Originally posted by Gersh (Source)

I wanted to stop by and give a quick update on Malformed & Corrupted souls, and which fixes are in progress to help with the rate of earning these items.

Dungeons are one way of aquiring these items, but at the same time we want a path in which playing RIFT content opens up access to additional RIFT content. So Malformed and Corrupted souls should have also been dropping off the appropriate high level rift content. Currently on live this is not the case and the team is working to remedy that issue ASAP.

Ultimately players should be able to obtain these items from more locations then just dungeons

Malformed Souls
Tier 1 End Dungeon Bosses (Common)
Level 50 Rifts (rare)
Shimmersand, Ironpine, and Stillmoor Colossi Events (uncommon)

Corrupted Souls
Tier 2 End Dungeon Bosses (Common)
Expert Rifts (Common)
Shimmersand, Ironpine, and Stillmoor Colossi Events (rare)
Shimmersand, Ironpine, and Stillmoor Zone Events (uncommon)

After we get these items fixed on LIVE we will continue to watch the drop rate for these items, as well as the rate in which the content is being spawned and completed. Ultimately we want this content to be accessible, but not trivially common.

Thanks,
-Gersh

Do you know what a Corrupted Soul is? They are used to create Raid Lures. When you collect 10 Corrupted souls and combine them with a Raid Husk you create a lure which will allow you to open up a Raid Rift. The source of Corrupted Souls used to be from Tier 2 Expert Dungeon Bosses. They were pretty easily to collect and trade as they didn’t bind to the looter. Assuming a person could collect all the souls per dungeon, they would be able to easily collect a Rift Raid’s worth in two runs or about 3-4 hours. This is no longer the case.

With the latest 1.1 Patch, Corrupted Souls now only drop from the last boss in each Expert Dungeon. This immediately slows down progression for the single player or smaller guilds and create an incredible hassle for players who want to do Rift Raids for the daily quest. Let’s look at where the problems come into play.

Let say you and a small group of friends have a guild of 10-15 players who enjoy playing together and play pretty regularly. Previously you were able to break up into 2-3 groups for the evening and complete and expert dungeon and then meet up at the end of the night to do a Raid Rift. This is no longer the case. To get enough souls for a Raid Rift you will now have to compete 10 expert dungeons. For a smaller guild this means you will have to do every single T2 dungeon for two days and then you would have enough souls for a Rift Lure.

Talk about grinding for content!

It’s a completely rediculous change. For content that is advertised for non-hardcore and smaller guild you have to spend an approximate minimum of 20 hours of dungeon time per Raid Rift, assuming 2 hours per Expert Dungeon. You might be thinking that this might be worth the time because the rewards are awesome! and 20 man raids have a week long lockout! Well it’s a bit different.

Each Rift Raid only drops 1 piece of epic loot and 2 essences and the content lasts about 10-15 minutes each. Not only that, but you are competing in the open world for raid rifts to spawn and if you’re on a PVP server you are even more open to mistakes and having your lure being wasted due to interference. Before this change losing a Rift Lure wasn’t a big deal as they were easily gotten. However now if you lose one, you’re losing 20 hours of grinding.

Did you notice when it was said that these souls are tradeable? Well welcome to the new Corrupted Soul Market. Their prices will become incredibly inflated to a point where normal players won’t be able to afford many. Perhaps the market will push down the price, but that’s highly doubtful. Watch out for price gouging, and if you can’t afford them, let the market settle down first before you get hosed with an expensive Corrupted Soul.

Let also take a look at what you do with Raid Rift currency that was recently put into the game. You can buy essences with the Inscribed Sourcestone you get from the Raid Rifts. The lesser essences need 10 Inscribed Sourcestone and the greaters require 50. If you complete the daily quest you will gain 3 Inscribed Sourcestone per rift. Assuming 2 hours per expert dungeon and needing 10 souls per raid rift, and 4 rift raids per lesser essence, that’s cumulative 80 hours of dungeon grinding for one lesser essence. How about the greater essences? It’s over 333 hours of dungeon time to gain one.

And the greater essences aren’t even that good across the board.

Instead of promoting fun and challenging content, it’s being supplemented with dungeon grinding for a Rift Raid that isn’t much content to begin with. It would be understandable if the Rift Raids took several hours to complete but they are quick short content pieces, as normal Rifts are.

There are two solutions that present themselves to this problem that seem to be a compromise to both ends of the spectrum. The first one would have a Corrupted Soul be rewarded by a Daily Expert Dungeon quest which would be separate from the one that rewards plaques of achievement. This way every player doing the dungeon is rewarded with one and a guild of 10 people can do one Rift Raid if they all do the daily quest. The second solution would make these souls purchasable with plaques. The amount of plaques needed would have to be the average number rewarded from a Tier 2; making this number somewhere between 10 and 15. This way every player could choose to get a Corrupted Soul if they wish with one Expert Dungeon run.

These solutions would provide certain advantages. The first one being that expert dungeons would see their life time expanded. There will be a certain time when all T2 dungeons will not be needed anymore because the population would of moved on. By creating an incentive for older, more advanced players to do this content it would continue to populate these dungeons and give newer players a large pool of potential party members to chose from. This would invariably make the future dungeon finder a bigger success. There is also an added advantage for developers buying using plaques as currency for Corrupted Souls. It would give older players something to use their stockpile of plaques on. Thus taking them out of the economy.