The official I9 pre-announcement announcement is up.
From Doctor Brainstorm [with my comments]:
* There are no recipes that are exclusive to a side. Mako’s Bite has just as good a chance of showing up for Heroes as it does for Villains. [That hurts the “RPness” of it, but that’s not that big a deal.]
* Individual enemies will NOT have specific recipes or salvage that you can only get from them. Defeating Captain Mako will not get you a piece from the Mako’s Bite set. Every enemy you defeat (within the right level range) can possibly drop a Mako’s Bite enhancement. [Again, that hurts the RPness a little bit, but not that big. And there are ties to Story Arcs, so that makes sense.]* An enemy defeat that produces a Recipe will only produce ONE Recipe, not one for everyone on the team. (Yes, this was why we put in the much maligned Loot Message, which was since removed). [Still cool. And I think chat is a better way to deal with that.]
* Giant Monsters do not drop recipes. They drop Salvage, but not recipes. This is by design.
* Some parts of the sets are only available as Story Arc rewards, Task Force rewards, or Trial rewards (Respec missions and Hamidon are Trials). So players looking to collect a full set are going to want to do all of the above, not just defeat enemies. [I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand it makes sense, it does encourage that sort of activity, etc. On the other hand, it requires that activity to get something that actually can help you in-game — that’s been true for the accolades
and for the XP for badges, but this is significantly more impacting. On the gripping hand, nobody is forcing anyone to get IOs.]* We fully expect the Consignment House (and Black Market) to become a good place to look for Enhancements to complete your set if you can’t find teams for TFs or Trials. [Which makes up for the above. Best reason for these places to exist I’ve heard.]
* The Influence/Infamy trading limit is being raised. [Huzzah! Now, will they improve the interface even more?]
Doctor Brainstorm is actually kind of an interesting guy — did you know he invented the Level Bar for heroes and villains?