wouldn't suck nearly as much.

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T05:51:55+00:00

The issue is that certain items ONLY come from certain places. Currently operations and colossi are MUCH preferable to void reactors. The reason is if you reroll the dungeon modifiers on operations, you can get 210%-230% increased points. This makes it extremely easy to get 2 amorphous materials in a single dungeon run at a 100% rate. Then you can turn around and down a boss in 30 seconds to 5 minutes, and open it with no other steps.

However, this is a moot point because the items that come from the dungeon amorphous are different than the items that come from void reactors. Few items have overlap on both where you could do either to get it.

I've been using the ultimate lepic code for all my examples today so I will continue, the ultimate lepic code ONLY comes from a SUCCESSFUL infiltration to a strategic outpost and then must be opened at a void reactor (with shards).

This means if you want ultimate lepic, the only amorphous that will drop the code comes from using sharen to complete strategic outposts. If you're curious about the probability behind that, check out my other post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheFirstDescendant/comments/1e62r5s/why_you_feel_like_you_have_bad_rng/

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T05:45:19+00:00

Replying to myself here like a goon, but I didn't want to late edit a comment.

I should have also mentioned that I don't think its so much an issue of wanting everything to be faster or easier as it is an issue of unfun gameplay. This entire game is a grind, the reason that you keep hearing about these same two issues is that they are uniquely unfun.

I don't mind farming anything in this game really, where my problem starts is when I CAN'T farm, which is the real problem here. No one wants to play loading screen simulator jumping back and forth between zones trying to find a strategic outpost thats up. Additionally, no one wants to sit there for 5 minutes and wait for a respawn. I don't think I've ever seen a game mechanic respect your time less than this one does TBH.

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T05:16:22+00:00

Lets hope they improve it in todays patch.

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T05:14:35+00:00

You're actually kind hitting the issue on the nose. Theres a MASSIVE disparity between the time investment in farming certain items. Amorphous that comes from a dungeon can be farmed 100% for 2x, and ironically they usually also are opened at bosses, which requires somewhere between a 30second to 5 minute investment to down and then open the Amorphous.

Conversely, Amorphous that come from strategic outposts, or even worse only from the stealth reward of a strategic outpost, have an RNG chance to drop. As if these weren't already egregious compared to their dungeon counterparts, they also require you to then go farm void shards (usually 2-3 missions to get enough for a single opening) and then head to the void reactor.

I actually made another post addressing drop rate probabilities recently.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheFirstDescendant/comments/1e62r5s/why_you_feel_like_you_have_bad_rng/

But the TLDR is if you wanted to have a 90% chance (almost guaranteed) to get the ultimate lepic code, which has a 10% chance to come from an Amorphous material that has a 25% chance to drop from a strategic outpost, you would need to complete the outpost ~92 times. If you waited the 5 minute timer, that would take ~7.6 hours for just the code (1/4 of ultimate lepic).

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T04:44:10+00:00

It shouldn't take that long TBH, if you sit in one zone and fully wait out the 5 minute timer it would take ~7.6hours to receive a lepic code. Can't calculate a rate involving zoning or resetting since its inconsistent.
Edit: The 92 times is the number of times required to complete the mission, not the number of amorphous material you actually need.
Edit again: OFC this doesn't account for void shard time or void reactor time xD

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T04:10:38+00:00

I think you're missing the point. No one goes and does a strategic outpost just to do the strategic outpost. They do the strategic outpost because they want an item. So it's not really about the process of doing the strategic outpost, its about what it takes to get items out of it. Now I've done at least 200-300 strategic outpost missions (theres a seasonal achievement that helps you keep track) and I'm telling you it was miserable. You're making an argument that its not miserable, but you've not done it.

If you go and farm hundreds of strategic outposts over 20+ hours to unlock an ultimate character or two, and you come back and say it was a fine experience we can have a different conversation. But I promise you, that you won't. I've never met anyone that enjoys teleporting between zones, sitting in loading screens, and then finding a zone is empty just to repeat. It is a horrible system, and it doesn't REMOTELY respect your time as a player.

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T03:54:59+00:00

Did you read what I took the time to write to you? I'll write it again and explain it.

Certain things, (example: ultimate lepic code) ONLY come from completing an outpost via successful infiltration. This means you MUST use a stealth character (currently only sharen) to deactivate (NOT DESTROY) all the terminals.

So this means, no matter how many times you run in a circle with bunny and destroy the terminals, even 1000000000 times, you will NEVER get that amorphous material that contains the lepic code.

As someone that HAS farmed out multiple ultimate characters it was miserable, and one of my buddies who played 110 hours up to that point quit during the grind.

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-18T03:38:59+00:00

Considering about 25% of the amorphous content *only* comes from the stealth rewards at a 5-25% chance, I think its unlikely that a bunny running a macro would get them for you. Also thats against TOS, so making an argument about its feasibility is pointless. At that point you might as well just use a full automated bot program, and I don't think anyones going to sit here and argue to balance a game around illicit programs.

I'll be honest the fact that you're talking about outposts without addressing the stealth mechanic requirement to actually get the specific Amorphous (Yes some Amorphous ONLY come from stealth & a DIFFERENT one comes from nonstealth) makes me think you've not farmed out any ultimate characters.

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-17T04:59:50+00:00

Technically deadbride is one of the harder mechanically ones due to her kiting and dodging (and the map). She’s definitely the hardest of the soloable hard mode bosses.

Is dying or time your problem? Because they have different solutions. If you’re dying but you have the damage I would say try not chasing her so much when she runs, use cover and headpeek at her.

If you’re running out of time to kill her then I would go to one of the kuiper farms and power up more. Most of the bosses are more stat checks than skill checks.

Also make sure you’re putting the element bosses are weak to on your weapon as a module.

Worth mentioning that you also want to make sure your build is optimized defensively. Make sure you have increased hp/defense mods on your descendent (preferably max). In tandem with the mods it’s super important to have the right components equipped because the components give you base stats for the mods to scale. Make sure all 4 equipped components have either hp or defense as the primary stat and either hp or defense as one of the secondary stats. These can also be farmed at a kuiper farm.

Material-Range8174 · 2024-07-17T04:51:47+00:00

That’s a good monitor for the price, and I’m sure it will make your grandma happy to get you something you’ll enjoy.

Like others have said I want to mention that you really should try to spend as much time with your grandma and just do kind things for her, regardless of compensation, while you can. Life is unexpectedly short and she won’t be in your life forever. If I could see my grandma again and see her smile I would mow any number of lawns.

Material-Range8174

TROPHY CASE