Celestial Handicap?

[Iox]

Competing against people who spend money to advance in the game, no matter how much they spend, I really don't mind. The option is afforded to me, and everyone else, on a game that we can choose to, or not to play.

What I can't come to grips with is this Celestial wall. As I work my way up through the mage trials for Season #2, I look at who I'm chasing. I check out the gear and stats of those among the top of the leader board, to see how they are getting it done.

Observation: Player's decked out in competitive celestial gear.
Mission: I must have! So, have I shall! Alright. Time to think. How do I achieve this? Hmm...

• Go the way of the Custom Celestial Item box (seeing as how this is currently the only way).

Well, Custom Celestial Item boxes create Level 70 Legendary gear. But, that won't do me any good. *pshaw* Level 77 gear, here I come!

But, wait a sec...



Roger that. OK.

First, I need to craft the most absolute bestest staff evar!

grind, grind, grind...zzz...grind, grind, grind...craft (dangit!), craft (better luck next time!), craft (son of a...) ... eons later...My precious! Got it!

- So, how do I make this thing a celestial item? Let's see... Ingrid says I'll need a Celestial Transform, but won't just give it to me. Damn you Ingrid! <.<
- Apparently, to make 1 Celestial Transform, I need 3 Celestial Essences. Sounds simple enough.
- Well, I was able to get a maximum of 2 Custom Celestial Item boxes from the last event... sweet.
- I'll just make 2 Level 70 Celestial "whatevers", salvage them, then get 2 Celestial Essences! Done!
- But... I need 3 Celestial Essences. Not 2... 3.

So, if I just wait until the next ticket event, I can get 2 more...

... then, I'll have enough to make 1 competition worthy celestial item...

...but, Season 2 will have been long over.

What the WHAT?!?

Pfft. Forget that.

I'll just throw money at this problem. Oh, wait a sec. I can't.
Alright, I'll just grind my way to competitive celestial gear. Hold on. Can't do that either.

So, even if I collected Custom Celestial Item boxes from "Ticket" events, at a rate of 2 per event, I will always be months, if not more than a year behind those who already have them???

I must be missing something here. I really feel like I am. I welcome any help regarding this problem. Thanks in advance.

Celestial Gear is nice, but not needed.
I have the same Problem like you, but it is possible to reach top 500 without celestial gear.
Last season I was able to reach top 500 with only lvl 71 - 72 gear, so it is possible.

I'm not saying it's not possible to reach top 500 without several pieces of high level celestial gear. I know it is. Last season, I placed 102, without any celestial gear. I just got my first 2 Custom Celestial Item boxes from the last Silver. But, I'm not OK with just settling for top 500, or top 100. I want to simply have the ability to compete for a top 10 position. And, right now, that is impossible for me to do. No amount of time or money will allow me to catch up (gear-wise) to those that already have celestials a plenty. I'd like to think that could work towards a Medal of Glory, but all it is is a carrot on a stick.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think that those who earned them fairly should get anything taken away from them. I actually congratulate them on their hard earned rewards. But, the game mechanics that made celestial items much more attainable has been removed from the game. To those that got their hands on them while the getting was good, good for them. I would've done the same. Just don't make me compete against them.

Just a thought. What if we...

Season #2 - Gold (Celestial Item Limit: None)

Season #2 - Silver (Celestial Item Limit: 4)

Season #2 - Bronze (Celestial Item Limit: 2)

... or at least something along those lines.

Allow us to choose which Season level to compete in. Once we select a Season level, we're locked in until the season is over. Make it so that we can't enter trials if our character is equipped with more celestial items than the Season level permits. Keep rewards the same across each Season level.

I know there are potentially a number of issues with a set up like that. Could it break up the community a bit? Possibly. Would there have to be 3 different Leader Boards? Of course. But, like I said, it's just a thought. I'd feel much less cheated competing against people who only had 2 celestials vs people who have 8.

[Blacklisted]

Celestial Gear is nice, but not needed.
I have the same Problem like you, but it is possible to reach top 500 without celestial gear.
Last season I was able to reach top 500 with only lvl 71 - 72 gear, so it is possible.

[mousse]

Trudat. My mage is decked out in full Celestial (okay level 70, still and extra 900 vit is nothing to sneeze at), but have a hard time dealing with TL105 Kara. TL105! Yeah, I stink at this game. Since I play for fun, it's okay.

[UmbraDei]

The level 77 increase actually evens it out for you: most people spent the majority of their celestial essence on lvl75 gear, meaning that as of now they are in a similar boat: 3x2 boxes per season (since there are 3 ANBs per season), which after salvaging allows 2 gear items per season to be "celestialised". That way if the trend continues the endgame in the future will be that everyone will have 9 celestials, but e.g. 3 of them at 75, 2 at 77, 2 at 79/80, 2 at 82/83/84/whatever.

And then it comes down to having made the tactical choice of which item you make at which time, to either go all out for the current seasom, or restrain yourself and save them for an even bigger boost in the next season.

So from my point of view this actually helps new players by making sure there is an implicit expiration date one the usefulness of past earned celestial boxes.

[Christian Lamine]

Well, not really. I already spotted some on the BH leaderboard that wield 2 lvl 77 celestials... ¯\_(ヅ)_/¯

[ShotDead]

Calling Tin Man .... Calling Tin Man ....

