Ectoplams/Shards

Not sure if It has been mentioned before, but I think it would be a good idea if they gave a few globs of ectoplasm for completing UW quests and a few obsidian shards for completing fissure quests, the deeper the quests the more ecto/shards as reward.

Doing it that way would cut the horrible grind down, and maybe people wouldnt have to buy gold on ebay to buy the stuff. But it would give the armor a questing approach.

I would be content if they reinstated the supposed ability to expert salvage ectos from remains from time to time. This, I think, would help a lot for those trying to get some special armor

Moving this to the Sanitarium (Ideas forum).

Good idea as far as I can tell. Discourages soloing to some extant, as finishing the quests when soloing is rather difficult.

Sounds like a great plan to me, reduce the drops of ecto slightly to compensate, but reward completion of the harder quests with 1 ecto for each party member. Everybody wins right? well, except the spiteful solo farmers :P

I agree.

This would make finding a group to do quests in UW more rewarding I think.
But only limit it to the more 'harder' quests so this feature would not be abused?

Good suggestion mate.
Cheers!

yep, good idea... they should give items like this or money if you do uw or fow quest...
exp points are almost useless when you're at lev20....

Very good idea. If theres anyone objecting, it would only be solo farmers :P This idea encourages teamwork, etc. Harder quests can be implemented if required.

Very nice idea, indeed.
UW can be really frustrating sometimes. Haven't been down there since the spawning pool incidence. Damn, still making me mad. We had the UW all cleared with just two quests left (one was the reaper quest and one was the quest from the last reaper...). During the whole drop we had a total of 15 ecto drop. 7 went to a single elementalist. the rest went to his guildmate warrior. I was... pissed. To say the least. Seeing less ecto drop but being equally distributed rewards for taking on the quest challenges would be ... perfect to prevent these times of very unbalanced loot distribution.

uuum, the whole point of ecto/shards IS the grind! I they weren't as rare, what gold sink would there be left? + having the fissure armor would lose it's "uniqueness"

First off, a "gold sink" gets rid of gold. The gold is still in the economy when you trade 10k to another player for a glob. Second, this game is supposed to be about "Skill > Time Played". 3rd, A.Net discourages grond and farming, and dont give me that bull---- that they don't - they even said it in one of their update notes after nerfing Riverside. 4th, it would still be "unique". It's not like the ectoes are going to magically apear in the player's pockets.

When you grind towards something in another game, you usually gain something along the way (ie levels, differant skiills, etc, etc.). If you are calling Fissure armor the only grind in this game, then that's even worst - you either have the armor or you dont - therre are no mid-way achievements.

I highly doubt it is about grind, it is about time spent playing.
What does sound better? Solofarming Smites for about an hour or fighting your way through the underworld for about 5 hours. Let's assume both net you the same amount of ecto (very optimistic).
Yeah, sure thing the whole 5 hour things is inferior and stuff. Sure
The suggestion made is achieving three things. One of which is making sure the Underworld Trip pays off to just everyone on the team. Not the typical crap of one person bringing 20 ectos home while the rest just got nothing.
The second thing it does is nullify the need to solo farm the Underworld. When you can get just the same amount forming a team or even more... why should you UW Farm then?
And the third is, it might balance of some quest rewards. Seriously, some of which are just insanely long and barely rewarding. You can tell which one i'm speaking about can't you? Does Grenths Monuments ring something? This quest will take you about 3-4 hours to complete - if you're in a haste what most UW Teams aren't yet all it does is net you some minor experience points. Why minor? Because you could simply leave and rejoin another tombs team after the first three quests without doing that long term quest. The rewards would be a multiple of it...

Seriously, tell me why farming and grinding is superior to forming a party of 8 and fighting for several hours? This is not reducing the amount of time you need but it is reducing the need for grinding and the frustration coming from unbalanced loot drops.