With release of Hard mode citadel and +6/+7
I think it would be great to have more non raid endgame content. The +6 armor alone increases survivablity more than what’s needed and +7 weapons will make running high level shards obsolete discouraging many players from running them which in my opinion will create disinterest in the game, especially for those with no interest in raids past getting the gear. It’s already easy enough to run them with +4/+5 groups. I have heard first hand that once the raid is manageable and the gear is earned there is no more reason to continue past that point. I would love to see increased shard level cap with new/harder affixes. The best example I could give is to add 5 more levels with set affixes plus weeklys with a random affix(s) the higher you go based off of set RNG so that there is always an unknown keeping us at our best at all times. Reward could be +6 weapon with higher drop chance at level 20, new achievements, and other random rewards to make it worth the grind. I would appreciate any feedback on the subject/critisicism if anyone has it.
I know a lot of players will say; its normal for raids to have better gear in a MMO, but you have a point here. this would also spike a competitive flame in the top guilds. But what about this, the defense and offensive increases wouldnt be enough to be able to compleet those shards. if they were to raise the shard level cap they should include a level cap increase too.
I’ve always wanted an incentive to do both and so like this example +6 armor but no +7 weapon but the citadel HM already drops +6 armor so that can’t really be balanced as easily already but like say a shard drops the highest weapon while raid drops highest gear(or other way around) or certain stats come from shards certain stats come from raids making you want both things so there’s still that incentive to do both
I just don’t like the idea of only one place dropping the best gear especially if they try so hard to make shards drop good gear
Yeah but what about this part? I’m as a healer already having difficulties keeping the tank alive during certain groups? how would they go about making it survivable?
I get your point but couldn’t the same be said about hard mode citadel. It’s supposed to be difficult and engaging to keep the attention of the players. I think it would be opposite the point if it was easily achievable.
Increasing the shard level cap would not solve anything really, it would mostly make the hardmode citadel raid obsolete.
Say they increase the shard cap, then you suddenly only need 5 people to get +6 gear and I highly doubt it would end up being harder or on the same difficulty level as hardmode citadel. Now there is no reason to do hardmode citadel anymore other than fellowship PvE score and for fun.
The way it currently is, high level shards are not obsolete at all, just because you can get better gear in hardmode doesn’t mean shards are not appealing. Raid armor you can’t grind for, you get 1 chance and 1 token per armor piece/weapon a week then you have to wait for next week. shard armor you can get a full set of in a day if you do enough shards.
In order to do hardmode you have to have done a lot of shards to be good enough and have good enough gear. Hardmode citadel isn’t something you just do on a whim, shards are, they’re a daily activity and raids are a more organized and less frequent activity. Because of this shards will stay relevant even tho you can’t get the best gear from them, they’re still a necessary part of the journey to get the best gear. While if you could get the same level gear from shards then the hardmode citadel suddenly becomes unnecessary to get the best gear.
Ideally you would need to do a combination of both hardmode citadel and shards to get the best gear in the game. However as long as that’s not the case I believe it is better to have the best gear come only from raids in order to keep them relevant and something to work towards.
Shards could offer something different instead that isn’t +6/+7. Only two things in Orbus matter really, gear&pots. Epic shards themselves barely mattered before as you’d just loot new armor rather than re-roll them (rings somewhat excluded), except now you’ll be using them to roll +6 purple gear so they actually have purpose. I think a difficult raid makes sense for the ultimate progression. Shards offer these practical items: +5 generic gear shareable across classes, +5/6 legendary weapons, shards (epic/leg).
I could see like fun a way to turn your shard into a “hard mode”/“corrupted”/“whatever” +15 with some increased risk/reward, but the reward could come in other forms. Beating it, firstly. Armory stats. Then potentially other, rare, but practical items followed by impractical items. I personally love getting rares & selling them, but they only have value when $ has value. Dram has no value as long as you can afford pots, your dyes & transmogs, & don’t care too much for “collecting” things you’ll never use. The only thing I ever need to spend sizeable money on is storage tabs and pots which are extremely easy to upkeep. There’s nothing practical to shoot for like a fancy house with more storage chests, where the cheapest mount is expensive, your crafting tables, etc.
TLDR;
Core loops like shards could be made more challenging with the addition of more rewards, except the rewards need to be meaningful and not override raiding as the end-game goal. It’s difficult to add non-gear related rewards due to Orbus’s lack of practical goals beyond getting level 30 & the best gear. Improvements to the world/gameplay would help as well, shards included. Enjoyable gameplay can be a reward.
One thing I would worry about is that if you just increased the cap and just scaled the damage and health of the enemies and bosses, high level shards would be preaty toxic.
15s already toe the line for how much damage enemies do. Even marginal increases to damage output could be devastating for tanks.
For example a lot of bosses already almost one shot tanks through shield orb (think mist keeper slam), if you make them do like 10% more damage suddenly your tank is dying and there’s nothing you can do about it.
I just don’t think even higher level shards would be fun. They’d just be super tedious and stressful.
Additionally while the tank/healer would be feeling the heat. Dps would basically feel no difference in game play. Everything already one shots them in a 15 so functionally for them everything just has a little more health and they feel a little more pressure to kill things quickly. I think raids being the highest level content is good in that regard because raid bosses tend to be a lot more complex and force the dps to do more things than just burn and dodge projectiles and circles.
Why not have shards as the incentive for better looking transmogs and leave raids for the gear… since raids are a lot harder to coordinate 10 people through mechanics then it is to run shards.
This is more to my point they should have a separate function as to keep them both a majorly active part of the game. Even if it’s not transmogs it could be rare resources. I’ve seen this work successfully in many mmo’s in the past, Raids were always for the best gear and dungeons were for resource drops with specific gear sets to help you be raid ready.
or maybe they can at least start with fixing the raid since its 50% broken and what not
i like this one maybe down the road they can do that with the next best in slots so like +8 weapon from the raid and +7 gear, for now we just need the new raid to be fixed it has been a while since its release a lot of people are pretty disappointed so I hope it is the top of their list of priority’s
All bosses except for mistkeeper are doable without a healer if your good enough. Which says enough that the bosses can become much stronger and it would still be doable by a small percentage of the players. Just like is the case with the raid right now.
For dps I think 16+ shards would not change getting damaged wise. It would most likely be an addition of affixes that won’t show up in the shards 15 and lower. Which would spice up the game for them. Think about an affix like “Mob Swap”. Swaps two trash mobs location mid fight 
. Just a random thought. There is so much more to think of for that.
Friendly fire affix!
But but shamans…
And all AOE heals affect enemies.
So I’ll be playing Bard…
I guess we can have all AoE not be friendly fire.
They could also introduce a compleet different endgame dungeon above 15, and cap temple at 15.
I want that so bad!!! XD
sounds like a living hell, it would be fun!