[Tin Man]

A New Beginning cycles (Bronze, Silver and Gold) seem to be intended to last from 6-8 weeks each cycle. That pattern got trashed with the Bronze #3 debacle that we are still recovering from along with some other things that happened around the same time. That means that in 6-8 weeks you would be able to generate two Celestial Transforms if you captured all the available Custom Celestial Items. The frequency of ANB cycles has never really been established as far as I know.

There is another factor coming into play here. It was announced months ago, before Bronze #3, that the Bronze celestials would be L70/71 while the Silver would be L72/73 and the Gold would be L74/75 and this was of course before the levels were boosted to L77. This would have meant that even a new player would have had the opportunity to acquire a top level celestial during Gold. Guess what? We have yet to see a Custom Celestial Item above L70. The last two events, Bronze #3 and Silver #3, the players have been asking where they are and the inquires have pretty much gone unanswered and Bronze #3 was released prior to things exploding even though it caused much of it so they can not claim that they have been too busy recovery from the Bronze #3 and other damage to implement the new Custom Celestial Items.

The gear level increase to Level 77 does somewhat obsolete all the L74 and L75 and even all existing celestial pieces but, yes, players that have them are still better off than players that have none both in the ability of the hero to perform and the ability of the player to farm for resources more efficiently. The obsoleting does mean that everyone is back to chasing the same target.

I can think of no easy answers to completely fix the issue. Any heavy handed cleanup would tick off some group of players that are legitimate. We, as players, have no ability to determine whether a stock celestial, meaning that it has attributes that fit the game rules, is legitimate or bogus due to shenanigans with Celestial Essences or something else. Barring the ability to decipher the validity of gear we really should work from the innocent until proven guilty model.

I am just glad I just have to live with the issue and not be the one that has to fix it.

Personally, I will just keep accumulating celestials though I will start converting them to Celestial Essences, CEs, in order to save space. I have no real desire to burn through my CEs right now until the dust settles and I have an understanding of what the long-term plan is for celestials and even equipment levels. This holding back of my CEs is made easy because I think I have just the one L74 item right now and transforming that to a celestial would not help me.

Yes, the resource crate name Celestial Crate really needs to have its name changed as it has nothing to do with celestial items. A more appropriate name would be Titan's Crate.

I feel your pain and you have my sympathies.

Just for reference, the announcement of above L70 Custom Celestial Items was made back on 9 July 2019 and can be found with the embedded link. The link is to an archived thread so you have to be logged into the Forum to view the thread.

ShotDead Now I will go crawl back into my rabbit holes.

[lmcelhiney]

My own thoughts about Celestial imbalance.

At the risk of starting some sort of rant regarding Celestials and CEs again, it would seem that there is probably an upper range of possible legal Celestials and CEs as well.

So if all of the possible ways in which someone could have legally obtained such items are considered, there must be a way that the Developers could just "remove" the illegal ones. Of course, this would have to come with a warning for those who had crafted gear or weapons, so that they could remove the enhancements rather than have the item simply disappear.

Or, possibly something along the lines of the introduction of s new currency when exorbitant inflation hits a country. You are given a 24-hour period to turn in all of your money to be replaced with new currency. ...and there is a limit on how many could be converted (to deal with the illegal items). The new enhancement "currency" could be called Galactic, for example. So one converted CE would yield one GE, up to the defined "grey area" of plausibility. Evidence of legal acquisition could be provided and considered for additional conversion. A result might be that folks who had obtained 100s of CEs, by whatever means would now be brought back into the ± 1 σ part of the membership.

[ShotDead]

I am just glad I just have to live with the issue and not be the one that has to fix it.

This is why I called you. You indeed are wiser than me. Couldn't have said it better. I feel like you pendown my thoughts even better than me.

[Tempest1503]

Warrior top 10 leaderboard had two players with 1/2 celestrials at the end of season 1. So it's still kinda possible to compete.

[Iox]

Warrior top 10 leaderboard had two players with 1/2 celestrials at the end of season 1. So it's still kinda possible to compete.

Are you pointing out a benchmark of sorts? I'd need at least half my gear to be competitive celestials in order to compete for a top 10 spot? If half my gear were competitive celestials, I believe I would be able to compete for a top 10 spot, or at least it would be feasible. I admit that I have CLs to catch up on, as I'm only in the 1200s. Before I go dumping lots of time into upgrading my character, it would be nice to know that I would at least have a chance, rather than go into it knowing fully well that my efforts would be futile.

It sounds like your first sentence proves my point, but your second sentence counters the first.

[UmbraDei]

He actually meant 1 or 2 celestials. So equal to or less than what you gain in a season by legitimate ANB play, meaning in 1 season a new player can already catch up (except on CLs earned).

[Tempest1503]

Yeo, that's what i meant, guess 1/2 was a bit mistakable.

[Iox]

Thank you for pointing that out. That information is good to know, and does make me hopeful. In hindsight, I should've also checked out Warrior and BH Leaderboards. My focus was primarily on mages.

[Travis | Support Mgr.]

[Sorry, I had to copy/paste. Didn't see how to comment on a comment.]

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[lmcelhiney]

Thanks! So it is

[lmcelhiney]

like this? :-)